Hi,
Just some thoughts reading this ...
2014-04-16 14:48 GMT+02:00 vincent(a)massol.net <vincent(a)massol.net>et>:
Hi Marius,
On 16 Apr 2014 at 13:11:34, Marius Dumitru Florea (
mariusdumitru.florea@xwiki.com(mailto:mariusdumitru.florea@xwiki.com))
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 4:54 PM,
vincent(a)massol.net wrote:
> Hi Marius,
>
> On 10 Apr 2014 at 21:07:13, Marius Dumitru Florea (
mariusdumitru.florea@xwiki.com(mailto:mariusdumitru.florea@xwiki.com))
wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Guillaume "Louis-Marie" Delhumeau
>> wrote:
>>
>> > But developers already needs to create a UI Extension, why not a
panel?
>>
>> Because for the panel you'd have to write code.. Moreover, we
>> discussed about the fact that the non-typed parameters of the UI
>> Extension are not always a good idea and that for the application
>> panel a dedicated class would have been better (with typed
>> properties). There is a big difference between having:
>>
>> icon: myIcon.png
>>
>> and
>>
>> content:
>> #if ($panelWidth == "small")
>> [[image:myIcon.png]]
>> #else
>> ## Display stuff as a list
>> #end
>>
>> The first is semantic (data) and can be reused in other places. The
>> second would have to take the image from a property in order to not
>> duplicate the application icon, so more code.. The first is clear to
>> the developer: he has to specify the application icon. The second is
>> not, without reading documentation about what to write in the panel
>> content in order to have the application icon available for the
>> application bar.
>>
>> > Maybe we should provide a template for this kind of panels so it
would be
> >
very easy to create a new one, or a wizard that generates it easily?
>
> I find it awkward to ask the dev to create a panel in order to display
> an icon on the application bar.
It would be awkward if that was the goal but it’s not :)
There’s no notion of AppBar!
Think as a user, you always ask me to do so :).
hehe ;)
A user that sees the
flamingo skin for the first time will notice a vertical bar on the
left side that has icons on it, most of which seem to correspond to
applications (features). He will never think those are panels! The
fact that the left thin vertical bar (to not call it AppBar) is a
panel bar is just an implementation detail for me.
In this case you’re saying that implementing the AppBar as several panels
is bad idea (i.e. it’s not natural) and the AppBar should be a single Panel.
For me either you agree about having each app provide a panel or you don’t
agree about having apps provide their panels. Agreeing about having one
panel per app and then trying to autogenerate the panels seem too much a
tweak/hack to me and smell of a bad design.
> It just means that if an app wants to have a
panel on the side, it
needs to define it as they have always done (see blog app for
ex) :)
We're talking about the left side, the thin vertical bar. The app will
want to put an icon on it, not a panel. A panel is just the means by
which the app is going to make the icon available for the user.
The thin bar can be anywhere, on the left, on the right, for any kind of
panel. The idea is to still call Panels the panel technology. We’re just
adding panel sizes.
Again if you don’t agree about having panels provided by apps then we need
to materialize the AppBar by having it as a specific Panel (and thus have a
custom UI to configure that AppBar).
> So if an App wants that its users to display
a panel to link to them,
then they do the users a favour by creating such a panel
for the users to
use.
Again, the App doesn't want "to display a panel”.
The app doesn’t want to display anything. It provides panels for users who
use to use them to be able to do so. They can provide a shortcut panel if
they wish. If you don’t agree with this (which is fine) then shortcuts
should not be implemented as panels IMO and instead we should have an
AppBar panel.
The App wants to
allow the users to have a shortcut. In flamingo we display app
shortcuts on the left side.
Not quite. App shortcuts can be anywhere: on the left, on the right, in 2
columns or in 1 column. It just happens that by default we’ll position them
on the left in one column.
So apps will want to have their shortcuts
displayed on the left side. If what it takes to display a shortcut on
the left side is to create a panel then the App will provide a panel,
but we should make app devs a favor by simplifying this as mush as
possible (eliminating the need of creating the panel and copy-pasting
code is possible).
Well you’re making a good point that Panels may not be the most natural
way to represent an app shortcut. I think I agree that it would be more
natural to have an AppBar Panel (that can be configured with a specific UI
to decide what apps it should display - Personally I’d prefer calling it
Favorite Applications Panel and keep the existing Applications Panel to
list all apps).
Both could be just variants of the same Panel adjusting to the width of the
panel left/right area, what do you think ?
Ie, with a "large" panel width, you would display what is in
"Applications
Panel", with a "thin" panel width, you would display what would be in
"Favorite Applications Panel".
I mean, the current "applications panel" could allow end-users to choose
their "favorite apps", and group the rest in the "..." or "other
apps"
shortcut (which it currently does except it doesn't use the wording
"favorite"). Basically both represent a list of links to applications
available in 1-click, along with a list of other applications available in
2-clicks, both available from any page (panel concept).
Another example: if this "thin panel column" / "AppBar" is a set of
specific (distinct) Panels that you can order as you want with panel
wizard, it means you can put some other completely unrelated Panels in
between those applications panels (like a stats panel, a toc panel, ...).