Nested Panels

[Marco Martin]

On Monday 19 July 2010, 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.
> 
> 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...
> 
> #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

some applets give you a data that can make sense in a small horizontal (or 
vertical) strip, some other really can't, so an iconic representation is all 
can be done, and even all that makes sense (think bout the start menu, you 
really want it as an icon with popup when is in a small, always visible panel 
and nothing else)
so in the end how to react is completely decided by the applet implementation.
since the "becoming a popup" case was sooo commonly needed, a new convenience 
class to do just that has been done (for KDE 4.2 iirc, so not -so- new :p) 
that is PopupApplet, applets that subclass this instead of applet inherit the 
same common features:
icons in panels, (horizontal or vertical formfactor) the full window in the 
deskop, newspaper or whatever (planar or mediacenter formfactor)
if the panel is really big, so big there is room for the full popup, the 
applet expands to the full contents in panels as well (this is rather useful 
with autohide panels actually)

> 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)

if an applet doesn't work at all when in the panel is an applet bug.
but nowdaysthis doesn't happen that much anyore, also because that majority of 
new applets are popupapplets.


Cheers,
Marco Martin