An Alternative Look for KDE

An anonymous reader writes: "I'm a huge OS X/Gnome fan, but still highly respect the KDE project. I still try and keep up with it's developments and recently came across this posting on KDELook which proposed a totally new GUI design for KDE, which I think could be quite easily adopted in other environments as well. A rolling Slashdot discussion I think would help keep the open-source innovation going. Thoughts?" Update: 11/27 20:12 GMT by T : Amended to give credit where due, which in this case is to the anonymous submitter :)

Comments

Re:ARRRRGH

[ivan256]

That's not what I saw at all. This totally elimintated the traditional "windows-like" taskbar in favor of things that were like "cards" that could be mostly slid past the edge of the screen when not in use. Also, each of these "cards" could have embedded applets. It's nothing like the Windows GUI, or anything else for that matter.

If you ask me, the whole thing still takes up too many pixels. I'm still desktop-less since I can't bring myself to spend the screen space. What I need is something like these "screenshots," but that disappears completely unless you're holding down the 'Alt' key or something.

Like lots of GNOME panels, isn't it?

[Otter]

I'm not a big GNOME desktop person, so I may be wrong about this, but isn't the overall effect a lot like when the power GNOME users put several specialized panels all over the desktop?

My own taste prefers a single hierarchical menu for launching applications, some system monitors and not much else. For that reason, my preferred desktops are classic MacOS and WindowMaker. (I keep meaning to test utilities to give me Apple menu type launching in OS X -- the dock feels so restrictive and cluttered.) But, it's nice to see people thinking about real alternatives.

a few thoughts

[bay43270]

Overall, I like it a lot, but I have a few notes:

- I don't understand why the term and home buttons are on the clock panel. Both are simply shortcuts to applications and should go on the quick launch.
- If the task bar is on the upper left, then where does a screen maximize to? Does the taskbar cover part of the frame (I hope so, or it might as well cover the entire top of the screen). If it does overlap the top of a maximized frame, then all controls will have to be on the right for this to be usable.
- Static screen shots don't show the interaction well. Will there be a lot of OSX-ish animation. I would suggest a minimal amount of flash. It seems to fit the *nix crowd better (everyone wants to run it on their 90mhz p1), and it would set it appart from XP and OSX.

It has a very clean and simple look, (which everyone always likes but we rarely see in a finished product). I hope, if this does take off, it remains clean and simple.

Re:a few thoughts

[sweetooth]

I don't see any need to try and please a particular crowd. When creating something new and innovative it's very easy to fall back into old habits to please certain users. The interface should have useability in mind first and foremost.

Things like animation and flashy graphics are eye candy that appeal to many people even the "Unix Crowd." If that weren't the case Enlightenment would never have been so popular and many of the things it did wouldn't have carried over into other window managers. The key is that those items can be enabled/disabled. That way those that like flashy work environments can have them and those, like yourself, that don't like flash don't have to deal with it.

Stunned In Awe

[MBCook]

Wow. What more is there to say? It's very clean and nice looking. I really wasn't expecting much, I mean how often do new ideas for how to make a desktop actually work? But this really looks like it would work well. Like I said, it's clean. It reminds me of aqua, but "less", which is a good thing. I've got to say that if this doesn't make it into KDE, I hope someone makes a new window manager that uses this idea, it looks handy. I've been useing WM lately because it uses less resources on my little system, and I've got to say that I really like it. If my system was more powerfull, with things the way they are today, I would probably stick with WM. But if my system were morepowerfull, I'd be willing to switch over to that system. I'm sorry that I don't quite know how to describe my reaction. It seems like a very intelligent evolution that would be very functional and doesn't clutter things up. I'd love to give it a try.

PS: As for comments like "Why is copying WinXP by rounding things considdered new?", it's not. The fact that the edges are rounded is NOT the point, that wouldn't be new. Why don't you try looking at the forest once in a while. That said, I think that rounded things look better than square boxes. The use of curves instead of straight lines seems natural now that graphics cards are better equipped to deal with it than they were back in Win 3.x days.

Quite frankly, excellent.

[EnVisiCrypt]

After the author's initial revisions, this is a pretty spectacular redesign.

I would really love to see something like this implemented for Linux.

While the core theory behind the design is *really* good, I would eliminate the extraneous application elements. The quicklaunch above the K menu should go, and the quicklaunch on the right should be used instead. The slideout on the right should be what the card application for "information center" launches from. The taskbar on the upper left should be open by default, hidden on the click of the arrow. I don't think the cards should be activated on mouseover, the behaviour should be:

If !ontop{
focus
hideothers
}
expand

All in all, the card concept is great, and this design would be a much needed ideological break from OS X and XP. I've heard some grumblings that it will "confuse windows lusers", and "we need to keep the old style for windows to linux converts!". Remember though, users don't need the operation of the interface to be immediately apparent, it need only be easily learned and consistent, which is a common failing of Linux applications/desktops. It would help to think of usability as "learnability" instead of idiot-proofing, a la Jakob Nielsen.

This is excellent, but ...

[imr]

You can already do it in kde3.
The only difference between his layout and a customized kde3 is the look of his task bar (rounded edges and pixmaps).
Right now you can add more than one kicker, taskbar and kasbar on your desktop (right click on kicker -> add -> extension).
You can also choose where to display them (bottom, up, right and left side) and how (center, left or right) and their size (to the pixel) and the size of the icons.
My present layout is done in a way which respects most of his ideas since it came from my everyday needs.
( you could have many extension on top of each other for the double sized quick launch but it looks broken in kde3.1. Because they add this center, left and right thing?)