Scaffold: mime-type/context sensitive layouts

["John (J5) Palmieri" <johnp martianrock com>]

Opps, sent this from my work account.  Resending it from my registered account:

I just wanted to get an opinion on this idea.  Basicly as things stand a
user would have to change layouts manualy or clutter up their interfaces
needlessly to adapt to the needs of different document types.  For
instance, glade will eventualy be integrated into Scaffold as a plugin. 
Glade has about four windows - widget pallet, widget tree, proprerties
and the canvas (where the widgets get assembled).  I assume all of these
windows will be incorporated into Gdl docakble windows.  As it stands
now one could create a glade layout and put these widgets in that
layout.  In the future when one opens up a glade file they would be able
to switch to the glade layout.  This is suboptimal because it requires
the user to activly take steps to change the view. That is an extra step
that could be avoided with configurable mime-type/context sensitive
layout swithes.

Basicly what would happen is when a new document is activated, ether by
being loaded or brought to the front by clicking it's tab, a signal will
go out with the mime-type of that document.  The layout manager can then
listen for these switches and change to the layout that is linked to
that perticular context.  I say context because a glade document can be
viewed as an XML document also in which case we might want to load up
say the Conglomerate layout.  Also if someone runs the debuger the
layout manager should then detect this and load up the debugging layout.

Of cource for all this to work we need to have the ability to turn it
off or on, configure the layout associations and have sane default
layouts for each of the major mime-types we support (imagine clicking on
a .png file in the prject manager and the gimp pallet showing up on the
left, canvas in the middle and tool dialogs on the right while hiding
the symbol browser and code warning output).

Pros:
*	Layouts reflect the data being edited
*	Quick switches make the developer more productive
*	Less clutter on screen as docks are more targeted

Cons:
*	Switches could be confusing since the Scaffold would look different
for each mime-type
*	Right now during layout switches redraws happen whenever a dock is
added or taken away. This could get annoying but could be fixed to only
do redraws once a layout is finnished with its changes.
*	If switches aren't instant this could fustrate the user

So what do you guys think?

--
J5