Semi-modal sidebar paradigm

[Marco Martin]

Hi all,

since i was getting the activity switcher and widget explorer at least a bit 
in shape in plasma2, i was experimenting with an idea we were toying a bit 
around at the last tokamak.
Identifying all pieces of ui in the workspace that are completely modeal, like 
splash, lockscreen/user switching.. and give them all a consistent look and 
feel.

also identify things that are semi-modal, that are "workspacey" but don't take 
the whole attention.
that they could be, add widgets, switch activity, alt+tab, krunner, maybe 
kickoff (something else?)

one idea was to have a sidebar that takes the whole screen height but as less 
width as possible.

for better being able to comment, i did some prototypes, already in plasma2:
http://im9.eu/picture/tg1706
http://im9.eu/picture/jj1706

(contents of the sidebars quickly ported from plasma1, so they can/should be 
made way prettier that that)

on KWin, i quickly hacked this as a new tabbox plugin (well, plus an hack for 
left alignment, that should probably go in the qml api, todo if/when porting 
to kwin5)
http://im9.eu/picture/nv1706

The blur effect is also different to have more readability, absolutely needed 
if we continue to have big areas with a plasma background (looks less 
transparent but more phisically similar to frosted glass that is not only 
backlit but has some incident light as well) but that's for another thread ;)

comments/ideas/opinions?

Cheers,
Marco Martin