notmart wrote:I was looking at what would take to implement a dialog that puts directly an item in the context menu.
technically a disadvantage is that in order to put the item in the menu only in plasmoids that do have any alternative, i would have to do a sycoca query right at the moment the context menu gets opened, that may not be much good performance-wise..

Hm, true. Is it likely to cause noticeable delays? Then it might indeed not be such a good idea... Could there be a way to shorten the delay somehow?
The delay is a bit less of a problem if it happens when creating the Settings dialog, but depending on how long it is, it might also be a problem there.

as for the dialog, did you tough it more as a themed thing like the global widget explorer or more a normal window with system theme, titlebar etc?

I was thinking of something as similar to the global widget explorer as possible, so that users can transfer their knowledge from the widget explorer to it easily.

colomar wrote:

notmart wrote:I was looking at what would take to implement a dialog that puts directly an item in the context menu.
technically a disadvantage is that in order to put the item in the menu only in plasmoids that do have any alternative, i would have to do a sycoca query right at the moment the context menu gets opened, that may not be much good performance-wise..

Hm, true. Is it likely to cause noticeable delays? Then it might indeed not be such a good idea... Could there be a way to shorten the delay somehow?
The delay is a bit less of a problem if it happens when creating the Settings dialog, but depending on how long it is, it might also be a problem there.

I can try on a branch and see. I would think it would be fine on reasonably fast machines, it's a disk access every time a context menu is open never the less tough

I was thinking of something as similar to the global widget explorer as possible, so that users can transfer their knowledge from the widget explorer to it easily.

hmm, the interaction pattern is a bit different tough.
This is really a radiobutton-like pattern, there are n mutually exclusive one options, of which one is the "current", so you have to chose and confirm.
While the widget explorer is a list in which you just drag entries and drop to the desktop, none of which is the "current" and are not mutually exclusive.

notmart wrote:hmm, the interaction pattern is a bit different tough.
This is really a radiobutton-like pattern, there are n mutually exclusive one options, of which one is the "current", so you have to chose and confirm.
While the widget explorer is a list in which you just drag entries and drop to the desktop, none of which is the "current" and are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, you are right. I'd make the dialog more like e.g. "Choose an application launcher" then a list of launchers and a single click would choose, no need to click "Apply" first.

Btw, about the lost configuration: Why do we delete config files for removed Plasmoids anyway? Can't they be kept as long as the Plasmoid is installed on the system?

colomar wrote:

notmart wrote:hmm, the interaction pattern is a bit different tough.
This is really a radiobutton-like pattern, there are n mutually exclusive one options, of which one is the "current", so you have to chose and confirm.
While the widget explorer is a list in which you just drag entries and drop to the desktop, none of which is the "current" and are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, you are right. I'd make the dialog more like e.g. "Choose an application launcher" then a list of launchers and a single click would choose, no need to click "Apply" first.

Not sure, switching is quite heavy, dangerous since wipes the config and makes it different from everything else.

colomar wrote:Btw, about the lost configuration: Why do we delete config files for removed Plasmoids anyway? Can't they be kept as long as the Plasmoid is installed on the system?

because the structure of the layout is the configuration itself.
Note that the configuration is by the plasmoid instance, not global of the plasmoid, because two instances can be configured completely differently, so you have like

[Containments][2][Applets][4]
plugin=foo
[Containments][2][Applets][4][Configuration]
appletconfig=value

once the applet 4 is closed, everything under [Containments][2][Applets][4] is gone, forever. if you create another applet, will probably not be "4" anymore, ut a completely different entity

Why not add an 'undo' (and 'redo') feature, so the user can just test the new widget and click on 'undo' if he don't like it.
The undo button could be put into the 'hamburger menu'.

rumangerst wrote:Why not add an 'undo' (and 'redo') feature, so the user can just test the new widget and click on 'undo' if he don't like it.
The undo button could be put into the 'hamburger menu'.

that would require some kind of framework, but yeah, in the future i wouldn't mind to have some kind of undo for deleting applets deletion at least for some seconds (would just hide the applet without actually deleting for a while, and kill it after a timeout)

notmart wrote:

rumangerst wrote:Why not add an 'undo' (and 'redo') feature, so the user can just test the new widget and click on 'undo' if he don't like it.
The undo button could be put into the 'hamburger menu'.

that would require some kind of framework, but yeah, in the future i wouldn't mind to have some kind of undo for deleting applets deletion at least for some seconds (would just hide the applet without actually deleting for a while, and kill it after a timeout)

Yes, absolutely! My dream is still a "global undo" which lets you undo pretty much any action. I know that's far into the future (if ever possible), but any step towards that goal would be very welcome!

Okay, I understand the problem with the lost settings now, and that it's quite tricky.
We have to work out a design that prevents data loss while still keeping the process as easy as possible. We have to remember that this is whole feature is basically just a shortcut for something which has been possible before, just in a slightly cumbersome way. So this new "feature" has to make the action of replacing a Plasmoid with an alternative substantially less cumbersome in order to be effective.
That said, an "apply" button probably isn't so bad.

Okay then, what I think the dialog should have is:
- An instruction for what to do (like "Choose a clock" or "Choose an application launcher")
- A representation of the available alternatives with icon (or screenshot-thumbnail as soon as we have those), name and description
- Confirm and cancel buttons

For the visual representation, I'd like to see some input from the designers here. Any takers for mockups?

colomar wrote:Okay then, what I think the dialog should have is:
- An instruction for what to do (like "Choose a clock" or "Choose an application launcher")
- A representation of the available alternatives with icon (or screenshot-thumbnail as soon as we have those), name and description
- Confirm and cancel buttons

For the visual representation, I'd like to see some input from the designers here. Any takers for mockups?

Only thing, so in a separate window accessible directly from context menu? (just to know to put effort in that, since i realized wiring that up is quite tricky and is all afternoon that i'm trying to think how to do that)

notmart wrote:Only thing, so in a separate window accessible directly from context menu? (just to know to put effort in that, since i realized wiring that up is quite tricky and is all afternoon that i'm trying to think how to do that)

I see it as beneficial to have it in the context menu so that it's really easy to find. If you find that it's too difficult to implement or leads to considerable problems elsewhere, however, the settings dialog would still be a viable alternative. It would just mean we'd have to increase our marketing efforts to make sure as many users as possible learn about the feature.

was it possible to put the Widgets into the system settings. there all plasmoids can be shows seperated Ingo the different groups like weather, Applikation switchers and so on.

andreas_k wrote:was it possible to put the Widgets into the system settings. there all plasmoids can be shows seperated Ingo the different groups like weather, Applikation switchers and so on.

That would kind of defeat the purpose of the feature. It's meant for users to quickly swap out a Plasmoid when they decide they want a different one, not select all their Plasmoids in one place...

thanks for the fast answer. when i saw the New Videos Form plasma 5 I saw so much settings and I cant remember where i can change the settings. also at the KDE planet about digikam there are a lot oft people how don t like so much settings. and when i saw plasma 5 there are a lot of settings but on different places.

i like settings but not linke win 7 where you need a search.

I'm digging the filtered widget explorer idea. Great idea Saabhero! The nice thing about it I think is that It reuses the same presentation the user is already familiar with for selecting widgets.

alake wrote:I'm digging the filtered widget explorer idea. Great idea Saabhero! The nice thing about it I think is that It reuses the same presentation the user is already familiar with for selecting widgets.

As pointed out by Marco, we have to make clear that users cannot directly transfer their knowledge from the global Add Widgets UI to the alternative selection, because you add a widget via drag & drop, which wouldn't make much sense here because when selecting an alternative, its position remains the same as the original one.

Still, as said before, I agree that a similar presentation would make sense.

Still have to clean the code but that's how is appearing now:


the explorer-oid draws the items the same and appears as it was the popup of the applet (note that as in the old version, the commit button is necessary since for technical reasons as soon the applet is switched the instance of the window has to close and delete itself)