What is next for 0.4?

[psifidotos]

Hello everyone...

I would love to have your feedback around 0.3 and what do you think it should get into 0.4...

• There is a discussion around spacers for Now Dock Panel, would you find it useful?
• Now Dock 0.4 I think it should be full compatible with Plasma 5.8
• what else ?...

[kupiqu]

I fully agree on these two. I cannot think of anything else for now :)

[psifidotos]

@kupiqu, concerning the spacers... What I have in my mind is to split the plasmoids to the two edges... for example, in the bottom panel there could be applets at the left and the right edges, but not in the center... Would you find that sufficient? The complexity to add this feature is big, so this is why I am asking your opinion and why I am trying to avoid center placement when the user has added spacers...

[kupiqu]

Yes, I think that's fine

[alexjp]

@psifidotos Concerning spacers, please also consider that users are "used to" panel spacers. I thinks its a good idea, but will be different than normal panel.

[psifidotos]

@alexjp, can you describe then how it should behave the Now Dock Panel with spacers? what do you have in mind?

[alexjp]

@alexjp, can you describe then how it should behave the Now Dock Panel with spacers? what do you have in mind?

Just the normal panel spacer. I use nowdock plasmoid with normal panel and it works well with the spacer.

Could you use the code from the normal panel's spacers ?

[psifidotos]

@alexjp, this is not that simple... Now Dock takes into account the growing mechanism... For example in left anchoring the plasmoids are growing to the right but in right anchoring are going to the left... This must be supported at the same time... So this is not the default panel's behavior....

The Behavior that I have in my mind is the following...

• The user will add a panel spacer which is going to be the limit that will separate the plasmoids to left and right. If the user adds a second spacer this is not going to have any impact, the second spacer will add just a small space...
• In order to return to the default Now Dock Panel behavior the user must remove all added spacers
• the spacers which are going to be used are just those of the plasma's default panels
• when the user is in configuration mode then all plasmoids are going to placed in the center with also their spacers, in order to be able to move, add, remove the plasmoids and the spacers also
• if the user adds a second spacer, I dont think it will be easy to support alligning the plasmoids left, center and right at the same time and growing differently
• the supported case would be a spacer just aligns the plasmoids left and right

[alexjp]

@psifidotos I guess the left and right alignment behaviour is good. ( I think that is the only reason I also use spacers ).

Maybe for "just adding a small space", instead of spacers, adding a "Separator". Separators seem very common in docks.

Something along the like "Spacer" ( witch is an alignment spacer ) and "Separator" ( witch is a fixed size separator )

What do you think ?

[psifidotos]

@alexjp, I can not understand what do you mean by "Separator". Can you give me a screenshot ? What is the difference with "Spacer" ?

[alexjp]

@psifidotos for example something like this: https://goo.gl/waQugm that little spacer

[alexjp]

In our case, something like this: ( the vertical 5 or so px line ) https://goo.gl/U00gE1

( because there is no 3d effect in plasma )

[psifidotos]

this could be a very simple plasmoid... there is the Separator plasmoid but didnt work for me... We could create something easily I think... But a new Separator plasmoid is not going to be inside the Now Dock Panel code page... It could be able to be used everywhere even in the default panel....

[psifidotos]

the spacers of macs, e.g. http://lifehacker.com/5993307/easily-add-spacers-to-your-macs-dock is already supported is the current behavior of the Now Dock Panel when the user adds spacers...

[alexjp]

ok, I was just trying to see if was worth separating the notion of "spacer that aligns" and "spacer that just adds a little space", as only one "spacer" can cause aligning.

[psifidotos]

@alexjp you have a point... Spacers in that implementation belong to two different categories... To give the user so much power, e.g. having a special spacer(for aligning separation) to put everywhere he wants even after normal spacers is very interesting use case but on the implementation side demands a lot!!!

for example we could colorize that special spacer differently in order to distinguish it from the others (and not use just the first to be found...)

we'll see... when I start playing with all this (spacers support) I will find the limitations that exist...

As I see it Now Dock Panel supports so many different anchorings except only central that already distinguish it from alternatives... Adding spacers and using different anchors at the same time is one more step further...

I hope that we will make it happen...

[s8321414]

Can you make it translatable (localizable)?

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 I dont know yet if it is possible to distribute .mo files (localizations) inside a .plasmoid file... If this is possible then from my side it can be done... If this is not possible then the distribution channel must change, so I dont think an 1-click install from store.kde.org will be possible....

Either the user should install it manually or install it from the distributions repos...

[s8321414]

https://github.com/dimkard/distrowatcher Maybe you really need to modify something...

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 I dont disagree... the link you sent me provides two ways of installation.... the second one "plasmapkg -i distrowatcher.plasmoid" which is used also for 1-Click installations does not have alternative translations in it...

The user must use the first way to install the plasmoid, and that way is not the 1-Click install way....

*Installation (version 1.)**

• Unzip the plasmoid
• $ mkdir build
• $ cd build
• $ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..
• $ make
• $ (sudo) make install
• "Distro Watcher" widget is now available to add to desktop/panel.

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 ... there is #42 concerning localization support... If anyone wants to help in this... my pleasure...

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 do you want to help in localization?

@alexjp spacers and double layout is going much smoother that I was expecting... :) the next days I am going to have something to test if you want...

[s8321414]

@psifidotos Of course, sure!

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 nice to hear!!! :) can you help in qml also? to insert the i18n(...) syntaxes where they are needed in order to support translation for that texts?

[psifidotos]

@alexjp @kupiqu can you please test the new splitter mechanism in Now Dock Panel ? [master] branch?

There is a fourth layout supported now, "Left | Right" and "Top | Bottom" for which the user can decide between two different places to put its plasmoids... :-)

[s8321414]

@psifidotos How can I do for this?

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 finishing early with the spacers issue and the splitter layout in Now Dock Panel, I started implementing localization... Dont worry about qml but I would like a tester !!

I will support localization first for the Now Dock Panel which doesnt have so many texts to be translated in order to test the new way of organizing things...

1. update Now Dock Panel for localization support
2. upload to transifex the needed texts to be translated
3. just test that all this is going smoothly with no drawbacks
4. after Now Dock Panel is ok and translatable I will use the same way to do this for Now Dock Plasmoid

will you be able to test Now Dock Panel later today or tomorrow when it is ready?

[kupiqu]

Wow, working great, I think I'm going to use it from now on in Top|Bottom mode

[psifidotos]

@kupiqu nice to hear... ;)

[s8321414]

@psifidotos Fine, thank you! :smile:

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 Now Dock Panel is ready for translations...

anyone interested to translate it can use: https://www.transifex.com/psifidotos/now-dock-panel/

in the next days same architecture will happen also for the Now Dock Plasmoid

[psifidotos]

Forget transifex... I didnt like it...

Go old fashion if you want to translate it, through pot and po files...

[psifidotos]

I created some installation/uninstallation scripts for Now Dock Panel in order to help with the new localization infrastructure...

[s8321414]

hm? so how can we translate it? Just fork it and translate and make a PR?

[psifidotos]

Important Notice - This is only for Now Dock Panel for now... the next days the plasmoid will be also ready...

@s8321414 yes...

1. fork it
2. use file po/plasma_applet_org.kde.store.nowdock.panel.pot from which to produce your translated po/.po file
3. make a Pull Request in order to commit it in the project

alternative

1. download file po/plasma_applet_org.kde.store.nowdock.panel.pot from which you produce your translated po/.po file
2. upload your translation to forum: https://github.com/psifidotos/nowdock-panel/issues/17

[psifidotos]

So.... :-) faster than I had in my mind....

You can now translate also the plasmoid... :) happy translations!!! :) and have fun....

[s8321414]

OK, I will do it recently :smiley:

[psifidotos]

@kupiqu @SteveKej @s8321414 @alexjp

do you know if you have any issues with Now Dock Panel one-click installation for Plasma 5.8 ? https://github.com/psifidotos/nowdock-panel/issues/19

[kupiqu]

Sorry, not yet in Plasma 5.8

[s8321414]

I'm still on Plasma 5.7.5

[psifidotos]

me too... I will update to 5.8.0 as soon as it is released... I suppose that in order to fix the various issues Now Dock 0.4 will break compatibility with Plasma 5.7...

[psifidotos]

Well.. I have added in Now Dock Panel for the manual installation a default Now Dock default layout which adds a Now Dock plasmoid and a clock by default...

My future plan is that in the next days I will upload the last 0.3 versions (5.7 compatible) of Now Dock Panel and plasmoid which will support all the latest commits (including spacers and small fixes and animations) and after that the master branches are going to move to Plasma 5.8 in order to prepare the 0.4 versions with all the needed fixes...

[psifidotos]

so for translators some new strings exist in panel translations... whoever needs translations must install through global installations. The local installations or 1-click from store.kde.org do not have the translations and the default layout for the panel....

[s8321414]

So will have 0.3.1?

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 for the plasmoid there will be 0.3.2(0.3.1 exists already in store.kde.org) and for the panel 0.3.1, these will be the last versions for 0.3 branch... After that everything goes to master and 0.4 branch (only Plasma 5.8 compatible)

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 so, last 0.3 versions are out...

for the 0.3 branch only small fixes and new translations if someone requests it...

[s8321414]

@psifidotos Great! I already packaged it!

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 :+1: for you? or for a distro?

[s8321414]

@psifidotos For Chakra GNU/Linux

[psifidotos]

@s8321414 :+1: Fantastic!!! Thank u !!!

[lucasslima]

Having window management options, such as maximize or minimize would be very helpful for me. :)