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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Change in kicker behavior: Bug or feature
From:       Dan Bullok <dan.kde () bullok ! com>
Date:       2004-10-15 5:21:06
Message-ID: 200410150021.07031.dan.kde () bullok ! com
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On Thursday 14 October 2004 17:19, Aaron Seigo spake unto us thusly:
> On October 14, 2004 15:22, Frank Schmitt wrote:
> > I reported this as a bug in late august
> > (http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88264) but didn't get any
> > response, so I'm asking here: Does anybody know if this was changed by
> > intention?
>
> not that i know of.
The application buttons were changed to be non-square above a certain size 
in order to fix this bug:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79850  

When I fixed this bug, I originally implemented a couple of control panel 
settings.  One enabled non-square buttons, and the other set the threshold 
size for non-square buttons. The original patch is here: 
http://bugs.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=6020&action=view

I ran this by John Firebaugh, who said
'I don't want to add any UI for this feature; decent defaults should be 
plenty. I envision something like: square buttons until reaching "Large" 
size, then they become rectangular.'

So I left them out of the commit.

>
> > I've got a dirty hack over here which gives me the result I want, so if
> > KDE developers say it was changed by intention, I have to live with
> > recompiling kdebase and can close the bug. If it wasn't I think an easy
> > solution to solve the problem would be adding a new option to the
> > taskbar configuration dialog saying "Allow multiple rows in taskbar"
> > and looking up the value when the number of rows is calculated.
>
> oh god, not another taskbar option. especially not one this trivial which
> is actually working around a problem somewhere else (the icon sizes in
> the panel)
>
> how about a patch that fixes the real problem, which is that the icons
> are too small? =)

Because they were ridiculously large before and that's a problem too; they 
wasted lots of space.  See the bug reports for 88264 and 42278 for an 
explaination of why that's bad (at least for certain users).  That's why it 
was changed.

I can understand someone wanting square, really big buttons.  If that's what 
you like, then the new way is broken for you.  But the old way was broken 
for me, and at least a few others.  In my opinion, these are both valid 
wishes; it's just a question of how many people like it each way. At the 
same time, we need to try to keep the control center uncluttered.  If John 
or whoever is in charge of kicker give the go-ahead, I'll happily commit 
the control center gizmos, and everyone will be happy (except control 
center minimalists).  As I understand string-freeze rules, any control 
center changes would have to wait until 3.4, right?

I've gotten three thank-yous and one complaint since I committed the fix 
(also called a bug by others).  That's not a statistically significant 
sample for several reasons.  I'd be happy to hear opinions, but I'm not in 
charge of kicker, John is.  But I'm sure he'll listen to user feedback.  
Now's your chance to be counted.  What do you think: always square (old 
way), sometimes square (new way), or both (cluttered UI)?

-Dan
 
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