Review Request: KDE Observatory (new plasmoid)

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On November 16, 2009, Sandro Andrade wrote:
> Yes, I was already considering the DataEngine. Since this should raise
> a major impact I'll keep as a lower priority change for 4.4.

agreed; as noted, it's probably a 4.5 type target.
 
> > * collectFinished is probably getting called more often than needed as
> > its connected to multiple collectors; that means views and what not will
> > get updated for collectors that don't have new data?
> 
> Although it's called by multiple collectors, views are updated only
> when all collectors finish. Since collectors run in a asynchronous way
> I don't know each one is going to finish sooner (and consequently
> later).

ah, indeed, it does update only once all collectors are done.
 
> > * calls like m_right->nativeWidget()->setIcon are generally unecessary.
> > use m_right->setIcon() i'd look through all the nativeWidget() calls and
> > see which can be removed.
> 
> I tried this and it's working when using plasmoidviewer. But when
> adding the plasmoid in desktop the arrows icons didn't appear. This
> was fixed by using nativeWidget()->setIcon. Note: I'm not running
> plasma-desktop from trunk, instead I'm just using 4.3.3. I'll try this
> in trunk.

yes, i extended the api of Plasma::PushButton so it works everywhere. it was a 
really odd issue (KIcon vs QIcon weirdnesses)
 
> > * the icon button in the Configure KDE Observatory page seems to have
> > some layout issues; here it overlaps the divider line at the bottom?
> 
> Strange, I can't reproduce this here.
> 
> > * why is "enable transition effects" an option?
> 
> Just to disable sliding effect for those people with labyrinthitis :)

i guess my question is whether or not there is real value in making this an 
option.
 
> > * why are some view options in the global config options and others in
> > the Views page?
> 
> Ok, in Views page you can select which projects should appear in each
> view. Projects are globally created in Projects page and are
> automatically inserted in all views. For example, you might want to
> see Krazy Report for Plasma but not for Extragear. In Global Config
> Options you can disable a given view (including *all* its projects)
> and set their appearance order.

and why couldn't the order and active status also be set in the Views page? 
it's really not great to have configuration options for the same "thing" (in 
this case views) scattered about, since to get the desired end result i have 
jump between multiple pages.

if those settings were all on View and "Enabled transition effects" was 
removed as an option, then "Global configuration options" could be renamed 
something to do with time :)

> > * the automatic transitions are nice, but when trying to page through
> > them with the left/right buttons it really gets in the way. perhaps a
> > "play/pause" button could be added to the interface and automatically set
> > it to "pause" when one of the arrow buttons are manually pressed?
> 
> Yes, or just re-starting timers giving them a short pause.

that would be an improvement, yes..

> > perhaps the transition
> > could also pause when the mouse is placed over a graph; this would make
> > the tooltips more easily reachable, as right now getting tooltips is a
> > bit of a challenge when the animations are ongoing.
> 
> Deal :)

huzzah! :)
 
> > * the scroll arrows feel "backwards": the right arrow should take me to
> > the "next" item, which means things should scroll to the left not the
> > right.
> 
> Yes, I'm touchscreen influenced :)

if the arrows weren't placed like a scrollbar, it would probably "work".

> > * it would be really nice if it were possible to aggregate some project
> > data; e.g. "plasma" is really kdelibs/plasma + kdebase/runtime/plasma +
> > kdebase/workspace/plasmas + kdeplasma-addons ... not a required feature
> > for sure, but a nice one to have perhaps
> 
> It *was* working that way when I was using regular expressions for
> catching commit subjects from QMaps. It was great but I can't query a
> SQL database by using a regular expression. Any suggestions ?
 
in sqllite, you can do various simple wildcard style matching (and there are 
regexp hooks, though they are not implemented in the bare default sqlite impl 
afaik?). anyways.. if it's just matching for the word "plasma", for instance, 
then in sqlite it's:

WHERE column LIKE '%plasma%'

> > * it would make the widget much more immediately approachable if there
> > were some project presets shipped, such as ones for kdelibs, kdepim,
> > kdegames, plasma, etc. do you have thoughts on how that would be best
> > achieved?
> 
> Yes, that's expected soon. Project information are stored in config
> files. I just need to set up those presets as the default values for
> new created config files. After that user can include/exclude/edit
> project information.

cool ... might be a nice candidate for data to be fetched from the network. 
perhaps ebn could even host a bunch of them, or a GHNS feed could be offered 
so they could be updated and what not.

-- 
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 Development Frameworks
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