Vertical panel mode(s)

[Andrzej]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 10:49 PM, Nick Schermer <nickschermer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We could also make multiple launcher buttons show up as individual
> buttons in deskbar mode (until nbuttons > width/height).

That's a good idea - otherwise, if only one (small) icon was
displayed, the rest of the row would be wasted. Almost every plugin
could get some sort of optimization specific to the deskbar mode.

However, the launcher is not a container - the "contract" is that it
displays one icon (in deskbar mode possibly more than 1 but that's
just an optimization) and the rest of them is available through the
menu. So there is still a place for a container which works almost
exactly as launcher does but displays all the icons in every mode
(perhaps with some arbitrary limit).

I could imagine a more general launcher/container, which instead of
storing a *list* of icons was keeping a *tree* of them. Then, we could
make the root icons always visible and put the branches into menus,
sub-menus,... This could work without changes in all panel
configurations.

> All other plugins can work in their own way with deskbar mode, for
> example not a square button, but a maximum height of X pixels.

Yes, that's what I meant. I think it would be useful to have a common
"maximum icon size" (or just an "icon size") option similar to the one
in the "Notification area". In normal (horizontal and vertical) modes
the icon size is currently automatically derived from the panel size
but that's no longer available in the deskbar mode (or rather the
panel size sets then the *maximum* icon size).

Anyway, with fixes to the icon sizes, changed workspace ordering in
the workspace switcher, and quicklauncher as a workaround for the
multiple launcher icons in the row, we could get a functional (albeit
a bit hacky) deskbar. Then it would be just a matter of making the
settings more consistent (that is removing deskbar-related options
from window buttons and the notification area) and adding some smarter
plugins and optimizations.

Andrzej