Bug 430121

Summary: Placement of buttons in the UI is inconsistent
Product: [Plasma] plasma-pa Reporter: Riccardo Robecchi <sephiroth_pk>
Component: appletAssignee: David Rosca <nowrep>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: normal CC: nate, plasma-bugs
Priority: NOR    
Version: 5.20.3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Neon   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In: 5.21

Description Riccardo Robecchi 2020-12-07 20:55:51 UTC
SUMMARY
The UI of the plasma-pa widget is inconsistent with that of the other widgets, as those have buttons on top (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth, notifications, device notifier, etc) while plasma-pa has buttons on the lower side.
I personally found myself multiple times trying to reach for the "settings" button on the upper part of the widget as I am used to find it there in other widgets. It could be worth it to move the buttons to the top to provide better consistency.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux: KDE Neon Focal
KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.76.0
Qt Version: 5.15.1

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2020-12-08 00:00:31 UTC
In Plasma 5.21, the settings button for all applets will be in exactly the same place: next to the pin button on the header. So that aspect of your bug report is already fixed. :)

As for the rest of the footer, we decided to use one because instead adding an extra toolbar row made the header area of the applet feel really thick and chunky. It didn't look good.

Do you have any suggestions for how this can be improved?
Comment 2 Riccardo Robecchi 2020-12-08 10:28:54 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> In Plasma 5.21, the settings button for all applets will be in exactly the
> same place: next to the pin button on the header. So that aspect of your bug
> report is already fixed. :)

What about those situations where you directly place the widget on the panel? There is no header nor pin button there.

> As for the rest of the footer, we decided to use one because instead adding
> an extra toolbar row made the header area of the applet feel really thick
> and chunky. It didn't look good.
> 
> Do you have any suggestions for how this can be improved?

The easiest solution I can come up with is to switch the current header with the footer. I will think about other solutions, but this seems the one that requires the least amount of work (as far as I can imagine, not knowing anything about the underlying code).
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2020-12-08 15:02:23 UTC
(In reply to Riccardo Robecchi from comment #2)
> (In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> > In Plasma 5.21, the settings button for all applets will be in exactly the
> > same place: next to the pin button on the header. So that aspect of your bug
> > report is already fixed. :)
> 
> What about those situations where you directly place the widget on the
> panel? There is no header nor pin button there.
For those, the configure button remains where it currently is in 5.20, so, yeah, that means the footer for this applet.

> The easiest solution I can come up with is to switch the current header with
> the footer. I will think about other solutions, but this seems the one that
> requires the least amount of work (as far as I can imagine, not knowing
> anything about the underlying code).
Moving the tab bar to the footer area, and the footer toolbar to the header position is trivial, code-wise. But we thought that having tabs below the content rather than above it was weird.
Comment 4 Bug Janitor Service 2020-12-08 15:22:28 UTC
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-pa/-/merge_requests/32
Comment 5 Riccardo Robecchi 2020-12-08 15:22:54 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #3)
> Moving the tab bar to the footer area, and the footer toolbar to the header
> position is trivial, code-wise. But we thought that having tabs below the
> content rather than above it was weird.

I understand the concern, but I find that placing the tabs on the bottom would not be as unprecedented as it seems. Would it be weirder than having a drop-down menu to select the player at the bottom as in the media player plasmoid? Or as the various tabs in the Kickoff menu? I see these cases as being substantially similar to this, so my opinion is that it's a matter of habit rather than a strict design necessity - if it works there, it can work here.
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2020-12-08 16:15:11 UTC
I've submitted a merge request to do that, so let's see what people say. :)
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2020-12-17 04:22:42 UTC
Git commit 043aa68f1b652be2c93241fab22cca378203d882 by Nate Graham.
Committed on 08/12/2020 at 15:21.
Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'.

[applet] Move tab bar to bottom

This switches the position of the current header and footer content,
which allows the applet to have a toolbar in the header like most other
applets have. As a result, the tab bar is moved to the footer.
FIXED-IN: 5.21

M  +79   -79   applet/contents/ui/main.qml

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-pa/commit/043aa68f1b652be2c93241fab22cca378203d882