'Re: Review Request: Multiple action support for KRunner'

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List:       kde-panel-devel
Subject:    Re: Review Request: Multiple action support for KRunner
From:       "Ryan Bitanga" <ryan.bitanga () gmail ! com>
Date:       2008-11-03 11:39:51
Message-ID: 20081103113951.21701.97873 () vidsolbach ! de
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This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
http://reviewboard.vidsolbach.de/r/178/
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(Updated 2008-11-03 03:39:51.296708)

Review request for Plasma.

Summary
-------

This introduces multiple action (or noun-verb) support for runners. Each QueryMatch \
(the noun) can now have multiple actions associated with it.

Actions are QueryActions which inherit QAction. I intend to extend QueryAction to \
support mimetypes and more functionality. If QueryActions have associated mimetypes, \
the runner can intelligently select which of the available actions to add to the \
match.

Another possibility would be to add object support to an action. For example, a match \
returned by the Desktop Search runner could have the action "Copy to...". The object \
of the action would be a directory. I'm still looking for ways to implement this. One \
way would be to have a set of core runners designated as object providers (e.g. \
Places, Contacts) and run a secondary query on a specific runner.

Because QueryActions are GUI objects, they need to live in the GUI thread. That means \
that QueryActions must be created outside of the match method, preferably at the time \
of runner construction. After creation, QueryActions must be registered with \
QueryActionPool, the global action registry. This allows QueryActions to only be \
created once during the lifetime of a runner. This also allows runners to add actions \
that belong to different runners. However, correct execution of the action is left up \
to the runner in the exec method. I'll provide an example of how to do this soon.

Multiple action support is optional. Runners that do not create actions will continue \
to function just as they did prior to the introduction of multiple action support.

An example implementation with multiple action support is the amarok-based \
mediaplayer runner currently in playground. To access the actions, right click on the \
icon and select the desired action. Note, the temporary solution triggers the action \
upon selection the action in the context menu. Pressing enter or clicking on the icon \
will cause the action to be performed again.

QueryAction exists to allow us to determine if a particular action requires a target \
or not. We can't do this with plain QActions because there is no guarantee that the \
action will be triggered. Having our own QAction derivative allows us to have the \
interface have a way to determine if the action requires a target or not and take the \
appropriate action. For example if the action needs a directory, the interface can \
query a specified set of runners for matches and provide these to the user. Runners \
are not aware of the existence of the interface so there is no currently no clear way \
for a runner to signify that a particular action requires a target. There is no code \
as of yet that implements this since how this is going to be handled needs to be \
discussed more thoroughly first. If ever support for actions with objects is not \
included, QActions would suffice. However, this makes it more difficult to have a \
compatible path for the introduction of new features in the future.

Diffs
-----

  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/CMakeLists.txt
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/abstractrunner.h
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/abstractrunner.cpp
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/includes/QueryAction
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/queryaction.h
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/queryaction.cpp
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/querymatch.h
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/querymatch.cpp
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/runnermanager.h
  /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/libs/plasma/runnermanager.cpp

Diff: http://reviewboard.vidsolbach.de/r/178/diff

Testing
-------

Thanks,

Ryan

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