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

Sun May 27 14:54:17 UTC 2012

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Mark <markg85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, May 26, 2012 03:08:41 Mark wrote:
>> > 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.
>>
>> there is no reason this could not be accomodated in the Plasma tooltips.
>> the
>> file icon would specify that it has a tooltip, when shown the manager
>> sends it
>> the about to show signal, it starts the process of fetching data, when
>> that
>> arrives it actually populates the tooltip content.
>>
>
> That could be some valuable info for Peter (Dolphin). Adding him in the cc
> just in case.
>
>>
>> > 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.
>>
>> there are 3 classes in Plasma's tooltip system:
>>
>> ToolTipManager -> this one keeps track of which items have tooltips, owns
>> the
>> tooltip UI, shows/hides the actual tooltip and tells widgets when they
>> should
>> be updating their content because the tooltip will be shown (and again
>> when to
>> stop because it will be hidden)
>>
>> ToolTipContent -> this one stores what is in the tooltip itself and is
>> used by
>> the widget to tell the manager what should be shown
>>
>> ToolTip -> this is a private class, and handles the UI display
>>
>> styling belongs to ToolTip. definition belongs to ToolTipContent.
>> management to
>> ToolTipManager.
>>
>> so if it is an issue of styling and controlling that style, then ToolTip
>> would
>> need adjustment and perhaps ToolTipContent to direct which style to use.
>> ToolTipManager probably wouldn't get touched.
>>
>> however, do we really need radically different visual styles?
>>
>
> Well, i guess we need.. Just the tasks plasmoid has 2 different tooltip
> styles. One for the app launcher icon and one for the launched apps with a
> preview. System settings needs another different style and dolphin needs
> yet another different style.
>
>>
>> all three application have a pixmap on the left and text on the right. the
>> text on the right changes a fair amount from app to app, though: in
>> systemsettings it is a category, a separator and a listing; in dolpin,
>> it's a
>> title, a separator, and a nicely aligned table of metadata. in Plasma we
>> see
>> very similar arrangements in the clock with multiple timezones and in the
>> pager displaying multiple windows.
>>
>> so i'm not sure it's a styling issue at all, and would in fact suggest
>> that
>> having a consistent presentation would be an improvement over the current
>> situation.
>>
>> there are things that could use some improving, however:
>>
>> * Plasma::ToolTipManager is fairly focused on QGraphicsWidget. making it
>> usable with QWidgets and ready for QML2 is probably important.
>
>
>> * it assumes one tooltip per widget; this was an issue for folderview,
>> which
>> it worked around by putting an invisible item over the item the mouse was
>> over. perhaps this could have been different in folderview, however, and
>> isn't
>> a real problem in practice.
>>
>> * ToolTipManager uses QMetaObject::invokeMethod to call
>> toolTipAboutToShow and
>> toolTipAboutToHide in items that have tooltips. it would be nice to have a
>> more elegant way to do this, in particular a mechanism that would work
>> nicely
>> with QML2 and which allows the widget with the tooltip to define the
>> connection.
>>
>> so there are certainly some design issues to be addressed.
>>
>> as for content, it would be interesting to see if ToolTipContent could be
>> extended in some way to more easily accomodate the needs of things like
>> showing a table of data (perhaps a QHash<QString, QString> .. what does
>> dolphin use for this datastructure?)
>>
>
> Dolphin created tooltips based on KFileItem. They then get send to
> dolphin's internal FileMetaDataToolTip class that makes puts it all
> together on top of a QWidget.
>
>>
>> > 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).
>>
>> the tooltips in Plasma are used by pretty much everything in Plasma. the
>> only
>> thing specific to the tasks plasmoid in them is the ability to view
>> previews of
>> windows.
>>
>> most things that use the tooltips ignore this feature cmpletely as it is
>> not
>> relevant to them. it is a requirement of some uses, such as in the tasks
>> widget.
>>
>> so i wouldn't say that the current tooltips are too tailored to the tasks
>> widget as they are used, well, everywhere.
>>
>> > I would like to suggest a ToolTipManager with styles! Not themes! I
>>
>> perhaps this can be determined by the content rather than by explicitly
>> setting the style in the application, which is probably just asking for
>> inconsistencies. i also don't like the idea of having to subclass things
>> just
>> to get a nice tooltip in an application. it's both too much effort and
>> too much
>> of an invitation for inconsistency.
>>
>
> Subclassing did seem like a nice but a little to complex for what it
> actually needs to do. So, no subclassing :)
>
>>
>> i realy wonder if the existing Plasma::ToolTipManager could not just be
>> used
>> in system settings already? if it is because it is too QGraphicsView
>> centric,
>> let's fix that first ...
>>
>
> Oke, lets mix my idea up again :)
> Lets put it in steps.
>
> Step 1: How about i "refactor" the private ToolTip class to inherit
> from QDeclarativeView.
> Step 2: Rewrite the current drawing logic for ToolTip in a QML file
> (TOOLTIP_STYLE_DEFAULT.qml).
> Step 3: Introduce and enum:
>
> enum ToolTipTemplate
> {
>     STYLE_DEFAULT,
>     STYLE_SYSTEM_SETTINGS,
>     STYLE_DOLPHIN,
>     STYLE_CUSTOM
> }
>
> Step 4: introduce a setStyle in ToolTipContent with an optional 2nd
> parameter to set a custom QML file.
>
> This way the tooltips themselves are done in QML, there is still the
> option of styling - without making subclasses - and some default tooltips
> are provided.
> The only thing i don't know how to do is how to make the ToolTipManager
> not focused in QGraphicsWidget anymore..
>
> How does that sound? I kinda like the sound of it ^_^
>
>
>> i do think this is a good project that can bring a very nice improvement
>> in
>> looks and consistency... thanks for taking it on! :)
>>
>
> Thank you!
>
>>
>> --
>> Aaron J. Seigo
>>
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>>
>>
>
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>
Hello,

maybe instead of this style parameter being an enum, it could be a string
which would represent the QML file name. For example "" and "default" for
default style (default.qml), "dolphin" for use in dolphin (dolphin.qml) etc.

These styles could then be saved in the same directory inside "KDE resource
directory" and applications could "install" their own style to this
directory.

Does this make sense also from implementation side? At least to me it look
a little more open for adding new styles.

Regards,
Djuro Drljaca
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