SoC weekly report – issue 5
Five weeks have passed and now is when I’ve just started to tame Plasma. Let’s start with the snapshots.
Now when an applet doesn’t fit in the current containment it’s sent to the next availiable one. I’ve also added a header on top of the containments with a label which will allow users to name the containments.
Applets in a column are now hidden when the Context View widget is resized and there is not enough space to paint them in a usable way. They are shown again when there is enough space for them.
What I’m currently missing is a way to highlight the current selected containment. I’m thinking of using a glowing border on the containment to accomplish that.
Next week I’ll be working in redesign the Current Track applet and in a different approach to add applets to the Context View.
The applet browser approach to add applets might not be the better way in our case so I’ve been thinking of something like this:
I hope I can get some artwork help. These are early mockups but (I hope) they do not need much explanation.
In the redesign of the Current Track applet I’ve asked a friend with actual artistic skills to do a mockup and he did an excellent job IMHO. This is what he did.
Thanks Jacobo 
July 2, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Yeah. Good ideas. By playing around with the alpha it was realy something like this i was looking for.
As additional idea: Why not have the posibility to use Tab’s?
I have once postet a idea of a tabplasmoid in the amarok forum:
http://amarok.kde.org/forum/index.php/topic,15465.0.html
Well, keep up the good work.
I realy looking forward to use amarok2 productivly;)
July 2, 2008 at 8:33 pm
You’re welcome
I like the new approach on adding widgets, I don’t like to be forced to use the panel always! By the way, I think the button should be placed as the one from the desktop widgets (upper right corner, I guess)
July 2, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Hm. I can tell you something about my opinion. First of all, I don’t think that multicolumn is good for amarok. You see, it is fashionable (read “popular”) to have all this tags/menus/ads/related_stuff on one page without any structure. But as for usability it is bad to do so. Don’t mess all information on screen at once.
Well, I said how I think things should’n be, and now I must say how I think they should.
May be zoom-in/soom-out concept would be nice, may be something like paging.. well, you see, when you have one ore two widgets per page. Pages could be changed with arrors on left and right or with tabs. I really think that tabs are good, not common tabs, but with thumblands on the bottom instead of text on top. Like youtube videos menu, you see. Then you will not need to add or remove widgets, just presend widgets like thumplands on the bottom and allow user to use any widget he wish just with one click and then just click on other widget thumbland and leave the widget that you don’t need anymore. Contact me if you think it is good idea and if you need some details.
Ok, second, about now playing plasmoid. It all depends on the whole style of amarok. Amarok should follow one harmonic style and I think no one can say you if this style of Now Playing is good or bad.
last: I think it whould be nice to have this:
____containment1_constant_plasmoids_______SMALL
NowPlaying Plasmoid. May be some other plasmoids later.
____containment2_temporary_plasmoids_______BIG
lyrics/wiki/video/any plasmoid apper and dissapear hear.
depends on next containment
____containment3_thumblands_of_plasmoids___SMALL
thumbland1 thumbland2 thumbland3 thumbland4
__________________________________________
July 2, 2008 at 11:13 pm
naming containments? showing hte selected containment? I’m interested in both of those, especially the latter (I meant to do it for 4.1).
are you in #plasma?
July 3, 2008 at 8:59 am
That mockup of the Current Track applet looks awesome! I guess it’s meant to do more than just showing info. Will it be possible to interact with it? I mean rating songs by clicking the stars or managing album cover art.
July 3, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thank you all for the comments, I appreciate it.
Chani: I hang around #plasma, my nick is Liw-
Leti: Yes, we’re aiming for interactivity with the current track applet.
Keep in mind that it is still in an early stage, more changes are to come. Keep tuned.
July 3, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hello, great work!
I was wondering: Why not ask Nuno Pinheiro to make the artwork thing? (#oxygen on irc) He is the guy who is doing that for KDE 4 and is doing an excellent job. This way amarok would be consistent to the KDE look. You may think :”Oh, what about windows and Mac?”. Well, everytime they make an app, they make it look like it is in their OS. Take a look at iTunes, for instance. Why not make it with amarok? Once people on Windows or Mac look at it and say: Wow, it looks incredible! Then the answer is “Well, it look the way KDE looks, it´s a KDE app, that´s way it looks incredible, come to KDE!
Maybe there´ll be an option for theming some time later… so everybody could be happy, but for now, I think it should fit KDE´s look.