lo the year end draws nigh

so the 2005 calendar year is almost over. zack and i spent the afternoon in a coffee shop writing code. i was working on some of the more boring bits of plasma: classes for applets, chains (the replacement for panels) and necessary bits of scaffolding. matt broadstone had done some interesting work (now in kde4 playground) showing how we can use the generic kde service loading framework for applets, which means that much less code in plasma. huzzah.

applets have both a global as well as applet-specific config files available to them, solving the global-vs-specific configuration quandry kicker applets have. the idea of unique applets is gone though (good riddance! =). all of the positioning and other such management code is being put into the chain class so the applet class remains small and single purpose; once we get around to figuring out the replacement for applet handles those will also be finding their way into the applet class directly so that we won't be plagued with the current problems where the applet handle (and therefore the menu) and the applet have little to no idea about each other. i kind of worked around this in kicker, but it wasn't pretty code wise nor optimal usability wise.

a couple of hours into the coffee shop experience a birthday party descended around us. an octegenarian and his wife come to the shop every day at 16:00 for coffee and sit at the corner tables we had made ourselves comfy in. today was his 86th birthday so they were joined by a couple tables of friends. we moved aside and wished happy birthday to the celebrant. his wife gave us some birthday cake and we visited briefly with a few of them, including one couple who was from norway.