Bug 433475

Summary:	Margin separators are not "visible" or easy to identify
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Andrei Amuraritei <andamu>
Component:	Panel	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	nate, niccolo.venerandi
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version First Reported In:	5.21.0
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:	https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/commit/f4e032087a652ca61ec7dfe4d1b5f1725c150d53	Version Fixed/Implemented In:	5.25
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Andrei Amuraritei 2021-02-23 10:23:13 UTC

SUMMARY
Info here https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=433290 - we have a new widget called Margins Separator which is not easily identifiable, even when the Panel is in edit mode.

This new widget has an effect of skewing the Margins of the Panel, which I think is really unpleasant and looks wrong, but no other way to be identified easily on the panel.

Maybe we can highlight it with some desaturation or similar effect on the panel?

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Right click and choose Edit Panel, the Separator is there, but you can't see it easily
2. Add a second Margins Separator and then the panel has skewed margins between the two Margins Separator


OBSERVED RESULT
Weird panel margins and no easy way to identify the Margins Separator widget on the panel

EXPECTED RESULT
Maybe a desaturated effect on the Margins Separator, at least in Edit Panel mode. And a normal rectangular panel back.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20210217
KDE Plasma Version: 5.21.0
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.79.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.10.16-1-default
OS Type: 64-bit
Graphics Platform: X11
Nvidia driver: 460.39 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2021-02-23 18:19:43 UTC

Yeah I agree. It's probably fine that Margins Separator applets are invisible during normal use, but while the panel is being edited, their invisibility makes them hard to notice, and therefore it's not visually obvious why the thickness of the blue line is being changed.

Comment 2 Nate Graham 2022-03-29 01:17:46 UTC

Git commit f4e032087a652ca61ec7dfe4d1b5f1725c150d53 by Nate Graham, on behalf of Tanbir Jishan.
Committed on 29/03/2022 at 01:17.
Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'.

applets/margins-separator: make smaller normally, and more visible in Edit mode

Margin separator by default has a large width which may not be desirable always
and it is also not directly related to its core functionality. Now it takes up
only 1px of space (the minimum amount) outside of Edit Mode, but expands and
becomes more visually obvious in Edit Mode.
Related: bug 451164
FIXED-IN: 5.25

M  +1    -0    applets/CMakeLists.txt
A  +5    -0    applets/margins-separator/CMakeLists.txt
R  +0    -0    applets/margins-separator/package/contents/config/main.xml [from: applets/margins-separator/contents/config/main.xml - 100% similarity]
R  +5    -2    applets/margins-separator/package/contents/ui/main.qml [from: applets/margins-separator/contents/ui/main.qml - 067% similarity]
R  +0    -0    applets/margins-separator/package/metadata.json [from: applets/margins-separator/metadata.json - 100% similarity]
A  +7    -0    applets/margins-separator/plugin/CMakeLists.txt
A  +29   -0    applets/margins-separator/plugin/marginSeparator.cpp     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +27   -0    applets/margins-separator/plugin/marginSeparator.h     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/commit/f4e032087a652ca61ec7dfe4d1b5f1725c150d53