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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Improving task manager interaction
From:       Richard Moore <rich () ipso-facto ! freeserve ! co ! uk>
Date:       2001-08-22 15:44:35
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Martijn Klingens wrote:
> 
> (Note that Yahoo's webmail interface sucks compared
> with KMail, but I can't access my home system from
> here - my ISP broke my server's connection once again
> :( )
> 
> --- Richard Moore <rich@ipso-facto.freeserve.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > - Status text
> > - Status Icons
> > - State Information
> 
> Sounds nice.
> 
> > - Document Info
> 
> I have been thinking about this myself, because I use
> MDI sometimes to save screen space (especially in
> Konsole), but don't like the fact that there aren't
> any taskbar entries for additional sessions. This way
> it would be possible to (optionally) have a task bar
> entry per _document_ instead of per _window_. Alt-tab
> to another Konsole session - I'd love it! (Must be
> configurable, others will probably hate me otherwise
> :-)

Yes that's just the sort of UI I have in mind.

> 
> > It would remove the need to depend on searching
> >   the title text for '[modified]' to check if the
> > modified
> >   indicator should be shown.
> 
> Isn't there already a flag for this somewhere in the
> NetWM specs or in Kicker's own taskbar API? I think
> I've seen something like that in the past, but I'm not
> sure.

The taskmanager API handles this, but at I said it works by
looking for [modified], it's not part of NET. It's actually
a little more complex in reality as it needs to support i18n
but that's basic mechanism used.

> 
> > - Request Attention
> 
> Definitely! KMail's icon should flash in the task bar
> when there's new mail, any other solution I tried in
> the current version is rather bad usability-wise, IMO.

You can change/flash the icon already, but there is no
API to make it easy to do.

> 
> > - Show message
> 
> Would be nice for instant messengers indeed, though I
> personally don't need this, I think.

It's also nice for things like firewall alerts,
displaying the subject of incoming mails, download
complete messages... I think you might find you'd
like to use it after all.

> 
> > - Thumbnail
> 
> I don't think it was you, but I talked about this on
> IRC before, because I wanted this implemented for the
> next KDE where the API could be changed (i.e. this
> version ;-) I think it was Carsten whom I told it.
> Anyway, I didn't have time to do it yet, nor do I
> expect to have it soon, so if you want to do it I'm
> **really** grateful to you! Also, expect me to test
> this extensively, and if I do find time I'll take a
> look at it, but no promises.

It should be pretty easy - you just draw the thumbnail
into a KSharedPixmap and publish its name. Not hard at
all. There's more work in the details of course (mainly
sorting out what size the thumbnail should be).

> 
> It would offer a lot over the current KasBar approach:
> - You can make a thumb of just the document instead of
> the entire window. Which is the only thing one usually
> cares about.

Personally, I prefer thumbnailing the whole window as I
think this is a better iconic representation of what the
task represents.

> - MDI apps can supply a thumb per doc instead of per
> win.

I agree that would be a big improvement.

> - It is faster than grabbing the image, because it
> should save quite some X-server roundtrips. Besides,
> if there is no activity in a window, the thumb isn't
> updated either.

I doubt it will be much quicker (except on slow remote
X links), but I agree that only updating the thumbnail
when needed would be nice. The main improvement in my
eyes is that it will give a complete thumbnail even if
the window is obscured which is not currently possible.

> 
> After the API is there I think the taskbar in normal
> and large size kicker should be changed to make really
> use of it by using the full height for apps that
> supply thumbs and no text, just a square button. It
> would be a really useful addition to task bars as we
> know them now, and AFAIK this is something no current
> OS does yet (or does MacOS X?)

I'm not at all sure what you mean I'm afraid. I won't
personally add this stuff to the standard taskbar as my
focus is on kasbar (though if Matthias Elter wants me
to I guess I could).

> 
> > Obviously it would be good to try to integrate this
> > code with
> > KNotify too, but that should be fairly easy as
> > KNotify could
> > simply use KTaskInfo too.
> 
> I don't know anything about KNotify...
> 
> > It would also be cool if
> > (at least
> > a subset) of these could be made part of the NET
> > specification
> > so that non-KDE apps/environments could share the
> > same abilities.
> 
> Definitely. Maybe even a must-have instead of a wish.

Definitely a wish - we can wrap all this inside a nice
API which will let us get the information correct, then
worry about defining the low-level ICCCM stuff afterwards
without breaking things. In addition, it takes too long to
agree standards and we need this to be in place before the
3.0 API is frozen.

> 
> > What do people think? Is this worth doing? Will
> > anyone help?
> 
> See above: I'm willing to help, but there is so much
> more that I want to do that I probably don't have the
> time now that I also work full-time. I don't want to
> cut on my social life... At least it's a definite
> "please do!" from me, to answer your first question.

Ok, I'm happy with "please do!". :-)

Rich.

> 
> Martijn
> 
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