[Discussion] - Plasma Panels Future Enhancements?

[Michail Vourlakos]

David, thanks a lot for the quick reply...

> How will that help your use case of the dock?
> You control the containment in a panel, but you're not changing 
> Panel.qml itself.
>
> Everything should be exposed to the client already as the "user 
> setting its value" is just the panel config, another QML file with 
> access to the same panelview properties as panel does.
>
> In terms of Panel dimensions  we refer to thickness and length.
> When the panel is at the top or bottom of the screen, thickness is 
> height and length is width. When the panel is on the left or right 
> side, it's the opposite.
>
> Thickness is self-explanatory
>
> Length can be confusing:
>  - length should be the implicit size of the contents of the panel 
> containment want to be.
>  - min/max length are the
>
> panelview will set the panel to length, but constrained to min/max 
> length and then also bound to the size of the screen.
>
>

David, the Panel.qml file as I have understood it, is a layer between 
the panelview (c++ code) and the client (qml) implementation.
 From my dock I can not find any way to alter the the panel's thickness 
(the Layout.preferredHeight which corrresponds in some
cases to thickness (horizontal) is not exposed). I need it because the 
user can set the icon size and the zoomfactor for the hovering
animation, these two are used to calculate the thickness which is needed 
in order to not have animations that are not shown. Currently
the user must try to set the optimal thickness manually....

What I tried yesterday and it worked is the following, I added in 
Panel.qml the following but I dont know if this is going to be accepted in
the plasma source code:

.......
     property Item panelClient
.......
     onContainmentChanged: {
         if (!containment) {
             return;
         }
         containment.parent = containmentParent;
         containment.visible = true;
         containment.anchors.fill = containmentParent;
         containment.locationChanged.connect(adjustPrefix);
         adjustPrefix();

         if (containment.children[0]) {              //////With this I 
access the client's panel implementation
             panelClient = containment.children[0]
         }
     }
........
     //// If the client's panel implementation has set a thickness 
variable then this binding is activated
    ////  e.g. property int thickness (for the client code)
     Binding {
         target: panel
         property: "thickness"
         when: panelClient && panelClient.thickness!==undefined
         value: {
             if (!panelClient || !panelClient.thickness) {
                 return;
             }

             return panelClient.thickness;
         }
     }
.........

>     3. "Real" Panel Transparency
>
>     Docks are panels that not only have a visual transparent
>     background but also they pass the mouse events to go underneath
>     their transparent areas. This is also the way Plank is doing it.
>     It creates a big window that for the transparent background leaves
>     all the mouse events go underneath. I believe plasma panels are Qt
>     windows managed from KWin, I think Qt is offering this feature by
>     setting some flags for the window. Do you have any ideas for this?
>
>
> Plasma panels are just normal windows, so a mask could be set. Would 
> have to be on the C++ side in panelview

I have already the c++ code for this and I am using it!!! :) I have set 
a QRect maskArea for panelview which can be set
and it works !!! :). I am sending from my dock the correct maskArea and 
everything works ok... but, in order to achieve
the communication between my implementation and the panelview I added in 
the Panel.qml the following:

....
     //// If the client's panel implementation has set a maskArea 
variable then this binding is activated
    ////  e.g. property rect  mouseArea (for the client code)

     Binding {
         target: panel
         property: "maskArea"
         when: panelClient && panelClient.maskArea!==undefined
         value: {
             if (!panelClient || !panelClient.maskArea) {
                 return;
             }

             return panelClient.maskArea;
         }
     }
.....


what do you think?



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