Adds custom spacing between task manager icons
AbandonedPublic

Authored by ngraham on May 10 2020, 4:52 PM.

Details

Reviewers
martellini
Group Reviewers
VDG
Summary

Adds the option to set a custom spacing between the icons of the icons-only task manager.
Both horizontal and vertical spacing can be set.
Probably there should be an upper limit, but I don't know what it could be.

BUG: 363878

Test Plan

Open the taskmanager configuration and change the spacing

Diff Detail

Repository
R119 Plasma Desktop
Branch
adjustable-spacing-between-icons (branched from master)
Lint
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Unit
No Unit Test Coverage
Build Status
Buildable 26979
Build 26997: arc lint + arc unit
martellini created this revision.May 10 2020, 4:52 PM
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martellini requested review of this revision.May 10 2020, 4:52 PM
martellini edited the test plan for this revision. (Show Details)May 10 2020, 11:26 PM

Are we really sure this is worth exposing to the user?

ngraham requested changes to this revision.May 11 2020, 1:08 PM
ngraham added a subscriber: ngraham.

I think it would make more sense to fix the default sizing behavior rather than adding these. We already have an "icon size" setting which roughly adjusts this already, just not very well. That should be fixed rather than adding additional user-facing settings, or at least before doing so.

Also, it doesn't make sense IMO to expose separate horizontal and vertical controls; there should be just one control visible, and it should affect the task manager no matter its orientation.

This revision now requires changes to proceed.May 11 2020, 1:08 PM

Are we really sure this is worth exposing to the user?

Not sure at all. I just can't stand the default spacing, because it feels like the icons are crammed. At least if compared with Win10 or Gnome with dash to panel.

I think it would make more sense to fix the default sizing behavior rather than adding these. We already have an "icon size" setting which roughly adjusts this already, just not very well. That should be fixed rather than adding additional user-facing settings, or at least before doing so.

Also, it doesn't make sense IMO to expose separate horizontal and vertical controls; there should be just one control visible, and it should affect the task manager no matter its orientation.

If that's the better way I totally agree, but I don't know recall that setting. Is there an open issue that I can look into?

Also, it doesn't make sense IMO to expose separate horizontal and vertical controls; there should be just one control visible, and it should affect the task manager no matter its orientation.

If that's the better way I totally agree, but I don't know recall that setting. Is there an open issue that I can look into?

This thing:

Right now IMO its function is pretty unclear and useless. Adjusting it usually doesn't change anything at all, making it look broken. I think we should fix this first.

Conceptually, I think by default, the icon size should smoothly scale with the panel thickness. Right now it roughly does this, but with hard sizes rather than smoothly scaling the icons, as the macOS Dock does. I think that would be a better default.

Then, on top of that, we could additionally have the following settings for fine-tuning:

  • Spacing (narrow or wide)
  • Maximum icon size (or maybe we don't even need this at all?)

How does that sound?

Sounds cool. I'll be working on it.
I must that the iconSize setting is only visibile if the panel is vertical, why do you think it is so?

Sounds cool. I'll be working on it.
I must that the iconSize setting is only visibile if the panel is vertical, why do you think it is so?

Not sure I fully understahd, but it should ideally be visible for both vertical and horizontal panels.

Sounds cool. I'll be working on it.
I must that the iconSize setting is only visibile if the panel is vertical, why do you think it is so?

Not sure I fully understahd, but it should ideally be visible for both vertical and horizontal panels.

Sorry, my bad, there was a verb missing: *I must say etc
Anyway that setting is specific for the vertical panel: you can try to move your panel to the top/bottom and you wont see it, nor it will affect the panel.
I'll break something and let you know

martellini updated this revision to Diff 82983.May 16 2020, 1:05 AM
  • Makes icon scale linearly to the size of the taksbar
  • Improved the spacing configuration of the taskbar icons
martellini updated this revision to Diff 82986.May 16 2020, 1:50 AM
  • Separates the Spacing setting from the others

It should be a little better now, but I left out 2 of the things we said:

  • I didn't remove the icon size setting from the configuration of the vertical task manager because maybe someone likes small icons when the panel is by the side
  • I left the spacing setting in pixels because I don't know how wide should the wide setting be and I imagined people asking for wider or narrower spacing

However, what do you think?

Thanks! And sorry for the long delay before reviewing. However this doesn't seem to be working for me; no matter what value I enter, my vertical icons-only-task manager's icon spacing does not change.

Also, instead of allowing the user to specify a pixel value, what do you think about using more general terminology and a combobox? For example:

  • "Narrow" => 2px spacing
  • "Medium" => 4px spacing
  • "Wide" => 8 px spacing
  • "Extra wide" => 12 px spacing

(numbers are totally random, just for example purposes)

What do you think?

Thanks! And sorry for the long delay before reviewing. However this doesn't seem to be working for me; no matter what value I enter, my vertical icons-only-task manager's icon spacing does not change.

Also, instead of allowing the user to specify a pixel value, what do you think about using more general terminology and a combobox? For example:

  • "Narrow" => 2px spacing
  • "Medium" => 4px spacing
  • "Wide" => 8 px spacing
  • "Extra wide" => 12 px spacing

    (numbers are totally random, just for example purposes)

    What do you think?

Hi, don't worry, I imagine this has been a busy period with 5.19 coming and the migration to Gitlab.
Ok, I'm writing your idea, but with values from 0 to 24.
Btw I think I've bumped into this: ComboBox.valueRole is not available
It should have been solved, but on neon with kde 5.18.5, kf 5.69, and qt 5.14.2 it still seems broken. Maybe I should see if upgrading solves the issue, but I'm skipping 5.70 because of that time units issue.
I'll keep trying and let you know

martellini updated this revision to Diff 83182.May 31 2020, 2:50 AM

Changed the input field from SpinBox to ComboBox and the options are:

  • Narrow: 0 px
  • Medium: 8 px
  • Wide: 16 px
  • Extra wide: 24 px

Thanks! Do you think you could maybe re-open this at https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/? We're transitioning patch review over to GitLab.

ngraham commandeered this revision.Jun 8 2020, 9:46 PM
ngraham edited reviewers, added: martellini; removed: ngraham.

Cool, thanks!

ngraham abandoned this revision.Jun 8 2020, 9:46 PM