> On 2009-03-30 01:29:17, Aaron Seigo wrote: > > an early decision was not to hack things into plasma. if someone wants > > translucent panels and other windows, use composition. it's the only way to > > do it properly. i have no interest in seeing plasma become a pile of hacks > > held together with chewing gum and baling wire. i left kicker's code base > > behind because of that "hey, look what we can do!" mentality that went into > > that code over the years. > > > > now, this doesn't actually work in all cases (e.g. themes with solid > > panels), doesn't provide real translucency (e.g. see windows between the > > panels and the desktop), i can only imagine how this does (or doesn't) work > > with hiding panels and it pollutes the libplasma API with incomprehensible > > and very this-hack-specific methods. > > > > i appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but it's simply not in line > > with plasma's design principles. > > Aaron Seigo wrote: > i also should address this comment: > > "All other major linux Desktop-Environments support transparent panels > without composition" > > what other software does wrong is completely inconsequential. > > these other systems took this route at the time because at the time there > was no compositing support in X11. and even when compositing did arrive, > those code bases were so old and ossified and the compositing support was so > crappy that nearly nobody bothered to even try taking advantage of > compositing. > > but we're not writing the desktop of 5 years ago, and we're not trying to > mimic the mistakes of 5 years ago, either. > > that's why, despite everyone else having a stupid xembed based system > tray, we're doing something new and smarter. > that's why, despite everyone else shipping plain run command dialogs > while people make bad clones of Quicksilver as third party add-ons, we work > on krunner as a default component. > > so the "but others did it" reason is no reason at all. one needs to look > at what a given thing is with fresh eyes and in the context of modern > systems. and i'm not about to wait until we're the last ones doing it wrong > to make the right decisions. being the first to make those decisions is not > easy, and sure, being the Nth person afterwards to follow along and makes > those decisions is easy. but it's a lot more rewarding to be the first ones > to do something better than to only chase after other people's taillights > once it is safe to do so. > > David Nolden wrote: > The problem is that you're pushing technology at the cost of the user. > For perfectionists like me, who want a perfectly snappy desktop, or for > people with badly supported video cards, composition still isn't an option. > As developer of a core component of a major desktop environment, you should > also have an eye at the present, not _only_ ot the future! > > About pollution of hack-specific methods: The "bool blendInterface()" > function seemed the cleanes solution. But this could also be solved > kdebase/plasma internally. > > Apart from that, this patch adds probably about 40 LOC, of which nothing > seems to be an awful hack, while bringing a great advantage to really many > _present_ users, so please think that position over again.. I fail to see how > this can bring you into a maintenance nightmare.
About your technical comments: Why should this not work with solid panels? Solid panels work just fine! It does not provide _real_ translucency in the sense that you see windows between the panel and the desktop, but that feature is anyway nothing more than a "look what I can do" feature. I do see a problem with auto-hiding panels, since in that case it might happen more often that a panel is over a window, maybe the fake transparency should better be disabled for such a case. - David ----------------------------------------------------------- This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/472/#review712 ----------------------------------------------------------- On 2009-03-30 00:54:44, David Nolden wrote: > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: > http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/472/ > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > (Updated 2009-03-30 00:54:44) > > > Review request for Plasma. > > > Summary > ------- > > Many people can not, or do not want to use composition. A semi-transparent > panel highly increases the appeal of a Desktop, and there currently is only > very few plasma themes available that have a nice-looking panel without > transparency enabled. > > All other major linux Desktop-Environments support transparent panels without > composition(KDE 3.x, GNOME, and others), and since usually the only thing > that needs to be visible through the panel is the Desktop itself, using a > composition-less approach does not have much disadvantage here. > > Here's I'm proposing a patch to achieve this in a relatively clean way: The > panel is painted and updated as if it was a plasmoid on the Desktop itself, > grabbing the painted area plasma-internally directly from the underlying > desktop-view. The corresponding area of the panel is updated whenever the > desktop is repainted, which means that animated plasmoids partially hidden > under the panel, animations like the desktop-fading, moving plasmoids > partially under the panel, etc. "just work". > > Result: A nice looking panel for everyone, less work for theme designers. > Please don't leave those behind who don't want or can not use desktop > composition! > > (Note: If you try this out, it doesn't work with all themes, since some > themes seem to have no alpha-information in the non-composition case). > > > Diffs > ----- > > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/containments/mid-panel/panel.cpp 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/containments/panel/panel.cpp 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/CMakeLists.txt 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/desktopview.h 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/desktopview.cpp 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/panelview.h 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/panelview.cpp 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/plasmaapp.h 940781 > trink/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells/desktop/plasmaapp.cpp 940781 > > Diff: http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/472/diff > > > Testing > ------- > > > Thanks, > > David > > _______________________________________________ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
