PW2 planning: one shell to rule them all

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday, February 1, 2013 14:05:01 Marco Martin wrote:
> * the view loads in itself a qml file, coming from a package (right now
> org.kde.homescreen.desktop) that will become pretty much the workspace
> definition

to expand on the package bit... this package will require the following:

* which processes need to be running (e.g.: krunner)
* default plasma-device layout
* kwin configuration
* other app config?
* default lock screen + settings
* default splash screen + settings 
* default logout dialog + settings

in plasma-device, a Plasma/Generic package is loaded that has:

* QML for setting up the default system
* a plasma-default-layoutrc which loads the containments, etc.

obviously this is not going to work for all targets. that's why we have the 
desktop scripting.

for the plasma-device shell itself, it makes sense to use the desktop 
scripting API with some changes[1] imho.

kwin will also need a strategy. the package could also include a kwin script 
to adjust settings, and i think that would be the most straight-forward, but 
as with the scripting this can only be used for first-time setup.

when switching between workspaces, all affected config files will need to be 
backed up in a workspace-specific location for restoration when coming into 
another shell. this could be accomplished in a few ways, but perhaps the most 
straightfoward is simply copying the files around on disk. care will need to be 
taken during this process that the affect applications do not save to disk 
again before reloading the new config.

we may also want to allow a layout to define whether or not the appletsrc file 
should be saved, or if the layout should be recreated fresh each time. in the 
case of PMC or a kiosk type environment, for instance, this may be desirable.

i think we should avoid putting QML inside these packages, but rather they 
should only be scripts and config data. the reason for this is 2 fold:

* it will make it easier on people making these shells who may not know QML
* it will encourage and allow re-use of UI components by not including them in 
the shell layout package

[1] http://community.kde.org/Plasma/DesktopScripting


-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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