> On 2010-08-23 09:00:48, Marco Martin wrote: > > this very patch appeared here for several times already. > > and as usual, the question is: what real value gives over auto hiding the > > text when there is not enough space? > > Markus Slopianka wrote: > If this patch works with the other one that implements launcher support, > a Mac OS X-like Dock (AFAIK it's similar in Win7) can be implemented without > the need to get 3rd party widgets. > With a Dock-like setup I wouldn't want text other than tooltips. > > Beat Wolf wrote: > i would actually agree on adding it from the feedback i get when i show > kde to people used to windows. it's one of the first things they ask for. > > Aaron Seigo wrote: > the number of such features that have appeared over the years is immense, > and always people ask for those features ... as long as they are new in > Windows. there is no point in chasing taillights just to chase taillights. if > the idea is a good one, let's do it; if it isn't, let's not. > > Beat Wolf wrote: > sure. i was just mentioning it because i for myself think its a good idea > and other people want it, so from my point of view if the patch has a good > quality, and it's actually using a feature that is there anyway, why not have > it. > But i see the other point of views too and all have their merit i think. > > Todd wrote: > I think that the question is not so much a question of why we shouldn't > have titles in the task manager, the question is why we need them. With > grouping and the ability in 4.5 to change between grouped windows by clicking > on their thumbnail, at least for me titles are just wasted space. I > understand that for people without compositing they are needed, and some > people may still prefer them, but personally they don't contribute anything, > and they are huge relative to just the icons. > > I agree that the the current configuration interface for the task manager > is getting a bit crowded. However, there is a way to add the feature without > increasing the complexity of the dialog. Currently there are three grouping > options: "Do not group", "Manually", and "By Program Name". There is also an > checkox "Only when taskbar is full". The problem is that this option is only > meaningful in "By Program Name" mode, and in fact the checkbox is disabled > when the other two modes. So I would suggest getting rid of the checkbox and > adding a fourth option in the dropdown "When taskbar is full", or something > along those lines. > > Also, since plasma supports multiple categories in the configuration > dialog, it may be worthwhile splitting the current options into categories. > > Marco Martin wrote: > > With grouping and the ability in 4.5 to change between grouped windows > by clicking on their thumbnail, at least for me titles are just wasted space. > > well, i think in this case is really fake "wasted space" because i would > agree if the text would let to have less icons in the taskbar. > but since when there is not enough room the text gets disabled > automatically, this is a no issue. > without that i really don't see use cases except making it look like > windows > > Todd wrote: > It isn't fake wasted space, there is still a bunch of text on there that > fills up the area while contributing nothing to me. I don't think it looks > good. This has nothing whatsoever to do with making it look like windows, I > couldn't care less what windows does. It has to do with not making it look > cluttered and inelegant. > > The text also contributes to the resizing of the panel, making the panel > much larger than it has to be. I could, of course, force the panel to be > small, but that works against me when I do have a lot of open windows, since > it drastically limits the number of windows I can work with easily. > > Further, when the text is removed the tasks still expand to fill the > available space, which looks really bad in my opinion. It makes sense when > you want to show the text is hidden, but not when you don't want to deal with > the text at all. > > Aaron Seigo wrote: > "contributing nothing to me" > > * a larger target (Fitt's "Law") > * disambiguation from other similar items > > that may not matter to you, and i fully grant that. it matters to others, > and we (the maintainers of this item) do not see enough value in option to > turn the items into icons-only to include it in the tasks plasmoid directly. > > i have, however, already described a way that you (and whomever else) can > accomplish your goals. we aren't exclusive, plasma has been designed to allow > differences of opinion, differences of goals. others have taken advantage of > this with stasks, fancytasks, etc. you can do the same without having to > convince anyone or ask anyone's permission. so instead of continuing this > conversation which is going to lead nowhere other than to find out what we > already know (namely: we disagree on this matter), let's get back to hacking. > as soon as your window listing plasmoid is ready (you can develop it in > playground until then), we can move it into kdereview and then move it on > into the appropriate module. cheers ...
Answering on a mail of Aaron over plasma-devel... > On Monday, August 23, 2010, Björn Ruberg wrote: > > > this very patch appeared here for several times already. > > > and as usual, the question is: what real value gives over auto hiding > > > the text when there is not enough space? > > > > It makes grouping - what increases the amount of clicks you need to get > > to your application by one - unnecessary. > > or you could turn grouping off. No, I could not. If I would do that by still having labels, the taskbar gets awfully crowded very soon. That is not only looking silly - it pushes me cleaning up my applications regularly just because I can't stand this crowded taskbar. And that happens even with grouping activated too. > > You can usually see what > > applications are running because you have to look at some icons only > > instead of having to look at the whole panel width. > > which some will be happy with, but certainly doesn't help me with my four > kontact windows, three konsole windows and two firefox windows. :) Well, for me the labels don't help either. If I'm forced to actually read the labels to find my app, I'm actually not much faster then I'm when I try them all out. And I'm not a slow reader. Maybe we are just different in how fast we can get the content of such a label. For me, that happens so slow that they are not helping me with my workflow. > > The later often needs > > eye movements (depends on your screen). It's much more appealing to have > > just an icon instead of a task- item with a much shortened window title > > in it. > > yes, it's mostly aesthetic. which isn't a bad thing in-and-of-itself. but > in this case it means requiring another option in the default user > interface, and this dialog is already fairly full. i'd rather reserve > future additions to it for actually useful things. No - it's not only astethic, it's ergonomic! I can find my apps much faster when they are centered in an area about five to ten centimeters. With icon- only they are. I can move my eyes and the mouse in one area of the screen and be sure to find my app. But with labels it's much more complicated. On a big screen I would have to move eyes up until three times until I have scanned all apps. And don't tell me, that I may make the taskbar smaller. Having ten apps smashed together on too little space having the label shortened to five tokens - that looks simply wrong. The problem is much more there on small screens with 1024 pixels of width. There you have perhaps 700 pixels for the taskbar - and it get's full with just four applications opened. I had a use case where I wished an "icon-only" mode even more. I had the panel vertically for several month (it's good for widescreens). But I had much trouble with the labels. If I configured the width I wanted the panel to have, the labels beside the icons were broken in three (!) lines. That looked awfull. I had to make the panel much wider than I wanted just for having it reduced to one or two lines - and that stole much valuable screen space. Making the panel that small that there are only icons displayed is no option either - I had other widgets in the panel that needed some width. > for more dock-like behaviour, i completely agree with Martin G.: use a > different widget. Just to make sure again: This is not dock - and I don't want a dock. I just want this damn labels away. I am supporting Todd in this - for me the labels are mostly noise - wasted screen space.( I don't use Windows by the way) It may very well be that you are not feeling like this but I think the vote-count and people discussing here show that some people do. For them this "Show icon only" option is of value. But as I read Aarons last post as "last word" I will fork the tasks applet, add the option, place it on playground and advertise it to all those people that want to have this feature. - Björn ----------------------------------------------------------- This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: http://svn.reviewboard.kde.org/r/5078/#review7162 ----------------------------------------------------------- On 2010-08-22 13:52:33, Björn Ruberg wrote: > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: > http://svn.reviewboard.kde.org/r/5078/ > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > (Updated 2010-08-22 13:52:33) > > > Review request for Plasma. > > > Summary > ------- > > This patch adds the option to put the taskbar in an icon-only mode - similar > as in Windows 7 . This is an much requested feature in bugzilla. > It is fairly simple and just using features already existing in the code, > adding an m_showIconOnly member to the layout and the abstractitem plus the > adaption of the config ui. > > > This addresses bug 159480. > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159480 > > > Diffs > ----- > > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/tasksConfig.ui > 1166313 > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/tasks.cpp 1166313 > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/taskitemlayout.h > 1166313 > > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/taskitemlayout.cpp > 1166313 > > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/abstracttaskitem.h > 1166313 > > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/abstracttaskitem.cpp > 1166313 > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/taskgroupitem.h > 1166313 > /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/desktop/applets/tasks/taskgroupitem.cpp > 1166313 > > Diff: http://svn.reviewboard.kde.org/r/5078/diff > > > Testing > ------- > > Moved panel around and made sure it works. Looks actually pretty good this > icon-only mode! > > > Thanks, > > Björn > >
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