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Handling widgets in task bars are such a pain. For example, for moving a plasmoid, we have to click on the plasmabutton thing on the right, then a panel appears, and we can move widgets.

Now, let's examine WinVista. Moving a widget in the right widget panel is so easy : You click on the widget, and place it where you want, that's all !

Ok, this might be impossible with KDE plasmoids : Kickoff, systray needs the left button, but when you click & drag one of these plasmoids, it acts like a left click. It might be possible to change this behaviour into a moving widget behaviour

Clicking on the toolbox in the panel unlocks the toolbar widgets. Having a widget move a little on my desktop isn't really a problem, but I do not want them to be accidentally moved on the panel. There is no way that I can see of having them unlocked, as you propose, yet not movable by accident.

I don't understand your comments about smooth animation, either. I see the widget while I move it and I see where I'm moving it to. I can't imagine what it is that you want more than that. Can you elaborate?

About moving widgets by accident in the panel, we already have the lock/unlock widgets feature. I think that plasmabutton should only be used for configuring toolbars, not lock/unlock widgets in the taskbar.

With the new task manager that will be released in KDE 4.4 SC, when a window is closed, task are rearranged with a an animation. When moving widgets in task bar, it might be useful to use those animations to show rearrangement of widgets.

When moving widgets out of a toolbar, the widget does not completly follow the mouse pointer. Lets take a taskbar in the right of the screen, like vista's. When I start to drag the widget out, it seems to be sticked in the bar. It can go up, down, but not left, whereas mouse cursor is already in the desktop area. Then, it disappears from the bar, and appereas under the mouse cursor. I must prevent widgets to be mouved out of the bar, but this must be a way to have the widget always under the mouse cursor ...

i liked the way i could move things in the GNOME panels. they can be dragged around by holding the middle mouse button. that way you wouldn't have to click on the panels' cashew to drag around stuff on it.
i don't think that makes sense for dragging around widgets in general.

I don't think that KDE people invented Plasma and Plasmoids for moving them all day. I want to see them where I placed them - not moving them accidently all the time.

Fifoxtasy wrote:i liked the way i could move things in the GNOME panels. they can be dragged around by holding the middle mouse button. that way you wouldn't have to click on the panels' cashew to drag around stuff on it.
i don't think that makes sense for dragging around widgets in general.

Yup or the old kde3 way(right click hold, move, release) , either is less cumbersome and more intuitive than the current implementation

How about prolong left-click on a widget to switch to an edit/modify/move mode, something like the widgets in Android. Smartphone OSes provide several examples for doing this.

Generally speaking, the more the 'actions' that apply to a widget are accessible directly by the widget the easier it gets. Having to click on a little button somewhere on the screen, makes you change your focal point (as a user). UI designers should take this into account. That same reason is why I find drop down menus (menu bar) a no-no.

I do think moving widgets in panels could be made easier. Maybe do what Gnome does and add a "Move" option to the right-click menu.

Maybe the middle-click could be used to move the plasmoids ? I think that would be great.

The problem is some laptops don't have the middle mouse button.

That should be taken into consideration.

Kernco: I like your idea

nerdopolis wrote:The problem is some laptops don't have the middle mouse button.

That should be taken into consideration.

Kernco: I like your idea

So because some people are so stupid to buy junk from apple the rest of the world is stuck with a clumsy interface?

nerdopolis wrote:The problem is some laptops don't have the middle mouse button.

That should be taken into consideration.

Kernco: I like your idea

clicking the left and the right mouse button simultaneously gives you a middle mouse click... not that hard to do, even on a laptop.

i really like to lock down the widgets. i think widgets should not be movable when they are locked.

I think X.org provides that 3 button emulation, thing as some laptop 'mice' don't support that.

Be aware that plasma can run on platforms that don't have x.org. I always think its always a good idea, that when you are implanting a feature, reasonably everyone should have aceess to it.

BTW: its not just macs that don't have the middle button, my Compaq Presario 2100 doesn't have one.

nerdopolis wrote:I think X.org provides that 3 button emulation, thing as some laptop 'mice' don't support that.

Be aware that plasma can run on platforms that don't have x.org. I always think its always a good idea, that when you are implanting a feature, reasonably everyone should have aceess to it.

BTW: its not just macs that don't have the middle button, my Compaq Presario 2100 doesn't have one.

I thought only apple managed to get people to buy their defective (with out right mouse button) hardware and convince them they don't really need a right button even

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The Compaq Presario 2100 does have a two button mouse (left and right click).

A middle button would make it a three button mouse. (which is the button it does not have)