[rekonq] Re: [RFC] Better Integration of Web Applications into Window Management

[Pierre Rossi]

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 19:11, Martin Gräßlin <kde at martin-graesslin.com>wrote:

> Hi rekonq developers,
>
> I am not subscribed to this list, please keep me in CC!
>
> As you might have seen, I added an entry to your agenda for your IRC
> meeting
> about better integrating web applications into window management. I want to
> outline the ideas I have in my mind in this mail and want to get some
> feedback
> what you think about it.
>
> First let me describe the current situation:
> More and more web applications are replacing standalone desktop
> applications.
> A good example is gmail replacing kmail, but there are also applications
> like
> Facebook or Google StreetView which never existed as a desktop client. As
> "cloud" seems to be the buzzword of the decade I do not expect the trend to
> stop, even if I do not like web applications (as my day job I am writing
> web
> applications).
>
> The entry point to web applications is a browser. And here is the problem.
> We
> have one application which embends multiple applications. We have a great
> desktop experience to manage applications, we have a tasks applet, present
> windows, desktop grid, Alt+Tab, Window Tabbing and so on. But this is all
> not
> available for web applications and that makes working with multiple
> webapplication a terrible thing to do IMHO.
>
> Solutions:
> There are diffierent solutions to tackle the problem. Google tries to free
> the
> devices from everything what is not a web application with Chrome OS. This
> is
> IMHO a terrible step as desktop apps are in general better.
>
> The mobile devices try to free the web from the browser by providing apps.
> This is more of a solution to the problem that most web sites are unuseable
> on
> small and touch screens.
>
> A third solution is the Silk project. An in my opinion awesome idea, but it
> seems to lack manpower and by that I gave up the hope on it :-(
>
> All of theses solutions seem to not fix our (KDE's) need. So here comes my
> idea;
>
> Proposal:
> Let's make web applications integrate into the desktop through the browser.
>
> The idea is to make web apps behave like a normal application. They get an
> entry in alt+tab they have a tasks item, they have a preview in the
> toolbar,
> they show a window in Present Windows. Nevertheless they would still live
> in
> the browser.
>
> So let's say that a user has one browser tab with Gmail and one with
> Facebok,
> then he will not only have the entry of rekonq (which might even be
> dropped),
> but also an entry for those web apps. If the user selects Gmail through
> e.g.
> alt+tab the browser window get's activated and the browser switches to the
> tab
> containing gmail.
>
> Technical Solutions:
> One possible solution would be window tabs. Each web application would be
> an
> own rekonq window grouped together by tabs. It would be an improvement but
> after lots of thinking I came to the conclusion that it is not the best
> from
> user experience point of view.
>
> My idea would be more revolutionary and is nevertheless technically
> feasible.
> Rekonq would have to tell us  (kwin/plasma) which web applications are
> available (either through dbus or X), there names, their icon and their
> thumbnail. Now KWin could include these web applications as "children" to
> the
> actual window. Both our effect framework as our alt+tab solution are
> abstracted enough from windows to allow this. E.g. alt+tab is also able to
> manage desktops. Also in Plasma I think that this is no problem to
> integrate
> as there is the libtaskmanager and the tasks dataengine.
>
> Btw. our Alt+Tab code is so strongly abstracted from KWin that you could
> easily integrate it as a ctrl+tab to walk through browser tabs ;-)
>
> What would it offer to KDE?:
> Such a solution would be pretty unique and could be quite a selling factor
> for
> KDE. This is something no other plattform can provide (except Microsoft
> Windows + IE resulting in probably another fight against EU commission :-).
> We
> are the only other project having control over the desktop shell, window
> manager and browser.
>
> Further discussions:
> If you think that this idea might work, I would like to discuss it with you
> in
> more detail. I even think that this is a possible topic for the usability
> sprint mentioned by Celeste some time ago. If it would be accepted to the
> sprint I would go there although usability is not my most liked working
> area
> :-)
>
> Implementation:
> That is the bad part. I won't have time for such a project for quite some
> time. If you would want to experiment in that area, you would have to work
> on
> the kwin part. Of course I would provide help. This might be something nice
> for a GSoC project which I would co-mentor. If as GSoC I would only
> co-mentor
> if it is carried out by an existing member of the community (we had in KWin
> too many code dumbs which are now unmaintained :-( ).
>
> So please let me now what you think about it.
>
> Cheers
> Martin Gräßlin
> (KWin Maintainer)
>
> _______________________________________________
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> rekonq at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/rekonq
>
>

Really nice idea, and that definitely sounds like the way to go in the quest
to the "proper KDE-integration" we're striving for.

I believe the apps could be associated to the "pinned tabs" that Furkan
added very recently, as that'd be an incentive for people to use pinned tabs
for what they want to see standing out, without polluting the task switcher
or plasma task panel with a lot of unnecessary tabs.

Definitely something I'd like to see happening in Rekonq and KWin, and I
believe it'd please everybody using Rekonq (and help others to consider
switching :P).

Cheers,
--
Pierre
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