[rekonq] Homepage style

[Lionel Chauvin]

> The image is here:
> http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/MEtYnSnJLCciLJmfxIoK9g?feat=directlink

Funny, I never see chromium, but I was thinking to the same layout for homepage. But my first idea was to display previews for recently closed tabs.

> So, one interesting thing they have done is save up a lot of screen
> real state by dropping the search and recent tabs and bookmarks box
> from the left. A one line bookmarks bar is displayed on the top (below
> the url input) which is shown permanently on the homepage, but is
> collapsible on all other pages, in fact, it disappears once you enter
> any other page that isn't the homepage.

I don't think the bookmarks bar is a so good idea. I prefer the button-menu.

> An interesting thing about this is that it saves the tabs that
> were open when a window is closed and groups them under a special icon
> (as you can see in the screenshot). 

IE7/8 provides the same action.

> I never actually thought of it, but it is a great way to save on startup time like Lionel said.

Yes, I am convinced now that it is the better way. (I think Andrea also thought this, it explains why he rejected my patches about reload previous tabs at startups).

> Obviously when the mouse hovers the icon the list of tabs grouped in
> that icon is displayed (but you cannot click on them, maybe that could
> be a nice addition). Clicking on this icon opens a new window with the
> tabs, click on individual tab links opens a tab on the current window.

Ok.

> Last but not least, the thumbnail management is quite interesting,
> showing only 8 thumbnails (someone said symmetric?) by default the
> "most visited" pages are shown, but you can click on the "pin" icon to
> lock that thumbnail to the speed dial (you can also dismiss the
> thumbnail from the speed dial for ever with the "x" button). Even
> better is the fact that you can drag and drop icons across the speed
> dial, organizing them to fit your OC (obsessive compulsive) needs!

Ok: most visited pages.

> There are other things (like other speed dial thumbnail
> configurations) but I feel embarrassed already so I will stop here,
> this feels too much like propaganda... What I want to say is that
> maybe we can think about some of these ideas and implement them into
> rekonq... Just my 2¢.

Thanks.

> Dropping the menu bar is one way to save huge amounts of screen real
> state, like it is now. Optimizing the homepage so that it can be sleek
> but helpful without too much or too little on screen will only make
> rekonq (on my opinion) a super useful and fast loading browser.

Yes it is what we plan

> And there is one more issue exposed here though... do we only stick to
> html+css and thus skip compatibility with KDE themes and color
> schemes, making the homepage a "rekonq themed" one? Or develop a
> separate skin system like Chromium to allow costumizability of the
> browser's homepage? Or find a way to make all this compatible with
> KDE's appearance settings?

why not save (at startup for instance) some KDE theme elements and color schemes in a css and png files in order to be optionaly used by a custom html/css homepage ?