Re: Panel changes for 4.4

Jasper Huijsmans <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Sorry for the cross-post, I wasn't sure everyone would be
> on xfce4-dev.
>
You guessed right - I'm currently not on xfce4-dev. :)

> As most of you may know, I'm planning to make some
> drastic changes to
> the panel for Xfce 4.4. In fact the changes are so big
> that you could
> speak of a redesign. To make sure that this design will
> work well also
> for plugin writers (especially for them even), I'm hoping
> to get some
> feedback on my initial thoughts about the subject.
>
> I decided to use the excellent Xfce wiki facility for
> that -- I don't
> even know who provides this for us, but thanks for that
> -- so anyone can
> add comments.
>
> Please, if you can spare some time, have a look at
> http://www.myoo.de/xfce/index.php/Panel_Design and let me
> know what you
> think, either here, or personal mail or on the wiki.
>
> Since none of this has actually been coded yet feel free
> to shoot it
> down completely and suggest alternative designs ;-)
>
> I'm most interested in suggestions for the plugin API;
> the
> implementation is of secondary concern.
>
> Thanks,
> 	Jasper
> _______________________________________________
> xfce-goodies-dev mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/xfce-goodies-dev
>

I thought of an idea which I think would be good addition.
Let me put an example - the Xkb or the System buttons
plugins should
be able to be added to the panel just once. It doesn't make
sense to
add two instances of the system buttons (at least IMO).
Other plugins
(as the launcher or netload) should be able to have whatever
number
of instances the user wants to have.

The volume control plugin is IMO a more special case - the
maximum number
of instances of this plugin should be the number of sound
cards in the
machine (e.g. if I have 3 sound cards I should be able to
put 3 volume
controls in the plugin).

These are just some thoughts, but no idea of an actual API.
An API such as:

const gboolean *xfce_panel_plugin_can_add(XfcePanelPlugin
*plugin);

would make some sense, but in this case the plugin should be
able to
determine somehow of there is already an instance added
(e.g. the
xkb plugin).

Another idea I just came with would be to add a flag
in the .desktop file whether multiple instances are
permitted for
the plugin. This way the plugin will know when a plugin
could be added
just once and thus disable ability to add it more than once.
If
the plugin actually can be added more than once and the
plugin
has already been added, then the panel should call
xfce_panel_plugin_can_add() to query the plugin if it could
be added
anymore - e.g. the volume control would return a value of
false if
there already were added instances for all the available
soundcards.

I don't know what could be the implementation for such a
volume
control plugin, I mean I have no idea how could such a
plugin
determine what sound cards already have a corresponding
instance
of the plugin or not. You know, I'm really not that good in
C (this
should be read as - "I must read some good
book/tutorial/whatever" :-)).

I must apologize for the pretty long and very very messy
email.
I'm not king of the explanations also...

So that's about all I came with.

Hey, thanks for the GREAT WORK all xfce team. :)

Alexander



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