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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Kicker - panel extension management
From:       Eric E <whalesuit () softhome ! net>
Date:       2002-05-09 21:34:25
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Hi all,
	Continuing on the kicker theme, here's a nice long email:

	I was looking through the Panel menu that appears on on all the applet-handle 
arrows, and on the K Menu as "Configure Panel", and I got thinking about the 
panel extensions, and then more general problem of where you should go to 
configure panel elements.

Problems:
 The distinction between extension and applets seems impractical to me.  I 
guess technically, applets appear inside the panel, and extensions appear 
elsewhere on the screen, but calling on applets and the other extensions 
doesn't make this clear, nor does it make clear what each thing is and where 
it lives.

 Also, the Extensions tab currently does not allow you to add or remove 
extensions or applets, only do some configuration.

Right now, adding and removing panel elements happens pretty much exclusively 
through the Add and Remove submenus of the "Configure Panel" menu.  This 
presents two disadvantages:
	- it's not effective at telling you what exactly you have enabled
	- it's a little hard to find


My proposed changes:
_________________________________________________________________
1) Rename the Extension tab of kicker-kcm "Panel Elements".    
The Panel Elements tab should be the principal place to add and remove objects 
from the panel.  The tab should hold a list of available panel elements, and 
you can select the ones you want, either using checkboxes, as Aaron has done 
in the Menus tab of kicker-kcm.

The list element would have 4 rows:
Enabled      |   Name	  | Description   |   "Configure" button

Enabled is a check box
Name is the name of the applet
Description is longer and can be hidden
Configure button will bring up a little dialog for that applet configuring any 
applet-specific options.  The description could appear on this dialog as 
well, just for clarity

I'll try to make a mock-up in QT Designer, though I suspect this may be more 
fancy than designer can handle.

2) The Configure Panel menu
We could now rewrite the "Configure Panel" menu item
in two ways:
	+ Simple  - just launch the kicker control panel

We'd need to find homes for: 
	Help, Kicker version, KDE version and Report Bug 
	I'd propose putting Kicker version in kicker-kcm.
	Report Bug might disappear - reflecting the idea that perhaps total neophytes 
shouldn't really be reporting bugs.

	+  Advanced - make a hierarchy of menus corresponding to the layout of 
kicker-kcm.
	Also add Report Bug menu item, and perhaps a an entry for a combined dialog 
with kicker and kde versions

3) Adding buttons
This leaves one configuration task that the Add/Remove submenus address
how to add buttons to kicker.
	Presently you can add buttons in two ways:
	a) drag an item straight from the KMenu, desktop, or Konqueror (although some 
unexpected things happen here)
	b) KMenu-Configure Panel-> Add-> Button
	    KMenu-Configure Panel-> Add-> Special Button
I'm for keeping a) and dropping b), at least for the simple menu layout.

To replace b), put button configuration on the upper half of Elements tab, and 
call it a day.

Whew, well that's a mouthful.  Reponses, reactions?

EE
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