[RFC] New (QML) Desktop Containment

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hi,

On Thursday, November 22, 2012 12:45:38 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> 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?

What are those "fairly obvious reasons"? 

The applet handle is not great yet, and needs further work.

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

The idea is to make locked mode the default, and encourage that. I agree 
there's too much visual clutter as it stands in the locked mode, and will be 
working on that issue. Marco for example suggested to only use the extra frame 
for applets the mouse is hovering, which woud work from an interaction point 
of view -- something to be tried.

> .. 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.

I was thinking about this as well, and for this PoC, I went with a fairly 
"windowy" metaphore. The applet handle does need some further design, but I 
wanted to collect feedback first.

> 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.

That's just a missing feature, not a design decision. Simply didn't get around 
to doing rotation yet. Therefore I listed it in my known issues section. 
(There are a few other actions missing, in the end I want them all back.

> 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:

I think it's rather useful, since it provides immediate feedback where the 
widget ends up after being dropped. I've tried it a few times without, and 
this way feel a lot more predictable. We can

> * 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.

I find this a bit tricky, which widgets to resize, how does the user predict 
the result? Maybe it could be done, but it's probably not easy, and I'm not 
sure if the result won't just be frustrating for the user, as he doesn't get 
the impression that he needs to play some balance game between 2 or more 
widgets, but can correct the position and size one for one.

> 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.

That's an issue, yes. but on the other hand, we also move widgets in the 
current containment, the moving just seems a bit more unpredictable (you place 
something, and then it slides to a different place. You often end up grabbing 
the same widget again, and placing it again. Handling the "layout correct" 
while the widget is being placed makes this process more effortless and less 
trial and error.

> so .. the good:
> 
> * alignment made easy
> * it's very fluid looking
> * QML ftw :)

Thanks for the feedback,
-- 
sebas

http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9