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KDE's future: Plasma & SimpleKDE

Posted by Hemos on from the the-evolving-world dept.

A reader writes: "KDE continues to grow. Early screenshots, mockups, and developer blogs show that the new Plasma Project (KDE 4.x branch) will bring innovative approaches to desktop computing. On the other hand, the very first screenshots of SimpleKDE, an unofficial fork of KDE, were meant to be a response to those who criticise KDE as being overbloated."

9 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Mirrors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Plasma screenshots, mockups, developer blogs and Plasma Project homepage.

    SimpleKDE screenshots and homepage.

    All links courtesy Mirrordot.org.

    1. Re:Mirrors by Mornelithe · · Score: 5, Informative

      If those are the appropriate links, then the things listed as "plasma screenshots" are actually mockups.

      As far as I know (and I've been following this pretty closely), there is no plasma yet. It's still separated superkaramba, kicker and kdesktop, which they are now porting to Qt 4, and will later combine and alter into what will be plasma. Thus, there are no screenshots, as they're not far enough along yet.

      There's lots of interesting mockups at kde-artists.org, though.

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  2. Seems really cool... by Pecisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (Disclaimer: I'm GNOME fanboy)

    This is looks really cool and useful. Both ideas are very welcome. And for those who asks why Linux doesn't have one desktop - this is the reason - Innovation.

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    user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  3. KDE Servers by iphitus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Look like they're plasma right now.

  4. Re:Server go boom? by Vario · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://mirrordot.org/ has some of it already cached. Try this link: http://mirrordot.org/stories/352335d7edc4f5541c0e9 bfc28ab7cd0/index.html

  5. What about Slicker? by AceJohnny · · Score: 5, Informative

    Plasma somehow reminds me of Slicker. It was a great idea for replacing Kicker, and IMHO was a nicely innovative one too. I mean, look at these nice mockups.

    Unfortunately, these are just mockups, and it seems the project has stalled for more than a year. Slicker could use a little attention, don't you think? So if you have some spare time and a love for moving the Linux desktop in cool directions, how about giving it a try? :)

    PS: I'm totally unrelated to the project, just disappointed that this cool idea is rusting

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    1. Re:What about Slicker? by TomorrowPlusX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Hey, you made my day. I am the father of Slicker -- it started as an attempt to write something for KDE along the lines of (classic) Mac OS's tabbed finder windows. See my posts in the Gentoo forum where I posted about its development: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-29746-highlig ht-.html

      So, basically what happened was simple. I really was only interested in using it as a way to access Konq, as panels which would slide out based on mouse-to-screen edge movements. I made it relatively plugin-extendable and people whipped up all sorts of nice extensions, like terminal access, K-Menu access, etc etc. People also wanted it to become a sourceforge project and more public, which I was fine with. So, I handed it off, and it promptly died since the people who took it on bickered day and night about website design and themability, and never bothered to write any code.

      I then moved on to OS X, where I continued the work that matters to me ( robotics & AI ).

      But anyway, it had potential!

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  6. That's unbelievable! by Piroca · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Don't get me wrong, but we are in 2005 and the "Linux desktop" is still behind the 10-years-old Windows 95 desktop in terms of consistency and usability. The situation is really scary given that Windows 95 interface (as well as its 98, 2k and XP derivatives) is actually a piece of shit. But, at least, it didn't make basic mistakes:
    • Fonts are readable and well aligned inside widgets
    • Spacing was consistent between elements of the interface
    • Contrast between what the user has to recognize/interact and backgrounds/empty areas/decorations is quite high
    • Widgets, colors, fonts, decorations, etc. all look the "same", without major discrepancies in style or form
    KDE (and Gnome) make *all* the abovementioned mistakes, shamefully. It's amazing how these problems still persist and *none* seems to care about them, energy seems to be used in the creation of stupid themes and wallpapers as opposed to real, obvious issues (look at the fonts issue, for instance, if you don't use ttf fonts stolen from a windows install the desktops look really bad). I should stop my flamebait here, but it's obvious that Apple is going to put the last nail in the "Linux desktop" coffin, for good.

  7. Re:Plasma looks like ass! by stilborne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > but its appearance here is horrendous

    seeing as nobody's seen it yet, that's an interesting statement to make ;)

    right now we are working with a large number of artists who are all throwing ideas and concepts for different parts of plasma into a pot. i, and a few others from the project, go back to the artists with feedback, questions, critiques and the cycle starts over.

    we've done perhaps 1 or 2 cycles thus far and have a few months more to go. the final look and feel is by FAR not decided upon. in fact, in august we'll be getting together with the artists doing Oxygen (a new theme and icon style in quiet development that is aiming to be the default in kde4) while at aKademy and banging out some hopefully hi-octane work then.

    > lets not forget that we don't want to go with
    > too radical a change all at once

    yes, i couldn't agree more!

    when working out how plasma might work, i ended up at some rather radical concepts. but as you note, we can't drop some totally new way of doing everything on people.

    it needs to be introduced step by step.

    thus plasma will be familiar enough in its default configuration for people to transition without really noticing it from KDE3, Windows or Mac... but it will introduce subtle new concepts that will allow us to start edging in a direction that gets us out of the WIMP-jail.

    the first concept is that the desktop is not a file manager view, but harmonizes with your panels.

    the second concept is that the desktop and panels are meant to be first class citizens that actively enable your workflow.

    i'd love to say more about it, but i don't particularly like talking about things which i can't let people play with right now (aka "vapourware") even though development is going forward at a terrific pace. i also don't like it when people snag ideas and run off with them, as has happened a few times in the last couple of years. =/