Nested Panels

[Chani]

On July 18, 2010 23:35:39 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. specifically, there are PanelContainment and CustomPanelContainment in 
the ContainmentType enum, and the Panel class (and any 3rd party panels) 
inherits Containment (which inherits Applet). 

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

yes. 

> and we can have nested containers...

neted layouts, nested graphicswidgets, but not nested Containments. if you try 
to put a Containment inside another Containment, it acts as a simple Applet.

> 
> #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.

yes, applets respond to the FormFactor constraint, showing themselves in an 
appropriate manner - the easiest way to get that behaviour is to subclass 
PopupApplet, which automatically switches to that icon-popup mode.

I don't know whether folderview has any code to handle that - never tried it 
myself. :)

> / Will any of the new containers

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.

when the panel opens?
have the app be in the panel?
I don't understand what you're saying...  hrrm...  do you mean you want to be 
able to choose to have an applet act as if it were in a desktop formfactor 
while it's in the panel? that probably wouldn't work very well, given the size 
of most panels - the applets turn into icons because there's often no *room* 
for anything else. (although it may make sense for them to actually check how 
much space they've got, and whether it's enough).

> (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)

not all applets were designed with the panel's formfactor in mind, yes. They 
all could be adapted to work in the panel, it's just that nobody's done it. :)