Some thoughts on inheritance for Pierre Hébert
Requirements:
– adding inheritance feature should not break existing desktops/templates
– inheritance however should be active as default for new panels/folders
– settings for items and folder should be inherited from desktop to panels and folders; or generally: from the container a panel/folder is placed within
What to inherit:
– *”Items”*:
Settings for Text, Icon, Pos., Box; not sure about “+”
– “Icon Pack”:
I think one should be able to apply an icon pack at desktop level and ALL icons in panels and folders should use the same icon pack.
– “Folder windows”:
Note: Currently these settings can only be set at desktop level, but NOT when customizing a panel or folder.
When adding a folder to a panel, it seems at that moment some (i.e border colors, position; but NOT background color or item settings) current desktop settings are copied, but when changing those at desktop (manually or by loading a style), they are not updated.
This in consequence means, each folder within a folder must later on be configured separately by opening the folder and then changing it’s settings (however, strangely the “Current Folder Window” settings have a “Custom” checkbox in front; but currently the parent settings are nowhere editable).
Suggestions:
An option “Inherit from container” or “Inherit from parent” should be added. When this is enabled, all inherited settings must have the “custom” checkbox. When “inherit” is not enabled, the “custom” checkbox should not be there.
Where to add this option to? To granually define inheritance, it could be added as first option in i.e. “Items” in each tab “Text”, “Icon”, etc. But personally I think one option per panel or folder in the category “Miscellaneous” whould be the sufficient.
What to do, when inheritance is enabled if it was disabled? This is mainly important for “updating” existing setups after inheritance feature is available. I think a confirmation “Keep current settings?” (or inverse “Update current settings?” or “Apply parent settings?”) should pop up.
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Josh Gray Thanks. Currently only possible via “Open Folder >> Longtap >> Folder options >> Save style” to save the defaults, then in other folders “open Folder >> Longtap >> Folder options >> Load style”.
One main feature of my Hide and Seek template is about 60 applyable different color styles (saved as desktop style), but it only works due to using some workarounds (folders on main screen, in Folders panel there are only “Open folder” action shortcuts).
Also suggested to Pierre partial application when loading styles (i.e. only load font, color or icon settings). Or come to think of it, only saving some settings (again: font, color, icon settings) as (partial) style. But first I think inheritance should be implemented properly.
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Well thought out. I have run into small issues with some of these, though obviously easier rectified than in the case of your theme.
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Great idea and very well thought out indeed!!
I second this move as well! Also, great tip Lutz Linke ! I’ll probably start looking into saving styles as well now.
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This seems to me perfectly clear and smart.
Regarding the inheritance, I think that once it is active it should not be possible to disable it again. This is the right way to do and I don’t see a reason to revert back to the current behavior which is not correct. Am I right to think this or is there a valid use case ?
Also I am wondering whether it would be useful to have an alternative in how the inheritance link is done:
– inherit from parent
– inherit from desktop: it would bypass intermediate parents
At the moment I would rather think that the second option is better, albeit a bit less “elegant”. Maybe both can be implemented, but I am not sure, and I would prefer to avoid it.
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I agree all styles should be inherited and consistent throughout your desktop. I was always curious and a bit worried how many resources it took when having to set my icon pack for every folder and app drawer, even though it was the same icon pack, it was a different pack from the awesome theme provided by Lutz.
What if styles could be inherited by checkbox? Default would be to inherit from desktop, but an option would be provided to apply styles from the style manager.
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Pierre Hébert Being able to enable/disable inheritance is based on requirement to avoid problems with existing setups. Normally inheritance should be active. Your idea to have only one way is good. For new items (panels, folders) there’s no need to be able to disable inheritance. For existing setups maybe a button in “Misc” to “Inherit from parent” might be a proper one-way solution (button not even visible at new items).
Regarding inherit from parent or desktop: proper would be inheritance from parent. For example folders might have style different from desktop, do panels inside a folder should inherit the folder’s style, not from desktop.
Other then that I see no valid use case. I don’t think anyone would deeply nest panels in panels in panels.
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Eric Chaffey Even when inheriting from parent, even a third level child (let’s say an icon in a panel in a folder placed in a panel at the desktop) would still use the desktop setting — if not overridden in the chain. To stay with my example, the icon’s text would remain “white” (defined at desktop) until you override it at i.e. folder settings to “red”; then it would also turn “red”. That’s how one would expect it to be.
Of course being able to load styles for folders or panels should remain. This simply would override settings different from inherited ones.
Thinking of this… this would be a valid case one might wish for a “reset style” action to revert from loaded style to inheritance — one-way action. Pierre Hébert, do you agree?
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(Jeez, without a swipe keyboard (Kii) writing such long texts on phone would really hurt LOL)
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