-7

do you know the kde feature to switch desktops thru screen edges ? if no then check it out (right click on a window caption - configure - advanced - active borders). well lets take this thing forward

lets let the user set specific areas on the screen edges that gonna act like hotspots. they react to the mouse when it goes thru them along the screen edge or when the mouse hits a screen edge inside a hot spot

and lets add some filtering - we dont want them to react to just any random mouse move that touched them (this is the big ouch with the current active brders feature btw)



there is a desktop with few hot spots. one of them (left) unhides a plasma panel. it works exactly like it works now (actually there is no need to redo that part of plasma)

one (on the top) reacts in various ways to the mouse pointer. it reacts only when a mouse makes a Z or _/_ shape in its area. other mouse moves (black) that are likely to be accidental are ignored

4 (on the right) switch desktops

another option to use them is interlinking. special sequences can start special features. when a mouse just goes thru all in a row its considered a random move and ignored. this can be done with desktop switching (you switch desktops few times when completing the special sequence) or with another hotspots

hotspots can be over the panels too if they are filtered to not react to just mouse moves / interaction with the panel



the hotspots can act as teleports to drag stuff - between desktops and applications and activities



the hotspots can 'paint' an item dragged thru them with a task. for example if you drop a file it asks you if you meant to move or copy. but if you drag it thru the hotspot on the way then it just knows. a tooltip appears under the hotspot to show what is done



plasmoids can be assigned to hotspots. depending on how you come (just mouse / dragging a text selection / dragging a file (what file ?) etc) and from where you come (from right / from left / etc) a plasmoid with menu of drop targets or 'paint assign' items appears and shows options

pros:
powerful

cons:
too complicated
not intuitive
not versatile - only 4 desktops
(IMO) not very useful

The simple fact that you cannot disable switching desktop with the mouse wheel is driving me nuts so... I don't like your idea, sorry: too much for my poor fingers on that small touchpad.
BUT, I think someone could find something like this useful: Seeing my nephew playing those games in which you need to press 20 keys at the same time while using the mouse with your left foot shows me that you can always find a user case
But I agree with ivan: too complicated.

I do not think this feature is something too complicated for the user - there already is "screen edges" configuration widget for activating desktop effects in this way, so being able to assign other types of actions (not only particular effect) for desktop edges might be even more useful.

this can be suited to any user and be customized by any user. the functionality i give is example how some user can configure this and not how it is by default

please consider this before bumping down the whole suggestion