Nested Panels

[Giulio Camuffo]

On Monday 19 July 2010 08:35:39 Aaron Peterson wrote:
> Please check my understanding:
> Does panel == containment?
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Vocabulary Does not list
> panel, but it does list containment.

yes, the panel is a containment, like the desktop, the newspaper activity in 
the netbook shell, ...

> So, a panel is not a nested, (forgive me)desktop--Corona, it is used
> by corona to manage widgets... and we can have nested containers...

Plasma is structured in this way:
There is a view (Plasma::View) which draws a scene (Plasma::Corona) that has 
various widgets (Plasma::Applet) and some "widgets managers" 
(Plasma::Containment).

what do you mean with "container"? the container plasmoid or the groups of 
groupingcontainment? anyway both of them can be nested.

> #2,
> I am also confused at how many applets show up as icons when in a
> panel, and show up as... a window when on the desktop...   How would I
> embed a folder view into the panel. / Will any of the new containers
> do this?  Actually, I know that the pager plasmoid is active in the
> panel, It would be great to toggle if I want it to be a button to open
> the app, or actually have the app be in the panel, so when the panel
> opens all of my apps are there. (I think this is related, because very
> little behaves as expected when put in a panel, but behaves as
> expected when put on desktop...I've been thinking that maybe things
> just can't be put in a panel)

Plasma::Applet has a subclass called Plasma::PopupApplet which allow any 
widget derived from it to be iconified in the panel and exanded on the desktop.
Not all the widgets use it, there are some that work well even in the little 
space of the panel, while if there are some that don't, they should be ported 
to PopupApplet.
If i understood you right you'd want a group that shows up as a icon in the 
panel and when clicked opens a window where you can insert widgets, right?
it doesn't exist yet but it is surely doable.

Greets, Giulio