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gDesklets - Gnome2's Karamba
Deusy writes "Footnotes is running an update article on gDesklets, Gnome's answer to KDE's Karamba. I've heard a lot of noise with regards to Karamba (and Super Karamba) and a lot of moans from Gnome users about the lack of a Gnome equivalent. Hopefully this should fill that void and more, as one of the developers comments that gDesklets is the product of "months of planning" and describes Karamba as an "ugly hack"."
A developer calls it "an ugly hack". Well, not quite. It was pretty clearly marked as tongue-in-cheek, and not to be taken seriously.
Looks to me like the submitter deliberately wants to fan any remaining flames between the projects; who knows why.
Instead, we have some pretty good illustrations as to why having two projects is a really good idea. KDE gets Karamba (and SuperKaramba) which takes off like wildfire. Undaunted, some Gnome people sit down and look at what Karamba does and learns from it (what the devels envisioned versus how it is actually being used; awkwardness and mistakes in teh design) and develop something similar, but with the benefir of hindsight from the other project. No doubt will the Karamba people look at gDesklets and in turn learn from it's strengths and weaknesses. THe end result is a set of tools that become far better, faster, than either would have become on its own.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Good to know Gnome is going to have something along the same line as KDE. Having said that however, I'm wondering if the Gnome community can match the number of Karamba plug-ins out there, some of which really do look good (www.kde-look.org) Also, before slamming Karamba for being "an ugly hack", I'd love for them to explain A.) Why they think this is so and B.) Why their version is going to be so much better. I mean, a good explanation might go a long way in converting people over who use KDE just for Karamba (and they are out there).
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
I guess smarter developer would have ported karamba to gnome. I've had enough of this duplication of every goddamn app in world for both of the systems. What's the use of making everything twice? Waste of talented programming resources, IMHO.
I agree but I would say that the reason is probably because they created a framework for others to make the eyecandy in. They laid the foundation and there isn't much eyecandy to show at this point.. just a big hunk of concrete for others to build on.
But it's not true at all.
Look at GNOME 2 vs. KDE 3.1. They are almost entirely DIFFERENT. KDE still follows the path it has always followed--a beefier CDE with Windows trappings. GNOME, which used to follow this model, has completely changed--it's more like the Mac now rather then playing catch-up with KDE or imitating Windows.
I used to be unimpressed with GNOME. I recently installed GNOME 2 and was blown away--very slick, very minimalist, very tight. And very different from the current KDE. I stopped using Windowmaker as a result.
The two projects may have started out trying to mimic each other, but it's not true now. They are going in two different directions, and it shows.
gkrellm has been around for some time now, does all the above without the uber-eye-candy. Who needs this bloat anyway? Let us all buy shiny new pentiums with mmx so we can run all the latest desktop fuzz! Great!
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amnesia (hell, 10 years is plenty, probably 10 months is plenty), go to
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It's worked for many people, and it can work for you."
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karma capped
Really, was it really necessary to mention that "karamba is an ugly hack" comment? The project's homepage is very objective and doesn't slam KDE at all. That comment was the opinion of one single person!
Why was it mentioned? Are you trying to slam KDE again? Or are you trying to make it look like as if the GNOME guys are slamming KDE, and start yet another flamewar on Slashdot?
I'm sure I will get modded down for this, but hell, it's the truth! Slashdot should not encourage more pointless desktop flamewars or trying to make either GNOME or KDE look bad.
Obligatory mention of gkrellm ... www.gkrellm.net. IMHO, its smaller, more lightweight... can be extended with hundreds of plugins and doesn't clutter the desktop. I think it's been around a bit longer too, but I could be wrong.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
"Also, before slamming Karamba for being "an ugly hack", I'd love for them to explain A.) Why they think this is so and B.) Why their version is going to be so much better."
There is no "they". There is only "he". This is the comment of one individual, not the entire project.
Slashdot is just trying to start another flamewar. This whole story could be considered a troll just because it mentions that single comment.
Quote: "Footnotes is running an update article on gDesklets, Gnome's answer to KDE's Karamba."
What's the point of summarizing a story, if - by the end of the summary - the reader still has no clue as to what it's even about.
What the hell is Karamba, and why should people care enough to click-through?
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
1) Dashboard is written in C#. gDesklets is written in Python.
2) Dashboard is just a fun experiment by Nat Friedman, not an official product.
Get a clue. XML comes in flat text files. You don't need a front-end or GUI to edit them.
That's not the point. A custom format tailored to a particular program is always going to be better. XML is supposed to be a standard. It's supposed to make things simpler for people by having a standard way of configuring programs.
Time makes more converts than reason
Of course surveys don't ask every user. You missed to say why you think that those 600 are not representative. Also you fail to see that KDE sees massive absolute growth too.
Copy from KDE, or not, there's one important problem , the same as before with desktop environments: double architecture. Now if you want your app to have desktop indicator support, you have TWO API's to support. This is a major problem for developers, packagers and distributions (not to mention the end user).
I suggest to create a meta-API, one that can use either gDesklets and Karamba. It would expose a common set of functions and capabilities and map them to the current session's API.
Hmm.. Next OSS project..
I've never understood the popularity of "active desktop" style embedded desktop widgets. I for one see my computer desktop about as often as I see my physical desktop, which is maybe once a month when I get one of my rare cleaning urges or have to find some document I printed out awhile back. What the hell do these people do at work, that they actually spend a signifigant amount of time without their deskop completely obscured by other windows?
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
As I just said on IRC, but with some additional censorship, "IF YOUR UI IS SO F***ED AND OBTRUSIVE THAT YOU NEED TO RESORT TO TACKING SH*T ON THE DESKTOP, YOU HAVE LOST."
Really, I don't mind the functionality. Small, monitoring applications are good, and I'll admit I slog along with dockapps in WindowMaker because they're the closest thing to anything reasonable. But the to crib from the Mac page, the desktop is your 'finder.' It's a window into the system's file-management metaphors. Now, it's not perfect, it can waste a lot of space - which is why someone else came up with the idea of throwing pictures on it - but as an attempt at cloning Active Desktop, this rankles me from two directions at once.
-First, why do we really need an API just for this? In WindowMaker, for instance, I can position any X client where I want it, rightclick and remove the window manager decorations, and put it 'always on bottom.' Setting it up to load as such is marginally annoying - mostly because the tools for editing the X properties WindowMaker respects aren't that great, and otherwise it only lets you save *everything* at once - but that's not a problem with the concept, just the implementation. I used to do this all the time for eyecandy with XMMS plugins, since I could just close their windows from within XMMS when I got tired of it, and WMaker would conveniently 'forget,' so I could reposition as I wanted the next load.
-But anyway, if the API is *good* (looks like some sort of Python rapid-development thing?) why limit it to the world's least useful form of display? Really, if you're stuck doing things like this, you're admitting that your 'regular' UI is no good for this entire class of presentation. Gnome and KDE already have at least two UIs - regular windows and whatever their docklets are called - and those just emulate the failings of previous GUIs. How about *one* presentation system that works and scales with some consistency? Oh yeah, because Qt and GTK aren't really that advanced...
Seriously, if you care about the weather - maybe you want it on your desktop/root window for some reason. But maybe you want it on your screensaver, too (how hard is it to bounce a window around the screen?)... maybe you want it on your dock/launchbar equivalent, where it'll always be visible... or maybe you want it on its own pane that'll either overlap your other windows, or 'nudge' them out of the way.
This is really an annoying, overwhelming problem in UI design today. Few authors consider how *their* Perfect and Shiny New Toy will interact or cooexist with anything else. Now, if something really needs its own toolkit or whatever, I'm not averse to installing it and living with the inconsistency, but here we have Gnome and KDE being inconsistent with themselves... on purpose!