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List:       kde-commits
Subject:    Re: kdebase/kicker/taskbar
From:       Martijn Klingens <martijn () martijn ! homeip ! net>
Date:       2003-06-19 19:15:27
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On Thursday 19 June 2003 20:12, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> i take you are using a very large panel then, since with Normal (the
> default) or smaller sized panels this results in smaller buttons since you
> only get a maximum of two rows of buttons anyways.

Yes, large, like I said. On KDE 3.1 (with the frame) there would *never* be 3 
rows of buttons. Without the frame the effective space is 2 pixels bigger, 
which happens to be enough for 3 rows. The fact that each row is so small 
that it looks utterly disgusting, especially with Keramik is a rather bad 
side effect that is IMO unacceptable.

Since the original code had a 2-pixel border I replaced it with a 2-pixel 
whitespace. That only seemed reasonable to me. After all we wanted to get rid 
of the borders, not to change the available space and affect the way taskbar 
buttons get created and sized.

> the real fix would be to change the "switch from 2 to 3 button rows" code
> to use the available horizontal space better...

Taskbar fills rows top-to-bottom, not left-to-right, so that makes no sense at 
all. It doesn't "switch" to 3 button rows, it has them all the time.

> .... and destroys Fitt's Law. fix it to use Fitt's Law and maybe we're back
> to good again.

Well, how should I have known? It wasn't something I even expected to happen. 
It's not very common (read: happens nowhere else) that the border of a widget 
has an effect on the way code behaves.

I don't understand why Qt propagates events to the frame but not to the margin 
anyway, but that's beside the point.

> as an aside, a frame looks like something you can click on, while a margin
> looks like empty space which isn't usually clickable.

Huh? Why does a frame look clickable? It looks like a way to group stuff, i.e. 
something visual and potentially artistic, but AFAICS not clickable. I for 
one don't generally click borders at least...

> and it didn't look better on small panels .... it actually looked rather
> silly.

I only restored the old taskbar button placement. The buttons get too close to 
kicker's top without this.

> take a look at kicker's FittsLawFrame... it catches and passes on click
> made to the frame. so yes, you can do this. but you need to write the code.
> committing something that breaks usability horribly and then saying it can
> be done in theory is pretty bogus.

Well, first of all I would need to be aware of the FittsLawFrame to test for 
regressions. And really, for something as trivial as adding a margin I never 
expected any regressions at all. Second, I don't get why the code that is 
already there for the frame can't be used for the margin too. Isn't a margin 
essentially just a frame that has the same colours as the widget background 
after all?

-- 
Martijn
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