Plasma for KDE 4.1 is coming along nicely, probably it won’t have everything we wanted to but i think it’s an huge improvement already compared to 4.0.x series.
A feature i did for 4.1 is to make panels really easy to configure and make exactly how you want, even an insane layout like that:
The panel configuration dialog that was in 4.0.x was killed and replaced with that strange thing that appears when you click on the little panel toolbox that spots a wordprocessor-like ruler complete with paragraph alignment buttons:
This would seem quite complex, but it’s the most powerful way that catches the future development of the panel even beyond 4.2. Why?
in KDE 4.1 the panels will be able to automatically grow/shrink when you add and remove applets (in the future also applets like the task manager will be able to make the panel grow or shrink, that’s 4.2 stuff), so you could want to set where the panel starts, the direction where it grows and a maximum and minimum sizes that limits the growth/shrink of the panel. so it’s like a paragraph aligned to the left, center or right of the page, so here we go with the three paragraph alignment buttons 🙂
So if the panel can enlarge/shrink itself it’a also necessary to setmaximum and minimum boundaries beyond you don’t want the panel to resize (and the default will still be both maximum and minimum witdth to 100%) and here we have the three little ruler handles, that sets respectively:
white: panel position relative to the left, center or roght anchor point
blue: maximum panel size
green minimum size
Since a video is worth more than 1024 words here it is:
And since flash sucks here it is a bigger theora file.
Very nice! I can’t wait to get this functionality 🙂
The settings thingie is a bit confusing though. For example when you drag to resize the panel, you drag the panel above the panel. Maybe the “settings panel” which appears above the panel should stand out more from the panel?
I don’t really have much else to say but “Wow!” – the progress of Plasma is simply amazing. Kudos to all Plasma devs!
Wow-this is really cool. The approach to the resize dialog looks really neat. Can’t wait for 4.1 🙂 . I recently switched back to 3.5.9 (after having used kde 4.0 exclusively since the first release) because I couldnt live without the autohide feature of the panels – i mainly use a laptop and i prefer to have a large autohiding panel. Is there a chance this feature will make it to 4.1?
Keep up the good work!
“because I couldnt live without the autohide feature of the panels – i mainly use a laptop and i prefer to have a large autohiding panel. Is there a chance this feature will make it to 4.1?”
It’s on the 4.1 feature plan (as “panel hiding”)
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.1_Feature_Plan
but with it still not being marked as “In progress” and with the hard feature freeze coming up tomorrow, it might well end up being punted to 4.2 :/
This is definately my idea of freaking awesome sweetness, right there. I was so shocked when the panel got a dorky type-in-the-pixel-height resize dialog ala 1990s; this is much more like I imagined! I also am impressed by the foresight of the Plasma developers in making everything work without right-click; thinking of a touch screen world are we? IT’S SO AWESOME!!! I can’t wait for 4.2.
Really brilliant idea and nicely implemented! I think the looks could be improved on even further by drawing the handles all the way behind the panel, to the end of the screen; much like the applet handles. Again; cool!
That’s really great work. Somethin a lot of people have been waiting for.
But now as usual some leftover issues 😉
– If you don’t grab the little triangle at it’s ‘inner side’, it is impossible to drag it to the very edge of the screen – there will always remain a 2-3px wide space on the edge.
– There should be a small textlabel at the minimum/maximum triangle to make it easier to understand their function
– The same applies to the align left/centered/right buttons
Best regards,
Elias P.
how do i move applets on the panel ?
Good work, very cool stuff, better then every Configuration-Dialog 😉
Erm am I the only person who thinks this is horrible?
I dont mean to detract from your work or anything but even watching the videos I found it quite confusing. I also hate the idea of an automagicaly resizing panel, if I set my panel to a certain size I dont really want some program launching and decide what size I should have it, it should be the other way round it should resize to fit into my panel.
Another thing I think may be being overlooked is that desktop users configure their panels once, then they use it, as long as it makes sense (which I dont think having 3 random triangles does), they will only see it once no matter how ugly it is.
sorry if this seams harsh im sure technically the resizing is an amazing feature but to an end user the new controls seam confusing and cumbersome
Will it be possible with 4.1/4.2/… to have no panel at all?
I’m using a small subnotebook-display, too, and thus screen space is extremly valuable.
The “show dashboard” feature (or whatever it is called exactly) is real cool.
now the people can stop think that plasma ir more than just a copy of osX widgets o a clock with the big problem that make kde4 suck(cause the taskbar cant be changed size).
very good job.
“Enlarge your panel” ? Hu, at first sight, I thought this was a spam in my RSS reader 😉
well, it looks nice, really, but the only thing I don’t like is this cashew everywhere :-/. When I want a really small panel, say like your clock in the screenshot, it’s just ugly… where is my beauty !?
Good job! Keep up the good work!
I saw that in trunk a week ago (or at least the beginnings of it), and, now that I see how it’s supposed to work, I’m impressed!
Problem is, until I saw this video, I had no idea how it was supposed to work.
I looks like it should work fine (my install is broken, X starts but KDE4 doesn’t, so I’m recompiling), but doesn’t appear intuitive at all. I don’t have any ideas right now, but there’s got to be a way so that a total n00b can click the cashew and have a good understanding of how everything’s going to work.
To get back on the positive, it’s come leaps and bounds from 4.0.x! I love where KDE is headed.
Please consider giving us the ability to change the color of the panel.
Please!
@jc: “Please consider giving us the ability to change the color of the panel. “
switch your Plasma theme. if you use the Aya theme, it will also follow your desktop colours.
@jeff: “a total n00b can click the cashew and have a good understanding of how everything’s going to work.”
yes, we’re working on the discoverability still. i have some ideas for this, but want to get the functionality working flawlessly first before moving to polishing the ui details.
@Stefan Sarzio: “Will it be possible with 4.1/4.2/… to have no panel at all?”
yes; in fact, if you look at the second screenshot you’ll see the “remove this panel” button right there =)
@rioting pacifist: “I also hate the idea of an automagicaly resizing panel”
so you just set the two triangles to be the same. then no resizing. we designed this with all the use cases in mind; in fact, we started by enumerating them all and then designing something to meet them all gracefully. your use case was one of the ones we listed. =)
“Another thing I think may be being overlooked is that desktop users configure their panels once, then they use it, as long as it makes sense (which I dont think having 3 random triangles does), they will only see it once no matter how ugly it is.”
so ugly is ok because it’s only seens occassionally? nah. moreover, you’ll notice that it’s also used to give access to helpful action like “remove this panel” and “add widgets”. it will also be how you get at applet move handles. people will use this interface semi-regularly.
@eliasp: agreed, there are a number of small issues to tidy up. we’ll be working on them between now and release. another one is the positioning of the alignment buttons, or snap-to zones at common targets (e.g. center of the screen)
@Christian Hansen: “i mainly use a laptop and i prefer to have a large autohiding panel. Is there a chance this feature will make it to 4.1?”
i’ll be committing the starts of this tomorrow so i can finish it up for 4.1. it’ll be pretty basic (autohide only, no manual hide) but it’ll work =)
@Erien: “Maybe the “settings panel” which appears above the panel should stand out more from the panel?”
i was saying this just today, actually =) it’s an artwork issue; i fear that the development of plasma is moving faster than the artwork. =/ something for the 4.2 cycle.
well, most of them were answered in a perfect way by Aaron, btw 🙂
@Christian Hansen: well, actually i’ve seen that mostly working at tokamak, pushed back by the architectural changes like many things, but hope it can make it in time 🙂
@eliasp: now handles have tooltips and is possible to move them with the mousewheel, so it partly addesses this, but yeah, still needs more work 🙂
@chris, dragging: this is probably for 4.2 unfortunately. probably dragging will be enabled when the configuration thing is open
@rioting-pacifist: well, the default in fact will be a fixed 100%size and is pretty easy to have the two handles pointing exactly to the same size (one drags the other)
@DanaKil: maybe hiding panel cashews when everything is blocked, don’t know, there is still room for discussion (and i think it needs time to test it with broad usage for a bit)
@jeff:now there are tooltips on the handles, probably it needs some explanatory text somewhere, there is room for impreovement, don’t really know how making it more intuitive without looking cluttered
Very nice work, but I would panic when I got a panel above my existing panel and would be quick to hit the “remove this panel” button to go back to only having one panel again.
Is it possible to downsize taskbar items by now? I’d like to have small items at all like kicker had, so they dont use the whole taskbar heigth.
Good work.
Hi,
I would highly recommend to have a third button for position & size. So if you click on this button all arrows for changing position and size are shown. So IMHO it looks more cleared.
cu
Stephan
Good work, I’m quite impressed.
The triangle-based sizers seem confusing, though. I would dare to suggest a more direct dragger to visualize the “panel resize” control without an intermediate abstraction. I’ve scratched a mock-up that illustrates this concept (minus my ugly slash&paste):
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/451/panelcontrollereq6.png
Good work, I’m quite impressed.
The triangle-based sizers seem confusing, though. I would dare to suggest a more direct dragger to visualize the “panel resize” control without an intermediate abstraction. I’ve scratched a mock-up that illustrates this concept (minus my ugly slash&paste):
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/451/panelcontrollereq6.png
Sorry, I posted the link to your screenshot. Here is the correct link to my mockup:
http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plasmapanelnw8.png
Any change for “run command” applet working with panel?
How to move applets inside a panel!? , as all applets go to extreme right when I add them.
I am impressed. This is a creative and well-thought-out approach to an old problem. I do, however, miss the integrated ability to theme your panel by color, texture, and transparency, apart from the rest of your theme.
Good Luck, and Good Work!!
dialog that was in 4.0.x was killed and replaced with that strange thing that appears when you click on the little panel toolbox that spots a wordprocessor-like ruler complete
laptop battery wholesale