Hello Aaron, On Tue 21 December 2010, plasma-devel@kde.org <plasma-devel@kde.org> wrote: > On Sunday, December 19, 2010, Ryan Rix wrote: > > Basically, I'm trying to answer a simple question: "what would cause a > > user to change what they are doing (their activity), > > i think the answers you provide below are pretty good for a start: location, > calendar events .. i'd add network connections (e.g. if i pull up my VPN or > tear it down, i may wish to switch activities), file/disk volume access ...
When I get unblocked from Techbase i'm gonna start a usecases page somewhere... > i think we may end up with a system of events that are associated with a > given activity, and when triggered, something that is up to the application > or plasmoid implementing that trigger, can let us assist the user. I really like the verbage behind triggered... I think I may steal it :) "Plugging in projector triggers presentation activity"... "Connecting to work VPN triggers work activity"... etc > > and can we monitor those > > > events to facilitate this change for them?": > i think so, yes. we shouldn't do it completely automatically, though, as > that could easily result in work interuptions (unless we build some sort of > sophisticated AI into it ;). but we can certainly facilitate it. Instead of "just switching", to show a Notification (as you say down below?)? Or does that go back to Ivan's "don't switch unless the user requests it"? The former seems more reasonable the more that I think about it, yes... I'll let it sink in for a while. > perhaps it becomes useful to add a > Service to the Activities DataEngine which uses API provided by > kactivitymanagerd to hint that something has happened which may mean an > activity switch is useful. then it could batch these up (in case several > occur in a short timespan) and show a notification to the user of this, > with a shortcut link/button to switch activities. *nod*, quite possibly, yes. :) > > There is also the choice of making something like this wider than this, > > controlling notifications status ("presentation mode"), etc... All of > > this falls in to this sort of "predict what the user wants to do" idea, > > but not so much with Activities as we know them. > > how to associate this with activities remains to be seen, i think. one > approach may be to have different panel configurations for different > activities, with the notifications controls widget set up differently in the > different activities. > > this way, we don't need to add yet more config UI or think of every possible > use case in advance. That can Be Added Laterâ„¢ and is more Chani's field than mine, anyways :P > > So, basically we end up with two things: > > * What would cause a user to change what they are doing? > > * How would they change what they are doing? > > > > So, we end up with two lists of "things" -- plugins. What kind of API > > should these plugins be expected to have and what should they expect to > > be able to do? > > do we need plugins, or should this just be mediated by plasmoids and > applications which we already have, using a D-Bus api to enact the changes? I don't know, would that mean that, say, Marble would have to be running 24/7 to monitor location? I think that having the plugins outside of the application and outside of kactivitymanagerd would be a plus, given that I think it's a little tough to predict all the stuff thta users would probably end up doing, and having some plugins infra to extend this would be nice. ++nice if we make it accessible through python or $interpereted bindings (Download New Activity Triggers, anyone?) but Iunno. I'll leave it out for now, I guess, we can come back to it later, if we decide to. The big thing I'm seeing with having the code stay in the applications/plasmoids is that I have to ask "why have the activitymanager do anything at all besides switch an application" in that case? Configs for this end up being spread out, etc... I need some time to think on it, but it just seems ... messy :( > i think we should keep > this all in one place; we've started with kactivitymanagerd, lets keep it > there as well. *nod*, my thoughts. R -- Ryan Rix == http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://rix.si/ == == http://rix.si/page/contact/ if you need a word == _______________________________________________ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel