the next step on the desktop

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday, January 30, 2011, Markus Slopianka wrote:
> > let's try something big and new. let's make that Big Move and step away
> > from ~/Desktop.
> 
> Frankly, I like my dumping ground.

and you can retain it. nobody is taking it away from you. even though i 
personally think you'd find far better ways of working if you forced yourself 
away from the comfortable known, i'm not selfish enough to make you do that :)

> > my proposal is this:
> > 
> > * by default, Search and Launch on the desktop
> 
> What do you mean by that? Full screen SAL like on Plasma Netbook? Then one
> could just use that.

go compare the netbook shell with the desktop shell and you'll find that they 
differ far, far more than just in the use of SAL. due to those differences, 
"just use Plasma Netbook" is absurd.

> As long as KDE's file search and indexing mechanism is still broken
> <http://kdeatopensuse.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/opensuse-11-4-kde-testing/>,
> I see more frustration than benefit. I could be wrong, though.

wtf does file indexing have to do with SAL?
 
> > * improve the tasks widget to have some of the nice features of widgets
> > like "smooth tasks" with the mouse over highlights
> 
> I'd be happy if I could disable the scroll wheel for starters...

i've outlined numerous times what such a patch that would be accepted would 
look like. so far nobody has felt like stepping up and scratching their itch.
 
> > * an "activities" widget (i'll hapilly write it) that sits next to the
> > app launcher and when clicked brings up the actvities manager
> > * an activities switcher as a kwin effect (!)
> > * have all activities avaiable in kactivitmanagerd, even if they are
> > "stopped" in plasma-desktop
> 
> It seems to me that programmers with their fully cramped task bars (IDE,
> terminals, debuggers, SCM frontends,...) are bigger fans of activities
> than the common persons with music player and browser open alone and -- if
> they are cutting edge -- even separate chat and mail clients.

let me be frank with you: when someone blames us developers for catering to 
our own needs and so that's why things must obviously suck in some way or 
another, it really bugs me. you know why? because what you just wrote there is 
a pile of rubbish. we hear back fairly regularly from people in a multitude of 
differing situations that use activities and have even come to rely on them. 
but no, you don't like them and/or see the need for them so then, ipso facto, 
it must be something the developers have done just for ourselves with no other 
reason or research having been done, right?

do you even know where the idea for activities came from? good old fashion 
field research with people who use their computers to do content creation. 
yes, that isn't the average web browser centric user, but they can very 
handily ignore activities altogether if they wish as they are not in their way 
at all.

but of course, we should all stop what we're working on because it's so 
"obviously" unuseful and instead immediately do what you personally want:

> Personally, I'd rather have an actually good Dock implementation that
> merges launcher, task switcher, and systray in a single icon for each app.

we added launcher support in 4.6 and we re-engineered the system tray protocol 
to make this possible. so yes, that's generally where we're headed. if you 
wish to see it all "come together" sooner, then you need to get involved and 
start making patches.

-- 
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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