Hello, announce the move to kdereview of an applet

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday 22 March 2009, Wang Hoi wrote:
> Moved to kdereview/plasma/applets/

forwarding this to where it belongs: plasma-devel@ ... 

> It's mainly an applet for input methods, so that persons use difference
> input methods can share the same user interface and the unified
> systemsettings input method configure integration.
> And also include a standalone application and a control module for
> systemsettings now.
>
> Its main features:
>
> * Multiple backend support, currently support SCIM and IBus(1.1.0+ version)

very nice! i wonder if its possible to set up the backends automatically for 
users? or is this really something the distributions need to take care of for 
us?

> * Able to float out and embbed into panel dynamically, The floating
> statusbar(a qwidget) is just a view on the same qgraphicswidget.
> * Skin support:
>     1. you can choose the skin to follow current plasma theme, then it will
> auto switch skin when user change plasma theme.
>    2.use custom theme, support install theme from Get Hot New Stuff
>    3.use javascript to layout svg, enable the abilities to do adaptive svg
> layout and "theme" the layout.

if we take this same method to every plasmoid out there, we'd have an 
unthemable mess that artists would no longer have access to. i don't really 
understand the need for this at all, but as i personally don't really use 
input method stuff i'm really not going to struggle with you more on the 
topic. we had a long discussion on it on irc, bu i'm more concerned with 
having an input method applet in updstream kde finally (something kde1, kde2 
nor kde3 managed).

was this theming system a functional requirement for the widget by someone? 
(e.g. a linux distro, or whatever?) was the idea simply to copy what other 
input method applets on other platforms do?

in any case, for everyone else on this list: this is NOT a precedent setter! i 
will NOT accept other widgets with such theming approaches as it is wrong, 
broken and ultimately a disservice to our users.

> * KCModule based configure, config pages for ui, backends are combined to
> one dialog.

reimplementing KIMPanelApplet::showConfigurationInterface() and using KCModule 
is incorrect. it makes it unlike every other widget on the desktop (e.g. the 
config dialog looks completely different) and removes the ability for plasma 
to add things like keyboard shortcut configuration.

instead, implement createConfigurationInterface and add pages to the passed in 
KConfigDialog like all other widgets.

also, are the icon size and layout strategy settings really needed? can the 
widget provide sensible defaults for this without user configuration?

> * Provide a standalone version with floating statusbar only if you don't
> want to add the applet to panel.

you may find that the applet doesn't behave properly in all cases with a plain 
QGraphicsView and QGraphicsScene as set up in KIMStatusBar. also, how does 
this work when used with KIMPanelApplet?

> Its design is simple, just provide a dbus service for input methods
> Backends(SCIM,IBus, fcitx ...) <-------->dbus<---------->kimpanel
> (org.kde.impanel)
> communicate by signals only.

the backends run as standalone applications? can or does kimpanel start them 
automatically as needed?

> Currently the above features are finished,  Except:
> * Only one kcmodule for ui now, haven't provide kcmodule for backend,
> * The kcmodule is working, but lack help text, theme auto preview , other
> eyecandies........

that's ok, because this probably needs to be re-worked anyways.

> * The extra two themes are only make for horizontal statusbar and
> horizontal candidate window layout only, but default theme fully working.
> And it's also stable now, no crashes in my everyday use.

hm... how well does it work on vertical panels?

-- 
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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