kde plasma workspace structure

[Alex Fiestas]

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
>> interesting, I would consider gwenview part of the workspace as I think an
>> image viewer is nowadays one of the most essential applications a user
>> needs.
>
> 'how essential is the application' is not the measuring stick we've been
> using, otherwise the web browser would be part of the workspace too. (far
> before an image viewer ever would be, in fact.)
>
> it's a question of "is it something that the user starts explicitly to view /
> manipulate their information / data / etc.?" (there are a number of edge cases
> in that question, but you get the idea.)
If I make a nepomuk search on KRunner  and I find a picture, I click
on it and gwenview opens.
If I go to a folder view and I click on a pdf, Okular opens.

Is that explicitly? Don't think so.
As notmart said in one of the threads where we discussed the vision,
does the user want to execute an application or what he/she wants is
to read the pdf?

> the desktop shell, the command runner, the window manager and various other
> components are started on behalf of the user to make the system essentially
> usable.
>
> system settings and similar applications are there to interact with the system
> itself, not to grant access (view/manipulate) the user's own information
> (files, contacts, websites, etc.)
>
> if we go down the path of "what application is essential to the user" we'll be
> utterly screwed because:
>
> * that changes over time
Great ! if we are aware of this we can react quickly and provide
applications that will fit our users needs.
> * that changes between use cases
We have to define personas, targets, whatever it takes so we can focus
in a group of people.
If the group of people is large enough then we should give priorities to it.

this is precisely why I like to think lately more with the whole OS in
my mind rather than only with the workspace.

Good example of this is Active, even if we had a super wonderful
workspace in there (which we do) it wouldn't so useful if we weren't
able to view pictures, browse the web etc...

So what is really worth is Active workspace + bunch of applications
that will make the experience complete.

BTW sorry if this email hits the wrong part of the thread, I'm using
GMail and it doesn't do threading.