Plasma-Netbook Mockups

[Luis Fernando Planella Gonzalez]

I had commented on the original blog archive, and I'll continue discussion here.

Well, maybe I'm an exception, but I don't follow the "netbook users
run a single application at a time". For instance, many times I have
firefox, dolphin, konsole, amarok, gimp (yes, gimp, with a wacom
tablet attached) running at the same time in a 10.2" netbook, with
1024x600 resolution and 2GB RAM. And it works well with Kubuntu Lucid
beta.

Here is an explanation for the points i've stated in that comment:

* I'd rather have a task manager which shows only icons for background
apps and the title and maximize / restore buttons for the foreground
app replacing the current activity switcher, which takes more than
half of the available screen width. And I agree with Markus that the
clock should be by default in the extreme right side. It's where users
of all platforms expect to see a clock and a system tray. Also, in the
current form, depending on the window title length, the clock position
changes, and keeps "jumping" when switching applications.

* About the single / double click: Search and Launch is there
basically replacing the menu. It doesn't makes sense to make it honor
the single / double click settings, which is supposed to be to
navigate in files. In files, 1 click selects, 2 clicks open. In the
SAL, 1 click does nothing. Having it honoring the setting is just like
making Kickoff requiring double clicks to navigate in menus. This is
the same complaint I have with system settings: if I choose double
clicks to navigate in files, the system settings also requires double
clicks.

* About the "texts" in SAL: if someone which has never seen it is
shown just a screenshot, like the first one presented in the article
(http://kamikazow.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/plasma-netbook-mockup), he
sees some icons on top, a search box, some other icons and widgets at
the bottom. There is no obvious statement that: "these are the
favorites", "here are the applications", and so on. On Kickoff,
there's the "Favorites" and "Applications" tab. The ubuntu netbook
remix has the sections on the left side. Having such an indication
would be more intuitive.

Perhaps, I'm thinking that having an intermediate solution, with just
borderless maximized windows (which currently can be set via config
file), that hacked task manager and a default kickoff menu would be
perfect for netbooks...

--
Luis Fernando Planella Gonzalez