Featurlets for 4.7

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday, February 13, 2011, todd rme wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 13, 2011, todd rme wrote:
> >> Okay, I will do so.  Not all of these ideas are mine, I am just
> > 
> >> passing along the ones I think are worthwhile:
> > thanks for the list. please add the ones with consensus to the web page.
> > 
> >> Device Notifier:
> >> 1. Double click on a device to open it in the default application.
> >> Alternatively, have an icon on the right with the default application
> >> and click on that.
> > 
> > -1; single click means two clicks, so there is no savings here. it will
> > only make the code even more complex for no real win.
> 
> There is a saving because you don't have to find your target,
> re-position the mouse, then click again.

too little gain for creating a "magic double click".

> And what about the icon variant?  That only needs 1 click

we end up with a ton of icons with increasing lack of clarity as to what they 
mean. not elegant.
 
> >> Lock/Logout:
> >> 1. Add more options: Screen saver, shut down, reboot, turn off screen.
> > 
> > screen saver == lock;
> 
> Not everyone wants to lock their screen.

and that's worth an extra button and configuration option? meh.

> > shutdown and reboot == leave;
> 
> The whole point is to have separate options for shut down and reboot.
> That way you can logout with just one click instead of needing two.

i don't feel the savings is worth the risk of accidental log outs. it will end 
up with a confirmation, so we'll still have extra clicks.
 
> > turn off screen is better
> > left to hardware keys.
> 
> Why?

unless things have changed, this is something that doesn't always work on all 
systems via software? maybe that's something that has been fixed in the last N 
years?

> >> 2. Put icons of the options next to the options on the config dialog.
> 
> Was there supposed to be a comment here?
> 
> >> Calculator:
> >> 1. Scientific mode
> > 
> > no; start a different plasmoid that can become the uber graphing science
> > monster calculator :)
> 
> This would still be a smallish job since it would almost certainly
> start as a fork of the existing one, so should that go in?

dunno if it would start as a fork or not; but it could still go on that page.
 
> >> 2. Enable and disable labels independently for the main portion and
> >> the popup.  Currently the popup always has labels.
> > 
> > what would the point of this be?
> 
> The labels take up a lot of space, forcing you to move your mouse
> further, and they force the popup into a vertical orientation.

corollary: they are easier to hit due to being bigger. 6 of one, half dozen of 
another at best. -1 on the basis that it means config UI bloat and more code 
paths to maintain.
 
> >> Folder view:
> >> 1. On hover on the title, show a "refresh" button.
> > 
> > when is refresh needed?
> 
> Ideally it wouldn't be, but as long as fam is optional you can't count
> on folders being properly refreshed.  It is also needed when you use
> nepomuk searches as your folder view, since those are not properly
> refreshed on changes.

sounds like a flaw in nepomuk searches and systems without change 
notification. work arounds suck and prevent fixes where they belong. -1.

> >> Preview:
> >> 1. Integrate the "preview" widget with the dolphin part, so when
> >> clicking the "preview" action in dolphin it popups up the preview
> >> widget above dolphin with a preview of that file
> > 
> > not sure about this one; would highly depend on the UI implementation
> > imho.
> 
> It would be the same UI as on the desktop, only it wouldn't be on the
> desktop.

hm.. possible. sure, +1 :) but it's a dolphin thing, not really a plasma 
thing.

> We already have the action there, it just doesn't work very
> well (if at all, I couldn't figure out how to get it to work at
> least).

what action is where, and how does this action not work very well? (more 
specifics ... :)
 
> >> World clock
> >> 1. Let the user temporarily set a custom time for the local time zone,
> >> and the use the mouse to check what that time is in other time zones.
> > 
> > we already do that in the clock plasmoids; world clock is a marble thing,
> > though. making it consistent with the other clock plasmoids would be
> > good.
> 
> I think you misunderstood, what I meant is let a user type in a
> particular time, and then let the user see what that time corresponds
> to in other time zones.

aah, "time travel". hm. interesting. yeah, might work. (and yes, i did 
misunderstand, sorry :)

> >> 3. The panel should unhide when you drag a widget to it.
> > 
> > it does for new widgets; if you mean drag'n'drop (DnD) between
> > containments, well, that whole system needs a rewrite. what needs to
> > happen is once the widget hits the "edge" (+ some margin?) of the
> > containment it should be turned into a QDrag and "normal" DnD can begin.
> > at which point, the panels will all Just Work(tm). bonus: it will also
> > fix the "between multiple screens", "from panel to desktop" and perhaps
> > even "between multiple activities" problem of DnD not supported well.
> 
> Then I take it this is too much for a featurelet?

it could still go on the page; it's bigger than a featurelet, but not entirely 
gargantuan.

> >> Cashew:
> >> 1. Mouse actions for the cashew.  Currently we have mouse actions for
> >> doing mouse events on the desktop.  We should have the same thing for
> >> the cashew (except for left mouse click, of course).  For instance a
> >> user could have scroll wheel on the desktop to change virtual
> >> desktops, and scroll wheel on the cashew to change activities.
> > 
> > mmm.. sounds complicated, in terms of configuration. it's possible, but
> > my questions would be:
> > 
> > * why just on the toolbox, rather than the whole containment?
> 
> You can already do it on the whole containment, the idea would be to
> provide additional options for the cashew.
>
> > * what would the configuration UI look like?
> 
> Take the existing mouse actions config, and have two sections
> "Background" and "cashew" (or whatever you want to call it, the names
> are not important).  Both would be the same as the existing one.

sounds confusing; multiple similar UI but highly dependent on which square 
centimeter you click on ...

add to this that we don't want to make the left click configurable on the 
toolbox: it is our "Get Out of Jail Free" card for when the containment or the 
containment actions plugins are misconfigured or misbehaving. so it wouldn't 
offer "left click" as a valid option ... more confusing.

-1. 
 
> Another I just thought of:
> 
> Let users set a blank label for the folder view.  The label shouldn't
> take up and space when it is blank.

+1

and, btw, this is why these kinds of things get complicated: this is generally 
incompatible with the "show a refresh button" idea.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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