[PATCH] fade out panel in desktopgrid

[Lucas Murray]

2009/2/9 Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org>:
> Hey kwinners,
>
> Apparently, we've had complaints that the panel shown on the desktopgrid is
> the same for all virtual desktops, even when configured to only show windows
> from the current virtual desktops. As we have only one panel which is shown
> for all virtual desktops and we just change that panel based on current
> virtual desktops, it's not easy to solve.
>
> The attached patch hides this issue by simply fading out the panel when the
> desktopgrid is activated and fades it back in when the you zoom into a
> desktop.
>
> OK to commit?

(Posting at the top of the thread here as I can't find a good place to
reply, hopefully nobody minds)

I've switched sides. It has just occurred to me that I faced this
exact same problem when I was designing my own workspace
software/window manager and I had ultimately decided on hiding the
panel as well. This is for the reason that was mentioned cross-thread
somewhere: The panel is a workspace object, not an application object.

The desktop grid effect currently displays a snapshot of each desktop
side-by-side, hiding the panel in this situation just doesn't make
sense but having it display correctly on all desktops is a technical
impossibility. In my workspace I had designed the desktop grid to
instead be just a zoomed out version of the application space and the
panel actually changed states, instead of showing the task manager and
all that it instead showed a list of commands to control the desktops
(Rearranging them, changing "zone" status [Which I think is similar to
Plasma activities], making windows appear in multiple places, etc.).
If we applied this same logic to KWin's desktop grid it would mean
that the current best course of action would be to hide the panel
completely.

Although I am now endorsing hiding the panels I am still against this
patch in it's current implementation. Instead I believe it would be
better to have the panel stay at the bottom of the screen and fade out
there while the desktops zoom out. This actually makes it look like
the panel is completely separate to the application windows. The new
patch is attached.
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