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The User wrote:When it is incompatible - use a fallback. Display it the normal way or do not allow to place the plasmoid.

That is going to result in a lot of unexpected and unpredictable behavior. What should be the fallback? How are people going to know what will result in a fallback and what the fallback will be? Giving an option that only actually does something a small fraction of the time is just begging for trouble.

The User wrote:A sidebar-containment would be very redumdant, there are only two differences: The default view-mode and the layouting. Make it possible to change layouts and view-modes and you will get even more possibilities without having to write redumdant code and to add yet another containment.

By that logic we wouldn't have the folderview containment or the newpaper containment. The whole point of plasma is that we can have multiple containments for specialized tasks.

There is a panel-mini-version and a desktop-version. The fallback is one of the implemented versions.

There are features which are applicable in many situations and there are very special features. It is maybe a bit easier but also more boring to implement such a special feature like this side-bar-containment.

Voted up. Although I might consider this to be a "dock" as opposed to a panel. A panel is good for shortcuts and running tasks, whereas a dock can display larger, full sized widgets. Calling it a sidebar just simply implies you couldn't mount one on top or bottom either, and I have to say, this could make a nifty new way of managing stuff.

On a slightly different note, could this be combined with my Window-Dock container?

brainstorm.php#idea86504

Minor adjustment would be that windows, and not just full-sized plasmoids could be docked on this new dock/sidebar.

@TheBlackCat

The only thing I can think of would be future features that might farther vary the different panel-types as they evolve, and low-level behaviors.

I'm goanna make a bunch of things off the top of my head that a sidebar might do as it evolved, to differentiate it from a "desirable" panel.

- Plasma themes might make sidebars much more transparent and less flashy (as they do cover more real-estate).
- They might have a more refined "grid" system for positioning elements in the dock. Or even no grid system with elements free-floating on only 1 axis.
- Users might want to theme them separately from regular docks (as allowed by custom themes anyway, not a new feature, just hashing an old one)
- Sidebars might have permanent buttons with more window-like behavior; Minimize, resize, (Mass Increase/decrease transparency?), above/below, etc.
- Sidebars might follow the Z-index "flow" of more traditional windows, than docks.
- Sidebars might not impact things like icons on desktop-mode installations.
- Might be easily rigged to show/hide on keystrokes


I'm sure there's about 100 things I'm missing, and sidebars are the kind of things that useful ides might pop up only after we start using them. Being said, I sort of imagine a sidebar with more "persistent" but manual functionality. Acting more like a window full of plasmoids attached to the side of the screen, than a bar.

Just my ideas. But I picture a sidebar diverging significantly away from standard docks over time with functionality we don't expect.

"They might have a more refined "grid" system for positioning elements in the dock. Or even no grid system with elements free-floating on only 1 axis."
A layouting-system would make sidebars obsolete.