[RFC] New (QML) Desktop Containment

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday, November 21, 2012 20:10:06 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> * less visual clutter (especially caused by applet handle when unlocked)

how is it less visual clutter when the unlocked state, which is the default 
state and should be encouraged as such for fairly obvious reasons, has frames 
and buttons around every single widget?

it also means that non-rectangular widgets are always rectangular. for things 
like the analog clock this makes them far less visually appealing.

.. and we're also back to "we have windows on the desktop" which means mixing 
metaphores pretty deeply and in a very non-obvious (to the average person) 
way. "what is the difference between the windows on my desktop and the windows 
that are floating?" (which rapidly becomes: "Why can't I do X with the ones 
stuck to the desktop that I can with the ones that float around?", or vice 
versa). we don't get this problem in plasma active's contour because there are 
no floating windows.

it loses rotation of items. yes, this is not an amazingly *functional* thing, 
but not all things in life that have value are functional. the # of layouts 
i've seen where people have taken the time to personally arrange photos, for 
instance, with rotation speaks to the (known and measured) concept that people 
feel more at home in a space they can freely remake even if it the result is 
less efficient than in a space that they can't, even if it is more efficient.

on the whole, this strikes me as very techy-oriented and extremely non-
organic.

showing the grid while moving things is also pretty .. ugh. on touch it makes 
sense for 2 reasons:

* granularity of and visibility duing dragging with a finger is pretty poor
* given the small screen real-estate and the effort needed to move things 
around, moving things to the nearest open space is pretty common

on desktop, i'd suggest trying to always drop things where they are placed by 
the user and never move it elsewhere for them. that may mean resizing other 
widgets.

one thing the grid also does is prevent overlap of widgets. this is fine for 
final results, but makes moving things around with the free space on screen is 
small a right bitch. basically, it turns into a game of "15 puzzle" where the 
pieces can be resized. again, on active we get around this by providing 
infinite vertical heigh, which works because touch makes the scrolling very 
simple and intuitive.

so .. the good:

* alignment made easy
* it's very fluid looking
* QML ftw :)

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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