The tooltip state. Not that good. Proposal for improvement.

[Mark]

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 4:09 AM, Mark <markg85 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Op 26 mei 2012 03:08 schreef "Mark" <markg85 at gmail.com> het volgende:
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > While trying to fix some blur issues on tooltips i found myself digging
> deeper in ... other issues.
> >
> > For starters, there is no tooltip consistency!
> > - Dolphin uses it's own tooltip classes.
> > - System Settings uses it's own tooltip classes.
> > - The plasma panels use the Plasma::ToolTipManager class - like it
> should be!
> >
> > That's only for the consistency using classes! The style also differs
> and only the last one has blur behind it [1].
> >
> > For dolphin i can understand the reason to have it's own tooltip class
> because it wants to fetch the tooltip data in a separate process in order
> to prevent a crash in the tooltip from crashing dolphin.
> >
> > To get this in a workable situation where anyone can use the tooltips as
> they seem right we probably have to make a new ToolTipManager altogether.
> The current one is _way_ to much tailored at tooltips for the tasks
> plasmoid and doesn't leave much room for customization (correct me if i'm
> wrong). I would like to suggest a ToolTipManager with styles! Not themes! I
> repeat, not themes! Just style as in which data is being displayed where.
> The plasma theme is still the one to be for the theme so nothing changes
> there. What i think that should be possible is defining a ToolTip Theme. Or
> i actually think it's required if the plasma tooltip stuff is to be used in
> places where the tooltip can look completely different (again, like
> dolphin).
> >
> > For example (in ascii art).
> > ToolTipTheme - Dolphin
> >
> >   |-------|          test...
> >   |ICON|  ------------------------
> >   |-------|  test...
> >                text...
> >
> > ToolTipTheme - TasksAppLauncher
> >
> >   |-------|  APP NAME
> >   |ICON|  APP DESCRIPTION
> >   |-------|
> >
> > ToolTipTheme - TasksPopup
> >
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |--------------------------|
> >   |-------|
> >   |ICON|  APP DESCRIPTION
> >   |-------|
> >
> > That should make the intention clear even though the ascii art sucks ;)
> >
> > I would say that we need an abstract theme class:
> >
> > class ToolTipThemeAbstract
> > {
> >   virtual QGraphisWidget* getTheme() = 0;
> > }
> >
> > and some classes that implement it:
> > class ToolTipThemeDolphin : public ToolTipThemeAbstract
> > {
> >   QGraphisWidget* getTheme();
> > }
> >
> > In this case the theme for Task popups would do the rendering of the
> preview and window stuff.
> >
> > The ToolTipManager call would remain the same only the values would be
> different.
> >
> Plasma::ToolTipManager::self()->setContent(QGraphicsWidget, ToolTipThemeAbstract);
> > The ToolTipManager would simply render the theme (getTheme()). I'm not
> quite sure yet if the data can just be put directly in the theme or if the
> theme and data should be separated.
> >
> > Also, some themes should probably be provided by default. For example
> the TasksAppLauncher theme like in the ascii art above seems like a quite
> common fancy tooltip. Other themes like the dolphin one should just be an
> "in house" theme in the dolphin codebase. Others might like it, but it's
> certainly not a default theme that needs to be provided or something.
> >
> > I think this would cleanup the ToolTip mess quite a bit and make it very
> flexible for everyone to use.
> >
> > I will try and make a proof of concept for this in the coming days.
> Don't count on anything though - just to prevent high hopes.
> > If this works out and is going to be used for KDE then i would like to
> deprecate the current ToolTip and friend classes, delete them in frameworks
> and replace everything by this proposed tooltip structure.
> >
> > Please do let me know what your thoughts are about this one!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> > [1] Right now i'm fixing the blur issue for Dolphin and System Settings.
> Those patches will appear on reviewboard somewhere tomorrow.
>
> Lol, "no theme" then I write "theme" about everywhere.. I obviously meant
> "style"! Though "template" might fit the meaning better.
>
> Sorry,
> Mark
>
Patches for:
Dolphin: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/105061/
System Settings: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/105060/

I'd like to push them to master before the 4.9 branch happens. Why? because
i see this as - long standing - bugs being fixed.
Also, this fixes the current situation that the most common tooltips are at
least consistent in blurring.. It's obviously a temporary fix. The real fix
would require a lot more work as you can read in my first post in this
thread.

Cheers,
Mark
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