Bug 279935

Summary:	[Reproduceable] Infinite loop in panel for configuring dashboard due to increased font size or more words
Product:	[Unmaintained] plasma4	Reporter:	Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) <browserbugs2>
Component:	panel	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Severity:	normal	CC:	carlosdgtorres
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Graphical area of panel for configuring dashboard Graphical area of panel for configuring dashboard in French and with a font-size of 10

Description Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2011-08-12 01:45:50 UTC

Version:           unspecified (using KDE 4.7.0) 
OS:                Linux

In the panel for configuring the dashboard, if the text labels of buttons are wide or if there are a lot of words or if the font uses wide glyphs, then an infinite reflow loop can starts: the text labels of buttons are oscillating left and right, as if they were squeezed and then expanded horizontally very fast.

There is a design flaw with regards to the possibility of an horizontal overflow for such panel.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1- Insert CD-live of Kubuntu 11.04

2- Choose Try Kubuntu 11.04

3- "K" Kickoff Application Launcher / System Settings / Application Appearance / Fonts / General : /  Choose : set it to 22

4- 

a) Click the yellowish-orange semi-lunar, semi-curvy nut 
http://www.kubuntu.org/files/website/plasma.png
on the rightmost side of the dashboard: "toolbox for dashboard" is its tooltip text.

or

b) Right-click somewhere in the dashboard and then select "Option for Panel: Configuration of Dashboard"

Important note: you may think that 22 is a very big font size but the importantissimo issue is that English words when translated often use more characters or even more words. "Add Widgets..." (11 characters) is translated in French as "Ajouter des plasmoïdes" in Kubuntu 11.04 CD-live and then as "Ajouter des composants graphiques ..." (33 characters) in French in KDE 4.7.0. And that's only 1 button. So, with the same steps, in French, the infinite loop can be triggered with a font size of 14 with the Kubuntu 11.04 CD-live and with a font size of 11 in KDE 4.7.0!!



Actual Results:  
- an infinite loop will be triggered
- the text labels of buttons inside the panel will oscillate very fast from left to right to left
- the CPU percentage activity for plasma-desktop will increase significantly and will remain high as long as such panel is expanded, opened.

Expected Results:  
- an infinite loop should not triggered
- the text labels of buttons inside the panel should not oscillate
- the CPU percentage activity for plasma-desktop should not increase
- the text labels of buttons should just line-wrap onto a second line, under

I chose Application to be plasma-desktop but I could be wrong here. 
Same thing with Component: please change or correct application and component fields accordingly.

I am using
KDE Platform Version: 4.7.0
Konqueror version: 4.7.0 (KHTML rendering engine)
Qt Version: 4.7.2
Operating System: Linux 2.6.38-10-generic-pae i686 (32bits)
Distribution: Kubuntu 11.04
here.

I can upload screen shots if requested.

I have also been able to confirm such buggy behavior with a person working at Canonical.

regards, Gérard

Comment 1 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2011-08-17 01:43:29 UTC

Created attachment 62886 [details]
Graphical area of panel for configuring dashboard

The rectangular area with a bright green border is the panel which I am referring to in this bug report.

The semi-circular area with a bright green border on the right side is the cashew nut icon/image which, once clicked, pops up the panel and creates the high CPU activity and the horizontal oscillation of the inside panel. 

Notice the cpu %tage activity of 69.5% in the screenshot: I had Sans Serif set to a font-size of 11 when the screenshot was taken!

regards, Gérard

Comment 2 Juan Carlos Torres 2011-12-03 17:57:54 UTC

I am able to reproduce this on KDE 4.7.4 on Fedora 16.

The reporter is referring to the Panel Settings bar that appears when clicking on the cashew on the panel. The font size may have to be set to as much as 32 to trigger the bug.

Changing to Component panel.

Comment 3 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2011-12-03 18:31:06 UTC

Juan Carlos Torres,

Thank you for confirming this bug.

There are words or expressions which, once translated into a non-English language, are going to be using more, sometimes many more words. "Add a spacer" (12 characters including blank white spaces) is exactly one: "Ajouter un élément séparateur" (29 characters including blank white spaces) and this contributes to the problem.
Look at attachment 62886 [details]

"Add Widgets..." (11 characters) 
is translated in French as 
"Ajouter des composants graphiques ..." (33 characters) 
in KDE 4.7.3 and in Kubuntu 11.10

Because French translation uses more characters, I am able to trigger this bug when setting font-size to 11.

Comment 4 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2011-12-03 18:35:32 UTC

Created attachment 66346 [details]
Graphical area of panel for configuring dashboard
in French and with a font-size of 10

As you can see in this importantissimo screenshot, the number of characters describing the customization features in the panel are at least 2 to 3 times  (200% - 300%) greater than the English version and that is a contributing factor in the infinite reflow loop that I get.
This screenshot is using a font-size of 10. For french, anything above 10 will trigger such infinite reflow loop.

Comment 5 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2011-12-03 18:40:04 UTC

"Ajouter des composants graphiques..."  is 36 characters, not 33 characters unless you exclude the ellipsis "...".

Comment 6 Marco Martin 2011-12-16 13:26:00 UTC

Git commit 1c8a8958528bd15422162aec8a2e6f731b240236 by Marco Martin.
Committed on 16/12/2011 at 14:18.
Pushed by mart into branch 'master'.

use font metrics to decide if the text is enabled

using the kayout size hint causes a loop because the hint will be smaller when the text is off
BUG:279935

M  +14   -1    plasma/desktop/shell/panelcontroller.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/kde-workspace/1c8a8958528bd15422162aec8a2e6f731b240236

Comment 7 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2012-01-26 22:33:49 UTC

Marco,

You resolved this bug report as fixed 5 weeks ago. I am now using KDE 4.8.0 and I can still reproduce the bug.

Can you update the "Version fixed in" field please?

Thanks! Gérard

Comment 8 Gérard Talbot (no longer involved) 2012-01-27 04:47:51 UTC

Marco,

I installed some new plasma-widgets-addons and plasma-widget-kimpanel packages a few min. ago and rebooted and the bug has been fixed. Thank you!

The words describing the actions in the panel have been iconographized, logographized, pictographized: eg Add a widget has been replaced by a bright green "+" sign (and it does not have any tooltip text describing it). From an usability stand point, I am not sure this is a wise choice, a good decision, especially for beginners on KDE.

Marking as VERIFIED

Comment 9 Andrew Crouthamel 2018-09-04 19:11:06 UTC

Hello! Plasma 4 was replaced by Plasma 5 four years ago by the KDE community. In that time we have made great strides in stability and functionality. We are closing all Plasma 4 bugs as most of them are no longer applicable to the new frameworks Plasma 5 is built upon. If you could, please re-test with the latest version of Plasma 5, and submit a new bug to "plasmashell" if you continue to have an issue. Thank you!