Cairo-Dock cafe | Café Cairo-Dock
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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Heya,
Well as you know, i several time bugged you guys with my ideas on how to develop the dock. And well since I am impatient and all, I decided to look at it on my own. I've been struggling a bit cause I don't know much yet about GUI programming, and there is little resource on Python and even less If you're doing something out of the box.
So right now I've set up a prototype of a dashboard, made with PyQt4. The concept is that of a panel (like the Gnome Panel) which extends to show more advanced info or controls. Right now there's no info nor control, it looks a bit ugly, but the base is there. It took me a while to figure out how to do this and it's not perfect. In the video here below, it is on top of the panel, but when fully developed, it should replace it.
Here's a screencast: http://videobin.org/+51n/5fl.html
Hope you like it.
B. |
Subscription date : 26 October 2008
Messages : 1904
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I like the idea. 
I wish someone was working on the applet doncky in order to be able to create some dash feature like that with maximum configuration as possible. Maybe an idea for Cairo-dock 3.0, as both unity and gnome-shell are reducing the personnal configuration to almost 0. Cairo-dock should make it even easier to create different users environement by working on a way to display things in a clever way. |
Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
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what info would you put inside ?
what would be different from an auto-hidden dock ? (more space available?)
or from dialogues ? or from auto-show/hide sub-docks ? |
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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The type of controls would be gnome menu, system, quick browser and launcher, audio controls etc.
Info would be weather, system, RSS, mail etc.
Other services would be chat, notifications.
The dock's essentially a launcher. Here the idea is to extend that to make it an advanced control centre.
At rest it behaves like a panel.
The advantage is the flexibility between minimal and advanced and a all-in-one interface.
The extra space used is advantageous to give full information.
For instance:
- in the "chat" section, you could have several chats juxtaposed -- at rest the panel lifts slightly to show the last messages.
- in the "music" section, you can see your currently playing music, playlist etc.
- in the "news" section, you can have your RSS or Tweet summaries,exchange rate etc.
- in the "world" section, weather details, radarmap, etc.
- in the "launcher" section, launchers of course, much like the dock, type-launcher like synapse etc.
See what i mean? |
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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+ worked on inverted mode i.e. dashboard on top of panel: http://videobin.org/+520/5gb.html
That seems more user friendly, even thought the "rising" of the panel was the initial idea, it does not seem to be necessary from usage point of view, on the contrary, you don't want to run after your buttons.
Also I tried to work on animations, the result was OK, but not satisfying. I will stop now because: 1. I believe there are better ways to make animation than using Qt's, 2. there are people better at this who might be able to improve the application at a later stage if any, 3. animation takes time vs. I want to be fast.
Next I am going to work on creating a dashboard based on a menu. Why? Because menu visually already does what the dashboard wants to do and WM can identify menus to apply special effect (then I don't need to care for it ).
The trick now is to figure out whether I can make a biiiig menu with several things in it rather than rows with text only.
If you have any suggestion or feedback, please tell 
B. |
Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
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you can indeed add any widget in a menu item
so you will still have a vertical line of menu items, but each of them can be anything. |
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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As you may remember I've proposed once to make the dock use more space---but that didn't spark off. I've worked a bit more on this idea of dashboard and I was concerned about effects etc. But now I realised that instead of making the dashboard move about, I should make the windows move instead (since Compiz does that all for me already, it spare me the work ).
Now that's cool because if there's one thing I still don't understand, it is the idea of desktop, which is this other folder, but instead of being browsed through the file browser like every other folder, it's always there on the screen even if i don't want it to. Mostly it's a good place for dumping files. Dumping files is great, but i don't need to have it in my face all the time.
So instead of having a desktop, I want to occupy that space with the dashboard. So the dash is always here on the background and when I need it, all windows fly away to reveal it.
Right now I've made a mock-up to get an idea: i am trying to make it as efficient as possible. Importantly it should be able to launch fast (so it should have both assets from docks and type-launcher like Synapse).
What I have so far is this (which is incomplete and shows the equivalent of the gnome menu on the dash):
The only part that's always visible is the 25 px high bottom which functions as a panel-indicator. If you hover/click on that part, windows fly away, and the dashboard shows, there is a dock (which functions like CD really). There are launchers (Firefox, Terminal, Chess) and the rest are sections, such as the Applications Menu. There will be others for the other sections I told earlier, coms, news etc. A section will also show active windows thumbnails, like and exposé.
What do you think?
B. |
Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
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that's quite impressive what you could achieve in few days !
maybe a video could help understand how it works.
but I don't see where you want to go; for instance this menu is pretty nice, but it seems could be a real application (or maybe a plug-in?)
do you intend to make a Gnome-Shell that would actually be usable ?
is there any way to integrate it with the dock ? |
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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This is just a mock-up Fab But I must say programming with Python and Qt is going quite fast.
Right now I have two paths on how this application could evolve and be used:
1. the application can work pretty much like Cairo-Dock, as an overlay which can be called by mouse or keyboard signals. There is a static panel and a dock + large menu/dashboards (using as much space as possible when requiring info / choices). The default menu/dashboard opens without clicks eg. if the application menu is the default, the above picture is what you would see right away, you can switch to other dashboards or make them default. The dock has simple launchers too.
2. the application becomes the base for a DE, it replaces the desktop and it is not an overlay but a full-screen application. The DE would work with a WM that does not minimizes windows but push them aside or behind the dashboard when needed.
I'm not sure about integrating it with the dock: i've been using Qt because Gtk is a real pain and difficult to style + badly documented (especially since Gtk+3, there's nothing on PyGobject usage).
I don't really understand what you mean with "it seems [it] could be a real application (or maybe a plug-in)" nor do I understand "do you intend to make a Gnome-Shell that would actually be usable?".
On the long term, as I said, it could develop into a new DE (other than Gnome or KDE)---if the basics are laid out (launcher, panel, notifications, window management, that's pretty much it isn't it?) except there would not be a desktop, so that would be a non-DE |
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fabounet, Tuesday 30 August 2011 à 13:57
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Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
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well, that's quite ambitious
maybe too much for 2, but that's just my feeling. |
Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
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Yes it is ambitious  but that's also why I'm working on it incrementally, so the application will still be alive even if it does not reach its full potential. For the DE option, I'd need people to tag along, and that won't happen without prior input or vision. |
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