New applet popup animation for floating panels?

Brainstorm
1

I think the current “Slide Out” animation doesn’t fit floating panels very well. We need a new applet popup animation.

The current animation strongly implies (although weakened a bit by the fading effect) that applets are hiding behind the panel, and slide out when clicked:
defloating

But floating panels break this metaphor: if applets are hiding behind the panel, you should see a glimpse of the applet through the gap between the panel and the screen edge.

There are some alternatives:

  1. Use the “Fade In” effect like menus do. Applets work quite like fancy menus, so this makes sense.
  2. Use the “Pop up from thin air” effect like when an app launches.
  3. Use the “Pop up from the icon” effect like when you restore a window from the taskbar.
  4. Create a new effect that the applet expands like a scroll, from the panel.
  5. Create a new effect that a wormhole appears at the edge of the panel, and the applet slides out from it. This is probably too fancy to be the default.

And then applets don’t have to touch the panel. They can have same round corners and floating just as floating panels.

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