Workspace Manager

[George <jirka 5z com>]

this is somewhat a followup to the panel discussion ... 

I would say that the current panel is kind of ok for some use, but having
spent some time making it OO compatible and support multiple panels and
the like ... I've realized that a rewrite is inevidable ... reading over
some of the mails in the past ... and thinking about it a bit I would say
that the "old" panel is an app which is viewed from the wrong perspective
... one of the reasons is that the panel is just part of the
screen/workspace ... and that the way of moving applets around isn't the
same as teh rest of teh drang and drop will be ... etc ... etc .. etc ...
SOOO .... here's what I propose ... a new app .... perhaps called workspace
manager ....

Workspace manager - manages the "desktop", everything on the desktop is
		    an embedable object, so all the workspace manager
		    does is place the "flaoting" objects on any
		    position, and doing a bit of geometry for some
		    objects snapped to sides

there are two types of objects:

Container objects (panels)
Applets (launchers, file links, etc... etc... anything basically)

panel is an object containing a widget that can have several other objects
embedded in it

the panels can be either floating (meaning they are basically windows,
but should be sticky if possible ... or override-redirect with simple
decoration) ... or they can be "snapped" to a side ... if a panel is
snapped to a side of the screen it would act much like the current panel
(eitehr it would autohide ...or could be hidden by "hide buttons") ...
if the panel isn't as large as teh screen, it would only have the hide
button on the side that is in a corner or none if it's in the middle of
an edge

the applets could either be "floating" on the desktop by being directly
embedded in the workspace manager, or they could be embedded in a panel.
all placement of applets would be done though DND protocol, this would
make it far simpler to do drags between panels, and to teh desktop and
the like ... and it would be FAR more consistent

all this should use CORBA wherever possible

well ... what do you think of it ...

George

-- 
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George Lebl <jirka@5z.com> http://www.5z.com/jirka/
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