Plasma Applet Direction

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday 15 January 2009, Jud Craft wrote:
> I do really like the platform-independence and compilation-free
> packages!  I had neglected those; that's awesome, so the picture is
> much less depressing than my post says.
>
> Plasma themes themselves are also independent, correct?  (Assumption
> based on hearing efforts to port Plasma to Windows).

correct.

> What would be fantastic if there was one integrated area in the
> Control Center for Plasma management.

we were discussing this just last week, actually. there are a few things that 
probably belong in there:

* theme choice
* installed component management
* per-virtual desktop views ...

> For example, Plasma theming and the main containment wouldn't be
> side-notes in the Desktop Background dialog.  Right-clicking

well, there actually isn't such a thing as "the main containment" per se; just 
the currently active one for a given view. i'm a little hesitant on providing 
access to configuration of that out of process because it means loading 
plugins from the same library in two different processes, making sure they are 
both using the same configuration file settings and then coordinating between 
them.

in part, this is a weakness of kconfig. in part, this is just about having 
settings where they are contextually appropriate. the shift in thinking 
required is that Activities are Contextual.

for the other things, yes, a centralized place for those makes sense.

> "Appearance" on the desktop could bring up a hypothetical
> "Plasma/Environment/whatever" control dialog, which would have the
> different areas of a plasma desktop (Background, Theme, Containments,
> Activities, Plasmoids) grouped in a common area, defaulting to
> Background (since you did right-click on the Desktop background, after
> all).

the plan for 4.3 is to combine the Activity's own config with the Appearance 
settings, and to move the Theme settings elsewhere. so.. we're on teh same 
general wave length i think.

> Another thing, besides reorganization of the plasma config options,
> would be unification of the KDE theme settings.  KDE 3's "theme
> management" was also more of a side-note.

this is a long term goal. i want to be fully confident that we have the 
individual pieces figure out first, though.

> Compare GNOME, where "theme management" is the de facto way to change
> the desktop appearance -- you have no choice but to work through a
> theme metaphor, and THEN change individual aspects (style, colors,
> etc).

yes. different, both in what is good about it and what isn't good about it. 
certainly begs the question if we can do something better than either previous 
system =)

> A Plasma metatheme (that combines Wallpaper and colors with a plasma
> theme) that even possibly configures a Qt style theme would be even
> better -- it makes little sense to have two or three different places
> that must be traveled to in the Control Center to theme your desktop,
> and as long as each component is isolated from the other, it is
> difficult to provide a sense of "cohesiveness" -- a single place you
> can go to either choose a new theme, get new themes (a single place to
> get new themes -- not having to go different places for color schemes,
> Plasma themes, and wallpapers) or alter a component of the current
> theme.

agreed.

> The Plasmoids panel then would have a similar feel:  rather than a
> mere listbox of Add New Plasmoids, it would be a central area to
> download new plasmoids and add/remove them.  But then I don't actually
> know of any analog of this in any other OS, so maybe that's overkill.

google gadget, the iPhone, Windows 7 ... it's not that exotic =)

> Such a design could be much more usable than having to browse
> kde-look, but I don't mean to put down Get-Hot-New-Stuff:  I just
> think that it needs to be a little more than just a web-downloaded
> list box of plasmoids.

this is simply a presentation issue. it's not a limitation of GHNS or kde-
look. that dialog could be completely redesigned.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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