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KDE Plasma Active: the Mobile Interface That Works

Posted by timothy on from the hold-it-in-your-hand dept.

jrepin writes "Bruce Byfield is not a fan of interfaces for mobile devices. At best, he finds them clumsy makeshifts, tolerable only because nothing better is available. The only exception is KDE's Plasma Active, which not only works well on tablets, but, with its recently released version 3.0, remains the only mobile-inspired interface he can tolerate on a workstation."

6 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Looks interesting... by xkpe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Looking at the video it has some interesting concepts to make it more usable on touch devices, but to some point they still rely in rather small buttons that are hard to touch.
    It also seems very slow but it might be a debug version.

  2. At least link to the Plasma Active page by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

    The wall-o-text of TFA doesn't even have pics, and I barely noticed the link to the project
     
      Plasma Active

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  3. Re:two input paradigms, same interface, same mista by Shinmera · · Score: 5, Informative

    Which this is. KDE Plasma Active is not the same as the default desktop KDE. It uses the same libraries and corer, but is a different interface. I don't see a problem with this at all.

  4. Re:two input paradigms, same interface, same mista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bruce (the author of the article) tried running it on a desktop system to see what it would be like there. It is not the intended use of the interface, but Bruce was curious and tried it out.

    However, we still have a separate desktop UX that, as Shinmera mentioned, shares the same core and libraries but which has a significantly different interaction pattern tailored for the mouse/keyboard/lots of apps method of using a general purpose device (e.g. a full laptop). Plasma Desktop will continue to be supported, developed and recommended for desktop systems (as the name implies) while Plasma Active is aimed at mobile and "appliance" style devices.

    Cheers, aseigo.

  5. Re:Who is he? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You should not care in any way who he is. But instead of making stupid, uninsightful comments on Slashdot, you should go read what he wrote and see if it make sense.

    Believing something because of the reputation of the speaker is stupid, faith-based magickal thinking. Get over it.

    These statements not approved by the SlashThink hive mind.

  6. Re:Who is he? by Raumkraut · · Score: 5, Funny

    why should we go read what that particular guy wrote instead of reading something else?

    Because this one is featured on Slashdot, so has clearly passed through the site's stringent editorial checks for quality and veracity.