'Re: Signals and slots for containment show and hide actions (mainly'

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List:       kde-panel-devel
Subject:    Re: Signals and slots for containment show and hide actions (mainly
From:       Emdek <emdeck () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-03-30 23:39:42
Message-ID: op.urmpcg17e84fud () michal
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> > - applet manages top level widget (for example to make menu button that
> > partially obscures window - yes, I know, this is hack, but I know also  
> > that
> > one of Plasma developers suggested this) and it should be hidden when  
> > panel
> > is hidden and shown when shown;
> 
> we manage to do this with the system tray just fine, and it's doing  
> exactly
> this sort of hack. that said, these sorts of hacks should not be  
> designed for.
> they are hacks, and not of the good sort. :)

Yes, hacks, especially dirty hacks, are bad thing, but in some cases they are \
needed... Currently personally I would need (as far as I know, maybe there is better \
                solution) top level widgets managed by plasmoid in three cases:
- in my Run Command plasmoid that uses KHistoryComboBox to make it work in panels \
                (I've created report about problems with them and others on \
                GraphicsView);
- in my task manager applet (MacOS X dock like) for icons moving outside panel in \
                zoom animation;
- I'm also thinking about working on next alternative menu, with this fancy button \
that moves outside panel (yes, I know, like in Vista, but many users love this... \
personally I don't like things that permanently obscures part of window).

And there is problem when panel hides, is it currently possible to do something with \
these widgets visibility when it occurs, without having kind of notification \
mechanism (I don't how exactly it is done in systray, but there it works)?

Anyway, I agree that this part of suggestion could be something that it is not \
required.

By the way, I was also thinking about possible use of constraints but forget to \
write. :-D It could be clearer to find what it does when it would be well documented \
(one sentence is often not enough if you first use new API). 

> > Additionally there could be added slots (or signals emitted by applet,  
> > so
> > only specialized containments could get and handle these request) to  
> > show
> > and hide containment (panel), for example showContainment and
> > hideContainment.
> 
> i'm ok with the concept of this, but the API should describe what the  
> widget
> needs, not what it results in because that's not something we can know  
> from
> inside the plasmoid.

I'm afraid that I'm better in suggesting than projecting API that must be good from \
start and be enough even some years later. ;-) But your example with widgets and \
containment is very interesting. One thing is clear (at least for me ;-)), that using \
applet's activate signal for unhiding autohidden panels should be separated from \
activation that comes from activation of applet's keyboard shortcut, because when you \
want also to use it to perform action (for example show menu or something) it will be \
triggered when trying to unhide panel (I saw this in Tasks applet and I can't use it \
my plasmoid, Fancy Tasks, because I'm using shortcut for displaying menu). I've more \
suggestions about current status of keyboard shortcuts for applets, but these should \
be discussed separately. ;-)

> > Hiding slot could be used to achieve manual hiding (click
> > on plasmoid that invokes this slot, unhiding done like in autohide),
> 
> forced hiding should probably be avoided, actually; but when needed then
> probably a call to Applet::releaseVisualFocus should reset the count to  
> zero
> (and all applets in the containment as well)... still, i think this  
> would make
> more sense as part of the View itself rather than part of the  
> containment.

I see this method as easiest possible way to reintroduce manual hiding of panel (lack \
of this is for me bigger problem that need of using Panel Spacer for applets \
positioning ;-)) by introducing simple plasmoid for triggering hiding. And I don't \
like autohiding, when everything moves to often (it would be useful for me for \
example only for hiding tasks list when I want to hide names of running apps when \
someone watches ;-)).

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