You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
181 lines
6.5 KiB
181 lines
6.5 KiB
This is the start of documentation for the design of Kicker. Add as motivated.
|
|
|
|
Contents
|
|
--------
|
|
1. Kicker Startup
|
|
2. The Extension Manager
|
|
3. The Plugin Manager
|
|
4. Files Important To Kicker That Aren't In tdebase/kicker
|
|
5. Top Level Directories
|
|
6. Class Overview
|
|
7. KIOSK features in Kicker
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Kicker Startup
|
|
--------------
|
|
NOTE: This is the design which we are working towards, not the design as it
|
|
currently is, but there's no point in documenting yesterday.
|
|
|
|
The class Kicker is a subclass of KUniqueApplication and is where all the
|
|
fun begins. It is always available via the static Kicker::kicker() method.
|
|
Upon creation, Kicker::kicker() ensures that its resources are added to the
|
|
standard dirs. This includes tile, background and various plugin directories.
|
|
|
|
Next the global keyboard accels are registered. When registering the "Popup
|
|
Launch Menu" accel, it then references the MenuManager. This creates the KMenu
|
|
and the facilities to update the KMenu when the installed .desktop files
|
|
change. This KMenu is shared by all items that provide access to it to keep
|
|
performance up and memory usage down.
|
|
|
|
Next the ExtensionManager (EM), another singleton, is created. The EM loads
|
|
and manages all the KPanelExtension subclasses, or "panels". If
|
|
on load there are no extensions loaded by the EM, then Kicker creates a
|
|
default panel with a default setup. This default setup is based off of the
|
|
template file <TODO: decide where to store this file and what it is called>.
|
|
|
|
Kicker then checks to see if the menubar panel has been selected and if so
|
|
sets up a panel at the top of the screen. It uses the kickermenubarrc
|
|
file for this panel, creating it if it does not exist.
|
|
|
|
The individual extensions may end up loading various applets and even other
|
|
extensions, which they use the PluginManager (PM) and EM to do.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. The Extension Manager
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. The Plugin Manager
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. Files Important To Kicker That Aren't In tdebase/kicker
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------
|
|
There are two important sets of kicker-related files that aren't in this
|
|
source tree. The first is the kicker configuration panels, the second are
|
|
the applet and extentions classes.
|
|
|
|
For historical reasons, the configuration panels can be found in
|
|
tdebase/kcontrol/kicker. When we move to a better RCS (e.g. subversion)
|
|
these files should be moved to tdebase/kicker/kcm
|
|
|
|
(... add docu here about the structure of the kcm stuff and how it uses
|
|
DCOP to communicate with the panels ...)
|
|
|
|
In tdelibs/tdeui there are two classes that are quite important to kicker.
|
|
The first is KPanelApplet, which is the base class of all kicker applets.
|
|
The other class is KPanelExtension, which is the base class of all kicker
|
|
extensions.
|
|
|
|
These classes are in tdeui so that other applications besides kicker may
|
|
use these facilities, either to provide their own applet/extension
|
|
facilities or so as to provide kicker applets/extensions. This strategy
|
|
should be re-examined in KDE4 and the APIs of both classes cleaned up
|
|
extensively.
|
|
|
|
5. Top Level Directories
|
|
---------------------
|
|
applets/
|
|
The basic set of applets. Everything here subclasses from KPanelApplet found
|
|
in tdelibs/tdeui. These can be assumed to exist at startup and are allowed,
|
|
if not encouraged to, access kicker internals.
|
|
|
|
buttons/
|
|
Anything button-like that you can click on in kicker. Includes the KMenu,
|
|
quickbrowsers and application buttons.
|
|
|
|
core/
|
|
As the name suggests, this is the main kicker code. This include the main()
|
|
and various containers and collection classes needed to glue everything
|
|
together.
|
|
|
|
data/
|
|
Icons, button tiles, backgrounds and the KMenu side images.
|
|
|
|
extensions/
|
|
Extensions, aka panels. Everything here subclasses from KPanelExtension.
|
|
Includes the external taskbar, kasbar, windowmaker doc applet bar, child
|
|
panel and universal sidebar.
|
|
|
|
menuext/
|
|
Like buttons, but also like menus. These are plugins that provide both
|
|
a button for the panel and a menu that appear in the KMenu. These are
|
|
generally encouraged over creating buttons in buttons/ that popup menus.
|
|
|
|
proxy/
|
|
Small applications that wrap applets and extensions allowing for out-of-
|
|
process execution of these items. This is used to safeguard kicker against
|
|
instiating an applet or extension that may crash, taking kicker with it if
|
|
they were loaded internally.
|
|
|
|
share/
|
|
Some basic classes that were meant for use beyond what is in core/. Should
|
|
probably be moved / consolidated with core/ eventually.
|
|
|
|
ui/
|
|
Menus and dialogs. Menus tend to contain "_mnu" in the file name. Kicker's
|
|
control panels are not found here, however. Those are in i
|
|
tdebase/kcontrol/kicker.
|
|
|
|
taskbar/
|
|
The code that implements the actual taskbar widget. This is wrapped by the
|
|
taskbar applet (applets/taskbar) and the taskbar extension (extensions/taskbar)
|
|
|
|
taskmanager/
|
|
Classes representing tasks and collections of tasks. Used by taskbar/
|
|
|
|
|
|
6. Class Overview
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Building Blocks Of A Panel
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
Fittslawframe, Panner, ContainerArea, ContainerPanel
|
|
|
|
|
|
Applets
|
|
-------
|
|
KPanelApplet, AppletInfo, .desktop file description, PluginManager/PluginLoader
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extensions (aka "Panels")
|
|
-------------------------
|
|
KPanelExtension, .desktop file description, PluginLoader, ExtensionContainer,
|
|
ExtensionManager
|
|
|
|
|
|
7. KIOSK features in Kicker
|
|
------------------------
|
|
|
|
Several aspects of the panel can be restricted:
|
|
|
|
* Individual elements (buttons, applets, etc.) can be marked immutable.
|
|
This means that they can not be removed and their properties/configuration
|
|
can not be changed.
|
|
|
|
How: The configuration group in kickerrc corresponding to the element is
|
|
marked immutable, OR, the configuration file associated with the element
|
|
(ConfigFile= entry, or additionally for Buttons FreeSpace2=) is marked
|
|
immutable.
|
|
|
|
* The addition/removal of Applets, Application Buttons, Special Buttons
|
|
and Panels can be restricted.
|
|
|
|
How: "General/Applets2" key is marked immutable. If this is done in the
|
|
kickerrc it applies to ALL panels. If done in a secondary panel's rc
|
|
it applies to that one panel only.
|
|
|
|
* Panel configuration can be restricted. This affects appearance as wells
|
|
as menu-editing (see below)
|
|
|
|
How: ??? "General" group in kickerrc is marked immutable (??? that would
|
|
imply that buttons can't be added either, loss of flexibility)
|
|
How: Use "kde-panel.desktop" control module restriction.
|
|
|
|
* Menu editing can be restricted. Kicker offers several menu items in the
|
|
KDE menu beyond the applications menu itself. See "Configure Panel -> Menus"
|
|
How: Restrict action/menuedit (??? Are their cases where you would want to
|
|
restrict editing of the applications menu but not the other elements in
|
|
the KDE menu?
|