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I was recently discussing an idea with furanku in a different thread, and I came up with another idea that I thought I'd share in a separate thread.

A lot of plasmoids in KDE4 are made for certain features, and they do their function. However, a lot of time these plasmoids are completely unnecessary, and so they should hide and free up the space.

As an example, here are three plasmoids that are sitting in my panel and are doing nothing at all other than being pretty and taking up my taskbar real estate: battery monitor, device notifier and the wireless meter.

I keep them in the taskbar for obvious reason: when I'm unplugged, I need to know how much battery I have left, when I plug in a flash drive, I need to easily open it, and when I'm on wireless, I like to see how good the link is.

The problem is, though, that as I'm sitting here right now, I don't need any of those. The battery is charged, the device notifier is empty, and my wireless radio is shut off. And since I like my taskbar two rows high, these plasmoids are pretty big - about 160 pixels - which is about 1/10 of my taskbar!

So my idea is to have a function call that a plasmoid could use to let plasma know that it is useless right now can be hidden. If it is in a containment that is of limited space, like the taskbar, plasma would hide it until it is needed again.

So, for example if my laptop is plugged and fully charged, the battery monitor would disappear. As soon as I unplug it, though, it reappears.

Of course, if you want to (re)move it a plasmoid, it the hidden ones would appear whenever you open the widgets dialog.

+1
I don't like to see a black plasmoid on my desktop if i'm not listening to a song with amarok or an empty device notifier.

I solved that problem by having a smaller, autohiding pannel at the top of the screen with these plasmoids. It contains an activity bar, the devices, network and battery plasmoids, a clock and the lock/logout buttons. They are pretty much invisible all the time except when I move the mouse to that part of the screen. I just wonder why this is not the default as it make things so much cleaner.

The issue is, what if you want to access the plasmoid? For instance the battery plasmoid is used to change power management profiles, the device notifier is (or will be) used to open devices in a particular program. I think if a plasmoid has no user interaction in any way it is probably a design flaw, even the clocks pop open a calendar when clicked. So there has to be some way to get the hidden plasmoids back when you need them.

TheBlackCat wrote:The issue is, what if you want to access the plasmoid? For instance the battery plasmoid is used to change power management profiles, the device notifier is (or will be) used to open devices in a particular program. I think if a plasmoid has no user interaction in any way it is probably a design flaw, even the clocks pop open a calendar when clicked. So there has to be some way to get the hidden plasmoids back when you need them.

That's true, I guess the battery monitor does have its use, but generally, you don't need to change profiles when plugged in (unless you're doing a lot of presentations). So I guess in case of the battery plasmoid you'd want it to be configurable.

This could be solved with the new system tray system, I guess. When you're on AC power, the battery plasmoid could simply be set to "passive" (see link).

EDIT: Although this wouldn't solve the "useless plasmoids on the desktop" (see Howl's examples) problem.

Hans wrote:This could be solved with the new system tray system, I guess. When you're on AC power, the battery plasmoid could simply be set to "passive" (see link).

EDIT: Although this wouldn't solve the "useless plasmoids on the desktop" (see Howl's examples) problem.

Thanks, that was interesting, but are you saying it will be possible to stick plasmoids into the system tray?

Alec wrote:Thanks, that was interesting, but are you saying it will be possible to stick plasmoids into the system tray?

Not sure, but that's the impression I get from the comments here. I think the notifier (the icon that appears when you copy files etc.) is one of those "new" system tray icons.

Hans wrote:

Alec wrote:Thanks, that was interesting, but are you saying it will be possible to stick plasmoids into the system tray?

Not sure, but that's the impression I get from the comments here. I think the notifier (the icon that appears when you copy files etc.) is one of those "new" system tray icons.

That was from way back before KDE 4.2 was even released...

Anyway, if it was possible to drop plasmoids into the system tray, that would be pretty nice, but with my idea things be more flexible, especially since not all plasmoids would look good as a 16x16 icon.

TheBlackCat wrote:The issue is, what if you want to access the plasmoid? For instance the battery plasmoid is used to change power management profiles, the device notifier is (or will be) used to open devices in a particular program. I think if a plasmoid has no user interaction in any way it is probably a design flaw, even the clocks pop open a calendar when clicked. So there has to be some way to get the hidden plasmoids back when you need them.

But plasmoids include things like cartoon viewers and weather applets. Many of these have little or no user interaction once configured.

Basically I think the problem is that something like a battery/power monitor belongs in a systray rather than being an independent plasmoid.

I don't typically need to change power saving features unless I'm running on battery - so I may only want the power monitor to be visible at this time (or when I'm charging). Another example is printing. A job viewer is only interesting if I'm actually doing some printing. Network monitor - I don't need it if there is no network (as unlikely as that might feel). And all of these would typically provide access to a system settings panel. I.e. systray or some similar concept. Hey, Mac even puts things like the battery and wireless network status in the menu bar rather than the dock.

1) Better way is create new plasmoid container. User might add it and put plasmoid inside. It don't fully hide. Bar with name of container should always be visible.

2) Other way is create shuffle for plasmoids like in GNOME.

3) Plasmoids on plasma will change transparency/opaque level. When mouse hover on it, they should change trasnparency level to 0.

Why can't this be done by just adding a new activity or even to use activity per desktop option.

For me (dual-head * 4 desktops) it makes ~space of 2560*4060px. More than I would ever need, so I even have to duplicate plasmoids to fill the space. If idea about "filtering" desktops gets implemented, You could have as many sets as you want showing only lets say 3.

Another point, is that if plasmid hides, space gets unused. To do the same, as Lachu says, plasmoids could have a inactive state and get e.g. 80% transparency

How about implement self-hiding plasmoid for KF5 plasma-framework ;P

what about just using quicklaunch with the popup option and click the popup when access to those plasmoids are needed - not self-hiding but saves space and is easily accessible

lesliezhai wrote:How about implement self-hiding plasmoid for KF5 plasma-framework ;P

hello KDE developers,

I have implemented self-hiding plasmoid for KF5 https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/126297/ https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/126298/
please give me some support, thanks a lot

Regards,
Leslie Zhai