Is it possible to add a different panel implementation for plasma?

[Michail Vourlakos]

On 21/12/2016 03:01 μμ, Marco Martin wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 December 2016 14:48:46 Michail Vourlakos wrote:
>> Now Dock as it was decided by the plasma developers provides its masking
>> and its contents through a secondary window not the original of the
>> plasma one (when the widgets are unlocked). So Now Dock must take care
>> two windows for their visibility states, sizes,  which one is on top of
>> the other and when
> none of which seems to need to have access to such properties?
pragmatical situation:
-all the time I am trying to catch up with the plasma panel in order to 
not break the experience for my main window which is my masked window. I 
could just set its thickness to minimum and the plasma window wouldnt 
change positions
-the user chooses visibility states in the main window which do not 
correspond in the masked window because I can not even know what is the 
plasma's panel chosen visibility
-shouldnt the secondary window know what are the chosen settings from 
the user?

you are just trying to persuade me that my implementation just have to 
be altered in order to handle this situation that I am considering it a 
mess from semantic and implementation point.
That can be your point but I am sorry I disagree.
My point is that supporting third party docks inside plasma in not 
sufficient for docks cases that want to provide a different experience 
of the main panel.

Neither of us have to persuade the other actually.

>
>> so you think that from design point view having two separate windows for
>> configuration is something logical?
>> A panel that has a different window to set its visibility mode and a
>> different window to set a zoom Factor, icon size etc. is it something
>> elegant to the user or intuitive?
> yes, because the basic settings are all the same, doesn't have to be re-
> learned, what would be configured separately is the couple of different things,
> like how much the icon would zoom up
>
ok, lets say that I simply disagree.

I am not happy at all with how the settings in Now Dock are presented to 
the user and are split between two different windows.

Such case? For example Below Active-Below Maximized visibility states, 
from semantic point view it should go in plasma's panel main 
configuration window but what is the point to try to support it inside 
plasma when  that is not going to be in any benefit for Now Dock which 
is in a separate window.


I am exhausted trying to argue for all this...


regards,
michail