[RFC] New (QML) Desktop Containment

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hola,

On Wednesday, November 21, 2012 20:42:09 Alex Fiestas wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 November 2012 20:10:06 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> > As you might know, I'm porting our desktop containment to QML. The
> > platformy bits are now nearly complete (and merged into master cq. 4.10.
> > On the UI side, progress has also been rather good. There's a QML ToolBox
> > now, and I've got a proof-of-concept version of the containment itself
> > going, which takes care of layouting the widgets on the screen and
> > provides an applet handle.
> >
> > I've recorded a ~3 minute movie that shows the current state:
> >
> >               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbSuNrn3qoU
> 
> Wow! This make me feel that common feeling of "4.10 is not yet released and 
> I'm already waiting for 4.11" xD
> 
> I really like the merge of the grid into the the desktop containment, doing
> it  by hand is hard specially when you have to do pixel perfect aiming.
> 
> Showing the frames when unlock is a HUGE improvement, I have some ideas on
> how  I'd like lock/unlock to be, but for avoiding past mistakes let me ask
> first...

I'd be interested to hear, or maybe see a mockup (just something drafted on 
paper can say so much more than 1000 words...).

> How do you envision "Plasmoid management" ?
>         -When a user wants to add/remove/move a plasmoid?

one of:
- added from add widgets interface (needs unlocking). I'm personally not super 
happy with the horizontal add widgets dialog and would rather see something 
vertical (easier to scan and categorize), but that's quite a topic of its own, 
and out of scope for this containment. We just use the current add widgets 
dialog, which is already written in QML.
- dropping files or urls onto the desktop (should probably offer option to 
unlock and add, if the desktop is locked, otherwise pretty much like it works 
now in Plasma Desktop, maybe replacing the QMenu with some QML.

>         -How many times it is done? And in what time frame?

It's basically a separate task you do. It should be easy enough to unlock, but 
at the same time not get in the way when locked. We could even opt for 
automatically locking when the user doesn't do anything with it, but not sure 
about that.

>         -Does SLC add a plasmoid when something is connected to the
> Activity? Or  that's specific to Active?

SLC sits in the panel, its icons are always visible, but disabled when the 
action is not sensible for the "active document" (or none is set). It has 
nothing to do per se with the desktop containment.

>         -How much do we want to promote plasmoids into users?
>                 -As an example for this, to we want to be like netvibes,
> google/ig, etc?  (kinda the newspaper view in netbook).

I think that's a separate discussion. I quite like a very clean default, but 
it depends on the users we want to reach, and on top of that: distros often 
change it (and we make that quite easy).

Thanks for the feedback so far, also to Ivan!
-- 
sebas

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