preview in wallpaper dialog

[todd rme]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 4:00 PM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> i've implemented it locally already and i think it looks a lot better, if a
> little more boring. the only wallpaper that really suffers from the missing
> preview, imho, is the patterns wallpaper, but that could be addressed by
>  making its configuration like the images one.

I would say the mandlebrot wallpaper also benefits from this, since
you can see how the colors you select work in practice.  Although it
would benefit from having a more zoomed-in view.  However, compared to
some of the other wallpapers its config is pretty minimal, so it would
be a good candidate for putting the preview above or below the
settings.

Similarly, the starfield wallpaper preview lets you see what effects
its settings have.  but once again it may be a good candidate for
putting the preview above or below the other settings.  This would be
especially worthwhile if the preview is animated.

The virus wallpaper is in the same boat as the starfield wallpaper
since users would also likely want to know how their settings affect
its behavior, but having a live preview of it is not as feasible due
to the layout, and putting live previews in ever image int he
background selector would probably require too much in the way of
resources.

As for making the configuration like the images one, I think that
would be good, but it would only be an adequate replacement for the
preview if the images in the list of patterns automatically updated to
reflect changes in the color settings.

On the subject of making things like the image config, I think the
virus and globe wallpaper would also benefit from having an interface
similar to the image wallpaper, especially if the previews in the
globe wallpaper reflected the map projection setting (but not the
animation settings, of course).  Similarly, the advanced configuration
for weather wallpaper would also benefit from this interface in my
opinion.

-Todd