Review request: Container plasma applet

[alan moore]

>> Anyway, with your last sentence you was saying that I could have done a
>> similar thing working directly on containments?
> 
> yes, and that's really probably the way to go about it. use cases would 
> probably help define what direction to actually take.
> 

I was actually a bit excited when I saw this applet myself, as I had 
looked into developing something along the same lines (but gave up 
because I didn't have the requisite coding knowledge).

Basically, my use case is simple: using the KDE panel as a sidebar.  The 
reason being that screens are getting wider and smaller for many users 
(think notebooks, netbooks, UMPCs), vertical space becomes more 
valuable, so it makes sense to put stuff like the panel (that mostly 
just sits there offering some controls) off to the side rather than the 
traditional top/bottom arrangement.

When I tried this with my panel as-is, the results were problematic. 
Many plasmoids (such as the battery monitor) insist on being square, and 
in a 200 to 300 px wide sidebar they take up a huge amount of space. 
Some just kind of fall apart.  The tray became a huge squarish thing 
that took up 1/4 of the height.

My thinking for the solution was to create a sub-containment that would 
allow plasmoids to be arranged in horizontal rows on a vertical sidebar. 
  I don't know if the plasmoid in question can do that, or if the panel 
can be modified to do that, but it seems a reasonable way to approach 
the problem.