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List:       kde-panel-devel
Subject:    [Panel-devel] Tasks applet and the panel
From:       "Robert Knight" <robertknight () gmail ! com>
Date:       2007-08-05 23:16:09
Message-ID: 13ed09c00708051616w10448570s74e2160bd78c7d7a () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hello,

I have been doing some UI research on the task bar and started
prototyping.  The current 'tasks' applet is in
playground/base/plasma/applets.

Right now it can:
   - Be used to switch between windows, and minimize or restore windows
   - Update the task representations when windows are created or
removed or if their properties change in any way
   -  Re-arrange task representations using drag and drop*
   -  Group tasks using drag and drop*

The last two points are not found in Kicker's task bar and they
represent the main 'new' idea I am looking into.  Notes can be found
in the GROUPING and README files in the source directory for the tasks
applet.

The goal being to allow users to manage their increasingly large
number of open windows more easily by grouping related windows
together so that they can be operated on as one.  Lubos recommended
that most of the work for that last bullet point is best done in the
window manager, so that is being discussed on the KWin mailing list.
For those interested in discussing the concepts, it is best done
there.

The applet currently uses only a single row for the task
representations, as this allows all of them to be reached by throwing
the mouse to the bottom of the screen and in effect makes the target
area for all representations larger.  It also allows the use of larger
icons which makes the taskbar prettier to look at and identifying the
location of a particular task is quicker to do.  The downside is that
fitting in icons and captions for more than about 10 un-grouped
windows becomes more difficult.  There are various suggested
strategies that I have found, such as shrinking task representations
on a least-recently-used first basis.  At this stage I am not sure
what works best and will have to experiment.

In order to actually use the applet properly a place to put it in is
required.  So, in priority order:

- The panel view at the bottom of the screen
- Logic to lay out and manage the size of applets in the panel.
- Some way to specify a default layout for a panel

Matt sent me a quick test for a panel which creates a new
QGraphicsView, a new Corona and sets it as a panel docker at the
bottom of the screen.  That works and it could be tweaked a little and
put in svn as a temporary solution, although I understand that the
plan is to put the applets somewhere on the same Corona as the desktop
but outside of the space displayed in the desktop view.

The next question I have is about how inter-applet layout and moving
applets around the panel should work?  The main thing required is to
get the tasks applet to fill the height of the panel (assuming it is a
panel at the bottom of the screen) and to give the tasks applet the
space it needs until it reaches a maximum allowable size.

Regards,
Robert.
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