Bug 306071

Summary:	Way to Present Windows and show desktop widgets when menu is activated
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Lionel Chauvin <megabigbug>
Component:	Application Menu (Kicker) widget	Assignee:	Eike Hein <hein>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	nate, plasma-bugs-null
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version First Reported In:	master
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	unspecified
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	306072
Attachments:	Presentation of the workflow qml plasma containment

Description Lionel Chauvin 2012-08-31 10:54:13 UTC

This idea is a part of my vision to make the KDE desktop more effective. It is inspired by Meego Harmattan and Gnome 3.

Rationals:
- A desktop workspace is usually covered of windows. The plasmoids are usually hidden, so not very usefull.
- Users rarely click on the "show desktop" icon to see informations provided by plasmoids.
- The "show desktop" icon is less known by users than the K icon.
- The browsing of the applications in the KDE menu (kickoff) requires many clicks.
- The quicklaunch plasmoid and the "show a launcher when not running" feature of the KDE taskbar decreases the interest of Kickoff's favorites panel. In order to access to the applications, the user must do an extra click or a movement to skip the favorite panel.

Solution:
- Show the plasmoids at the same time as the KDE menu, ie. when the user clicks on the K icon. This way, users can see the informations provided by the plasmoids at the same time as they search an application.
- Put the menu on the desktop instead of a panel and use the extra space to make it more effective.

I propose to create a new workspace divided in 3 columns.

The left column is used for display an application launcher (and eventually the desktop folder). This launcher shows categories. When a category is opened, applications of this category are displayed on a grid.
A prototype of this launcher can be downloaded here: https://gitorious.org/dal

The right column can be customize by users. It contains plasmoids that display different informations: the weather, calendar events, twitter, facebook, rss feeds etc

The central column is empty by default and is filled with window previews when the present effect is triggered (ie. when the user clicks on the K icon). See idea: A new present effect allowing interactions with the desktop.

The mockup illustrates the workflow presented in this idea.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Lionel Chauvin 2012-08-31 10:56:50 UTC

Created attachment 73573 [details]
Presentation of the workflow

Comment 2 Lionel Chauvin 2012-12-03 21:30:25 UTC

Created attachment 75617 [details]
qml plasma containment

I wrote a prototype of this idea. It is a plasma containment writen in pure qml.
It can be installed with the following command:
plasmapkg -i threecolumns.plasmoid

Notes: 
- desktop is shown when the user clicks on it.
- if a folderview is added then it is placed to the top left part of the desktop 

Known issues:
- only fake window previews are shown (need a better tasks dataengine)
- window previews are sometime not hidden when a window is restored. When it happens, the desktop is not shown when the user clicks on it. (bug in the tasks dataengine ?)
- drag n drop between widget explorer and desktop doesn't work (known issue of qml containments). Plasmoid can be added by a double click in the widget explorer.
- cursor doe not change when a separator is hovered. Separators are not very discoverable (will be fixed with qtquick 2)
- texts of plasmoids are not readable with some wallpapers/plasma themes (plasma needs a better support of borderless plasmoids)

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2017-11-30 02:53:19 UTC

I really like this idea. It's similar to the GNOME Activities Overview. One click shows you everything.

Would you be willing to rebase this on Plasma 5 and KDE Frameworks 5, and submit it on https://phabricator.kde.org as an alternative to kickoff et al.?

Or perhaps add this behavior as an option to kicker or kickoff?

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2022-06-25 16:24:57 UTC

Apparently not. :( With no other interest and no upstream contributions, I'm afraid this idea is going to have to remain something you DIY for yourself, or it could be a Global Theme layout that you can distribute so others can download.