Workspace Next Sprint Organization

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:14:46 Alex Fiestas wrote:
> So, what is the workspace for you?

the components that take care of supporting the working area of the computer 
and practices of the person using the system. these tasks include:

* user session start / stop / switch
* power management
* application launch
* window management
* locating resources available on or to the device
* quick reference to information (some items in the system tray do this, some 
plasmoids do this)
* interaction with system services (local file indexing, sound, networking, 
etc.)
* presentation of actions belonging to "the system" (from a user's POV), which 
would include things like file operation progress or notifications

perhaps there are others as well. all of these bits need to be fit well 
together. and applications which don't play a key role in the above are not 
part of the workspace.

so there's a bit of scope to which we can add a set of "big idea" goals (aka 
"vision") so we can chart how to accomplish each of the things in the list 
above.
 
> Considering that applications like Dolphin or Gwenview are part of it as

dolphin and gwenview are applications. they are not part of the workspace. 
this is evident because:

* they fulfill specific tasks (file management, image viewing); in contrast 
plasma-desktop, kwin, krunner and system integration components such as 
bluedevil do not meet specific tasks but enable one to engage in those tasks. 
you can use kwin without a file manager; it's annoying to use dolphin without a 
file manager. it's the app/system split.

* they can be used in other desktop / workspace implementations without 
feeling foreign or that they are duplicating an integral system service

* the workspace can be used without them without any degredation of service

> well as Solid (hardware integration) I find many parts of that vision
> vaguely applicable or at least not clearly applicable.

that's because they are not part of the workspace.

that begs the question: should we have an application vision? hell yes! (we 
have one for Active, btw...) should it harmonize with the workspace vision? 
double hell yes! there will be commonalities, there will also be differences. 
big ones.

applications are all about framing and delivering content. the workspace needs 
to "get out of the way" of that as much as possible and provide an integrative 
system for those applications to tap into.

the vision for an image viewer is neatly confined by the defined task.

the vison for a workspace is not, so those boundaries and parameters need to 
be derived from a much large possible solution space. on the other hand, it 
can also embody more dynamics as a result of not having a single, self-evident 
task as an image viewer or file manager does.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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