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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: kdesktop wait cursor
From:       Lubos Lunak <l.lunak () sh ! cvut ! cz>
Date:       2001-05-09 9:49:48
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Dne st 9. květen 2001 11:18 gigafalk@yahoo.com napsal(a):
> Hi,
>
> Torsten Rahn wrote:
[snip]
> >
> > > The busy cursor seems to be a recurring topic. The last three times it
> > > was discussed it wasn't a good idea and I don't think anything has
> > > changed since.
> >
> > Oh, yes. Something did change. We implemented the best solution
> > we had in mind that was *not* a busy-cursor. Unfortunately it turned
> > out that the current solution does not work for too many people.
> > If you look at newbies who have never used KDE you very
> > probably will notice that most users either don't notice the tiny
> > animation or that they only notice it by accident. While having no
> > taskbar it isn't even possible to get _any_ launch-feedback.
>
> This is very true. The current GUI approach for application launching is
> not very intuitive for many users.
> That's why I second Torsten Rahn.
> The visual launch-feedback of the taskbar should be moved to the mouse
> cursor where it will be noticed by all users, immediately and in an easy
> way.
> The mouse cursor could stay as an arrow but with the animated launch
> symbol, additionally.

 I'd like to stress the fact that this discussion shouldn't be about what the 
Only Right Way(tm) of doing it is, it's just about which one is going to be 
the default. If there are users who have a peripheral device that can pat 
them on their heads, they can ( should be able to ) turn the default off and 
implement their own startup notification and use their implementation that 
will pat them on their heads. I personally think the semi-busy cursor is the 
most reasonable choice, with taskbar entries or kicker startup applet as 
alternatives. If someone likes none of these, they can write their own code 
for their favourite head patting device.

 BTW, busy-cursor ... I'm still not sure how to implement it so that the 
cursor will be changed for everything ( and I even don't know if it's that 
good idea ). It's not a problem to change the cursor for kdesktop or kicker, 
but it's can't be AFAIK done for all windows, because toplevel Qt widgets set 
the cursor to arrow. The idea with creating a little window for showing the 
busy-cursor is also not very good, because this window would have to be 
somehow kept under the cursor even if the user moves the cursor, and even if 
the window keeps moving to the cursor position, it can't be transparent 
AFAIK, so it would have to be shaped or we'll end up having square cursor :). 
 Does anyone know how to do it acceptably ? I've been happily avoiding things 
like QPainter or QCursor till now.

 /me suspecting it's not going to be that easy

>
>
> Ciao,
> F@lk
>

 Lubos Lunak
--
 l.lunak@email.cz ; l.lunak@kde.org
 http://dforce.sh.cvut.cz/~seli

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