Looking around and thinking ahead

[Eike Hein]

On Thursday 12 December 2013 17:46:13 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> complicating this is that one can have multiple tasks widgets or docks, you
> might be running the netbook containment (or not), etc. there’s a lot of
> dynamic pieces there.

Aye, "Add to Panel" for example tries to add to the panel
containment hosting the applet - in the fullscreen Homerun
shell, which runs in a separate process, this actually in-
volves D-Bus negotiation with the panel applet to agree on
containment id and state, which is sort of a super-primi-
tive approximation of a proper system-grade approach to
this that e.g. lacks enumeration of possible targets.

 
> besides drag and drop, there is the right click menu. it seems more people
> (though apparently still not enough) have learned that this is where you can
> look for such things even in the app menu. it doesn’t work with krunner
> (nearly no one i’ve tested krunner with has tried it.. it’s just too
> “unusual” to RMB on search results? dunno) ... but perhaps the “from” is at
> least more obvious. the “to” is more difficult. if there is more than one
> task widget ... or activity .. where do i send it to? how can that be made
> clear in a menu listing? how do we refer to “the shortcut strip on the
> desktop layer” in the netbook interface in a way that most people will
> quickly identify it and not confront them with jargon?

Loosely related: I've always been a bit envious of those
scripted interface tutorials in video games that involve
steps like "click on the highlighted <thing> on screen to
open the dialog". If shell elements/theming pervasively
supported a "draw attention to this area" state it could
be used for things like that, but possibly also repurposed
to communicate drop targets. It's a big thing to ask of
theme artists to support generically, though.


> that’s why i suggested we back up, start from goals and move forward from
> there. doing an amazing job reimplementing things we know don’t work well by
> design doesn’t move us very far forward.

I take no issue with a sentiment like "no, your menu doesn't
cut it in the current form, we can do better". The intention
was to create awareness about existing work to see if it
could be usefully appropriated towards the goals we come up
with.


> anyways, pursuant to our conversation on irc, this is my last communication
> and involvement with plasma for a good while. do whatever the rest of your
> feel makes sense.

Let me say that I regret this outcome and will personally
miss your insight and experience in the problem space.



Cheers,
Eike