Zack Rusin of KDE has said KDE4 will have full support for widgets from OS X’s Dashboard. “I finally got most the implementation of the HTML Canvas element for KHTML finished. It’s in the kdelibs-js branch in SVN. After George/Maks merge their other changes we’ll merge it to HEAD. I’m planning to add full OSX Dashboard compatibility layer for Plasma (hence why I’ve spent most of the day yesterday on implementing the Canvas element).”
Apple made a wise decision in using plain JS and HTML for widgets. The overhead might be larger than an XML/C or binary format, but it means widgets are easy so easy to make a community is bound to spring up quickly (just like Firefox extensions)
I must admit I has always been a Gnome fan boy but, KDE is tacking great and big steps in the right direction. They are a team working hard to bring the best Desktop Environment to the UNIX masses. I still like Gnome but I’m opening my mind to KDE. Wish well to both projects.
Agreed. Unfortunately, it looks like gnome is starting to fall behind. They both have a long way to go before I would call them well designed, though, but that applies to Windows and OS X, too. Hopefully I won’t be using either of them in a couple of years, but at the rate I’m going it might take a lot longer than that.
If you want my opinion on dashboard, I don’t find it very useful. It looks like it’s more eye candy than anything else (*cough* the dock *cough*) and I see no reason why they have ot reimplement application windows.
Probably the only thing that stops me from switching to KDE is the lack of a decent file manager and the bulky UIs.
Edited 2006-01-01 18:04
“Probably the only thing that stops me from switching to KDE is the lack of a decent file manager and the bulky UIs.”
That’s pretty subjective.
I’ve always felt that konqueror was a good file manager, and that KDE applications were neat and clean, plus KDE applications integrate so well the entire experience is smooth IMO. I don’t feel the same way about Gnome.
Different strokes for different folks though :-p .
That’s pretty subjective.
Obviously. That’s my opinion.
plus KDE applications integrate so well the entire experience is smooth IMO. I don’t feel the same way about Gnome.
Gnome doesn’t integrate nearly as well as KDE, at least, it doesn’t feel nearly as integrated. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to outweigh the drawbacks of using KDE for me.
Kensai,
I agree with your comment that KDE is taking great steps to improve the desktop. I recently transitioned to Gnome from KDE which I was using for several years. Both are progressing as good desktops for Linux users. I do hope both developers will focus more on functionality than just eye candy. For instance I found it easier to set up multimedia keyboards (Logitech and Microsoft) with Gnome than on KDE. Though both lack sufficient options for setting up multifunctional mice such as Logitech’s MX1000 or Space mice (SpacePilot, SpaceBall, etc).
As for Bytecoder’s comment on eye candy there’s nothing wrong with improving the look of a desktop no matter if you use KDE, Gnome or something else. As long as the use of it doesn’t hinder workflow such as being a memory hog or visually intrusive.
Edited 2006-01-01 20:04
As for Bytecoder’s comment on eye candy there’s nothing wrong with improving the look of a desktop no matter if you use KDE, Gnome or something else. As long as the use of it doesn’t hinder workflow such as being a memory hog or visually intrusive.
Well, that is what I think Bytecoder was trying to get at in the way of eye candy – its about weighing up the benefits of adding the eye candy, whether the end user actually needs that particular feature and whether the downsides are outweighed by the benefits.
The features in MacOS X aren’t too bad, and as for the whinefeast regarding the dock, I see nothing wrong – what goes wrong is when people go into the dock preferences and start activing every damn thing in there, the magnified effect, making the dock transparent to the max etc.
Alot of the effects, which hog processors, are normally disabled – KDE actually ASKS you whether you want the effects to be lite, medium or heavy, Windows XP adjusts according to your system effects and Mac OS X disables effects not supported by the graphics card; if people do whine about the over use of affects and the adverse affect on their computers performance, given how the operating systems operate, they only have themselves to blame for setting up their system in that way.
Well, that is what I think Bytecoder was trying to get at in the way of eye candy – its about weighing up the benefits of adding the eye candy, whether the end user actually needs that particular feature and whether the downsides are outweighed by the benefits.
If you read the reviews about OS X Tiger, you’ll find that most of the reviewers didn’t really use the dashboard very much.
The features in MacOS X aren’t too bad, and as for the whinefeast regarding the dock, I see nothing wrong – what goes wrong is when people go into the dock preferences and start activing every damn thing in there, the magnified effect, making the dock transparent to the max etc.
What’s a “whinefeast”? Anyway:
http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
“If you read the reviews about OS X Tiger, you’ll find that most of the reviewers didn’t really use the dashboard very much. “
I can think of some handy uses. For example I use Karamba to have a monitor on my desktop which tells me what the CPU load and Ram usage is. I also have meters for hard drive usage, cpu temperature and network traffic up and down. It doesn’t seem heavy on the resources, there’s really no noticable difference in performance when I use them, and at a glance I can get all the information I like to keep an eye on, so why not use it?
That said with Karamba I can keep the applets or whatever you’d call them on my desktop at all times, whereas most people don’t do that with dashboard widgets even though it can be done. That might have a lot to do with why most reviewers didn’t use dashboard. That’s not to say it’s usefull to everyone though.
If you read the reviews about OS X Tiger, you’ll find that most of the reviewers didn’t really use the dashboard very much.
I don’t know about PowerMac G5 and “above” but on a standard PBook 1.25 with 512 Mb/RAm you don’t want to use it at all. I have two widgets. One for Airport lan monitoring and weather. I rarely use them; except when I need to scan for WLANs. The fact the they are there eating ram when you have so little ram …
even If I had 2GB i’d still think… why would i want to waste 200 mb for “that”
Other than that, Dashboard is nearly keyboard unusable… i mean, you can’t move through the widgets using a keyboard, you have to use a Mouse then the whole point is defeated… if they acted more like exposé… I MIGHT consider using them some more.
I hope that the KDE team realizes this and makes the widgets accessible via keyboard.
Edited 2006-01-02 22:11
So this is where http://plasma.kde.org/ is heading… very interesting. I guess you won’t have 100% compatibility with Apple Dashboard widgets, because some of them must call OS X only API’s. However, it will certainly make it easy to develop similar cool looking widgets for KDE.
I can’t wait until I can try out some of this stuff
Of course “Plasma” refers to quite a bit more than a Dashboard compatibility layer, but one of the initial bullet points was to provide an easy-to-use application platform for “widget class” software. Considering that Apple Dashboard is based on KDE KHTML technology (with certain enhancements that KDE is now adopting in turn), running Dashboard widget comes naturally in a way :-).
Gotta love the constructive forth-and-back that open source enables.
Edited 2006-01-01 18:04
“I guess you won’t have 100% compatibility with Apple Dashboard widgets, because some of them must call OS X only API’s”
Well if the Apple API’s for dashboard are documented so people can write the dashboard widgets it shouldn’t be that hard to make compatible APIs for the KDE alternative.
This will be a very cool feature. This is the kind of things that Linux needs on the desktop to attract new users. (and this is coming from a gnome fanboi)
It looks like having anonymous posting off is paying off.
Look at this page so far
Scores: 4, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3
And not a flamewar in sight yet
So you are saying that it is a good thing there are no flame-wars? Discussion is the exact reason I enjoy browsing (and occasionally submitting) comments, which is the same reason the discussion (i.e. flamewar) oriented format that Slashdot sports is so attractive and addictive.
I usually don’t post as a non-Anonymous user, and this will probably be my last post on OSNews as a result. But, by all means, argue as usual — expose new facts — convince me of something.
I do not come to OSNews for the news articles. I come (at least, I came) for the unfiltered community and discussion.
So you are saying that it is a good thing there are no flame-wars? Discussion is the exact reason I enjoy browsing (and occasionally submitting) comments, which is the same reason the discussion (i.e. flamewar) oriented format that Slashdot sports is so attractive and addictive.
There is nothing wrong with a strong argument being done by both sides, but on too many occasions it ends up falling down to immature ‘I’m better than you’ and ‘you suck!’ – just look at the Mac vs. Windows comments; immature conclusions made by people because ‘if I can do it, everyone can’ and completely devoid of any reality when taking to account that everyones needs are different.
Just look at the shit storm that errupts when I dare say that, shock horror, that I need Creative Suite (All Applications) and Macromedia Studio, and Linux doesn’t have that available – there is a jihad launched against me by zealots claiming that its me with the problem, not the lack of commercial applications on Linux.
Like I said, nothing wrong with a good, hard debate, the problem is when you have idiots devoid of any logic, reason or rationality – another example of this is the Intel thread with idiots claiming that ‘Intel is dying!” the same idiots who think that somehow Linux is going to challenge the Microsoft jugganaunt and it’ll go bankrupt in 5 years.
Kaiwai,
Don’t want this thread to go off topic but there’s no option to send you a PM (Personal Message). I may have a solution to your issue. Regarding your comment on creative applications for Linux users my post “Software for 3D Artists, Designers, etc” was recently updated here http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53452 If your work is web design related and you’re looking for an alternative to Macromedia other than running it on Wine then apps like “WireFusion” or “Flash for Linux” (F4L) may be useful to your needs. If you do any 3D work and are not able to afford a commercial application like Maya, XSI, etc then Blender may also suit your needs. Blender 2.40 is cross platform capable and the recent release offers new tools such as fluid effects.
Edited 2006-01-01 22:25
Its all good; no, what I want is the actual application I use, not replacements – NOW, with that being said, I’d love to see Adobe, at the very least, work closer with wine as to make it possible to run their Windows versions out of the box with no bugginess or speed issue.
Believe me, if wine could do it, I would move over tomorrow, but the problem is, the current support so far buggy at best – its improving, but its not perfect.
flamewar != Discussion
Argument != Debate
You have a warped sense of what a discussion is.
I’m glad you aim this to be your last post.
A debate always involves at least one argument from both sides. Please look up the word argument before using it incorrectly again.
Its very strange that this post got modded down several times, but the parent post hasn’t. Is it somehow more on topic than this reply?
I don’t know why any of it was moderated down, no one is speeking up, they’re just hiding behind the anonimity of the voting system without ever justifying their decisions.
I’ve seen far too many posts just get moderated down like this despite being perfectly ok in my opinion. Someone PLEASE explain why for weeks on end I’ve been seeing perfectly legit comments get moderated down.
“I don’t know why any of it was moderated down”
Ok, I missed a few of the posts which did deserve to be moderated down, because they were reduced to one line titles after getting -2 or lower. That said I still think people are being too strict, some posts both in this thread and outside of this thread have low scores without any reason I can see to justify such moderation.
For example there was this one comment but Krok, titled “Anon” in which he listed some of the comment scores. What was wrong with that? It currently has a zero score so someone obviously moderated it down.
It boils down to differences of opinion. The post might not deserve to be modded down, but if some dislikes the post (or user), it happens. I’ve had several of my posts modded down when discussing the benefits of GPL software vs BSD licensed software. I’ve been saying for some time now that osnews.com staff need to be monitoring who’s modding down etc, and if they are abiding by the rules, and if not punishing them.
Dave
Wow. That was really user-rating suicide. Now that I think of it, this post probably will be too.
the yahoo widget engine that is out?
the yahoo widget engine is just konfabulator renamed. konfabulator originally started out as a mac os x only product, and later became mac/windows. i haven’t heard of plans to port it to linux but in the grand scheme dashboard’s going to pan out better in the long run anyways. particularly if someone ports it to linux and windows.
They copy the most worthless feature of OS X. Well, after Sherlock, but even Apple’s forgotten that exists.
Browser: ELinks/0.11rc0 (textmode; Darwin 8.3.0 Power Macintosh; 80×40-3)
Was wondering why KDE was putting so much effort into remerging their JavaScript engine with Apple’s ( http://webkit.opendarwin.org/blog/?p=36 ). Now all we need is a Windows port, and Dashboard apps will be as portable as Java (or .Net) ones…
I’d always assumed Dashboard was nothing more than a Konfabulator ripoff, but here’s evidence to the contrary!
This is pretty cool. I usually use Gnome because of certain apps that depend on the gtk library, but I think I’ll soon be using KDE and find its equivalents, especially if they get these widgets to work. Just flat out awesome.
Now all we need is a Windows port, and Dashboard apps will be as portable as Java (or .Net) ones…
Qt 4 together with Kde 4 will bring every Kde program to Windows and Mac. IMHO.
This is pretty cool. I usually use Gnome because of certain apps that depend on the gtk library, but I think I’ll soon be using KDE and find its equivalents, especially if they get these widgets to work. Just flat out awesome.
You don’t need Gnome to use Gtk programs. They work just fine with Kde too. There is also a program which automatically adjusts the colour scheme of Gtk programs to match that of Qt programs. Doesn’t look quite the same as native programs but way better than just running Gtk programs under Kde with completely different theme. I can’t remember the name of that program but at least Kubuntu ships by default with it.
Edited 2006-01-01 20:31
“Qt 4 together with Kde 4 will bring every Kde program to Windows and Mac. IMHO.”
I would like to see some programs ported too, but I wouldn’t count on it.
KDE developers have often refused to port KDE programs such as KOffice over to Windows even though it was possible for several versions already. KDE has always used Qt and it has always been possible to port it’s applications with some level of work involved, it’s not simply a matter of recompiling because KDE programs use the KDE libraries wich have dependencies beyond Qt itself.
“You don’t need Gnome to use Gtk programs. They work just fine with Kde too.”
True, as long as the required libraries are installed. Almost every good distribution out there will install the required libraries to run Gnome applications without actually requiring you to install Gnome.
KDE developers have often refused to port KDE programs such as KOffice over to Windows even though it was possible for several versions already. KDE has always used Qt and it has always been possible to port it’s applications with some level of work involved, it’s not simply a matter of recompiling because KDE programs use the KDE libraries wich have dependencies beyond Qt itself.
Except that Qt 3 isn’t available for Windows for free. Qt 4 is available as Gpl for Windows and thus most programs will work on Windows when the whole Kde core is ported to Qt 4 as of Kde 4.
Except that Qt 3 isn’t available for Windows for free. Qt 4 is available as Gpl for Windows and thus most programs will work on Windows when the whole Kde core is ported to Qt 4 as of Kde 4.
This means Koffice will become available for Windows providing yet another way of handling ODF documents in Windows. Yet another reason for not to move to MS’s new XML format but to adopt ODF.
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=20042 It’s called GTK-QT
Dashboard is not a rip-off of Konfabulator. Yes, they are doing very much the same thing. But what it is that they’re doing was not an original idea to Konfabulator. The scope of a “widget” is very much the modern-day equivalent of a desk accessory – think back original 1984 Macintosh.
What is original to Konfabulator? That its widgets are based on a scripting language? That’s not original. There are a slew of other scripting runtimes that allow you to create little-applets-in-windows. E.g. on the old Mac OS, there was OneClick.
According to the Konfabulator web site:
“What sets Konfabulator apart from other scripting applications is that it takes full advantage of Apple’s Quartz rendering. This allows Widgets to blend fluidly into your desktop without the constraints of traditional window borders. Toss in some sliding and fading, and these little guys are right at home in Mac OS X.”
That sounds right — the most striking thing about Konfabulator is that its default widgets look cool. Anti-aliased type. Round corners. Transparency. In short, they’re clearly the work of a talented artist, that being Arlo Rose, who, before co-creating Konfabulator, had in fact worked as a human interface designer for Apple in the 90s, and then went on to co-create the Kaleidoscope theming hack for the old Mac OS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk_Accessory
Looking at that, who honestly thinks of the dock app as an obvious extension of the Desk Accessory? This was more of a convenient rationalization for some when Dashboard was released as a competitor for Konfabulator. It is symptomatic of a very selective interpretation of history to suggest that if anyone was ripping anyone else off, it was Konfabulator ripping off Apple. Apple wish Dashboard was clearly just returning to its Desk Accessory roots. Clearly.
“Widgets” are more obviously extensions of dock applets, which predate Konfabulator by very many years. The modern incarnation seems to imply easy construction utilizing markup languages and JavaScript. In that way Dashboard clearly owes more to Konfabulator than to free-floating programs implemented as device drivers that look more like xcalc than “widgets.”
Quote:
“KDE developers have often refused to port KDE programs such as KOffice over to Windows even though it was possible for several versions already.”
KOffice will run on Windows when KDE runs on Windows.
It makes no sense in creating an office program that integrates into KDE and then strip out all of that integration to make it work on Windows.
Quote:
“KDE has always used Qt and it has always been possible to port it’s applications with some level of work involved, it’s not simply a matter of recompiling because KDE programs use the KDE libraries wich have dependencies beyond Qt itself.”
Like you say, it involves more than just recompiling.
Efforts are being made to make kdelibs4 compile and run on Windows.
It was already possible though.
>> “Qt 4 together with Kde 4 will bring every Kde
>> program to Windows and Mac. IMHO.”
> I would like to see some programs ported too,
> but I wouldn’t count on it.
If you look at the latest svn commits and kde mailing lists you might notice that starting with KDE 4 a lot of work has gone into keeping KDE as crossplattform as possible — and this time it’s not just about Unix plattforms …
they seem to hold appeal for about ten minutes until you realize you have donated twenty percent of your monitor to a weather report or disk space indicator.
The lightweight desklet engines work better on Linux. I was frustrated using gDesklets and I started using adesklets. They are written in Python and they are less CPU intensive and great on memory. It would be great if they supported the canvas tag but right now it us pure Python. http://adesklets.sourceforge.net/
This statement is partly true. I tried to install Gdesklets on Fedora and it went horribly. New versions of gdesklets broke the old desklets I had running and in the end I decided it was too much headache to compile gdesklets each time a new version came out. Overall too much work for a transparent cloud displaying the temperature on my desktop when I can use Firefox’s weather extension.
Widgets are mostly CPU hogs, but they do provide a lot of desktop beauty and activity, which always seems to get people interested in the OS. KDE will benifit greatly from this cross platform compatibility, because right out of the gate, so many widgets will be available.
Important:
Did anyone notice Zachs comment on the EGL and XGL cvs commits by Eric Anholt. A few weeks ago, eveyone was going ape over Novels forthcomming XGL work, but it appears that Troltech and the KDE developers have started thier own XGL and EGL (the real solution to an excelerated desktop) implementation. Imagine how much faster we could get both, if everyone was working together.
All that aside, KDE 4 sounds like it’s comming along just fine and with all the apple and kde KHTML compatibility, perhaps kde will actually be able to give OSX a rum for it’s money (eye candy wise that is). 😉
I have great hopes with this – especially in memory terms. For example the Calculator widget in OS X (on a 64bit machine) when not in use takes 7mb of real memory and 144mb of virtual memory.
This is an easy way to piss off an apple user.
Just point out how apple and microsoft are in a war for the most bloated software.
One person’s bloat is another person’s useful features.
People have this nasty habit of calling something bloat if they don’t use it themselves. Companies cannot cater to every single individual, they aim for the closest balance possible to please as many people as possible.
While I agree to this entirely, a simple calculator widget that is not customizable and only includes very basic functoinality should not take up 144mb of virtual memory. This is the type of bloat the parent post was referring to, not feature “bloat”.
I was thinking that KDE is interesting to watch as it evolves. I am a Gnome user since I like the more minimal UI Gnome presents. It would be nice to see the KDE dashoboard widgets support Python so it would be easy to make calls to GTK. I suppose I will have to wait about 2 more years before Gnome adds similar dashboard support. This the only thing I don’t like about Gnome is that the innovation appears to happen on KDE first and then the Gnome developers borrow the design parts they like.
I like how the widget idea came about…….
They didn’t want to copy us outright with multiple desktops, so they came up with this idea for widgets.(actually, it wasn’t originally apple’s idea but another company who bolted these widgets on but the same idea applies)
Why do we need widgets? We already have multiple desktops.
Hook, line, sinker, look at KDE dangle. And to think Apple was here just a few months ago.
Trading spaces?
This is a really smart, exciting idea from KDE’s most exciting project. I’m looking forward to seeing all that Plasma accomplishes. It might make me sway back to the KDE side of things. 🙂
This is really cool. Is there any word on the hardware requirements? Someone already mentioned the overhead, so I guess we will need fairly modern hardware.
I’m not an OS X user so I’m not very familiar with Dashboard. But I always assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it was similar in concept to SuperKaramba for KDE.
No denying that Apple’s dashboard offers far more in the way of applets, SuperKaramba never seemed to be more than a framework for Liquid Weather and an endless supply of rehashed system monitors. I never really explored SuperKaramba’s framework, but I thought it had more potential that just wasn’t being exploited properly.
So with this move is SuperKaramba being obsoleted? It would seem redundant to support two similar packages (even for KDE).
Just curious.
Superkaramba is not just a framework for Liquid Weather. Superkaramba was the brainchild of Adam Geitgey who added python scripting, and an api to access some kde gui functionality, to the original karamba theming engine.
Liquid Weather ++ was based on a simple karamba theme, and added python scripting to enhance it’s functionality. There are a lot of parts of the superkaramba api that liquid weather doesn’t use (and will never use), which were added for different purposes.
I agree with you however, in terms of the interminable number of system monitoring themes for superkaramba. The real shame about this is that with python as the backend, there could be a huge number of interesting themes written for superkaramba, which go way beyond what Dashboard can do (given the broad scope of the available python modules). The other real shame is that these system monitor themes are written in the old karamba way, which means that they can’t exploit some of the features of superkaramba that would make them more efficient, and less cpu intensive.
Having said this, I have noticed a trend of late that there seems to be more “useful” themes emerging of late. I think the ability to use Dashboard widgets in plasma will be a great thing. I think it will provide a nice compromise between karamba style themes, which only really lend themselves to system monitor style themes, and superkaramba themes, which require knowledge of python.
As aseigo has stated, superkaramba functionality should be included in plasma, although it’s still not clear to me exactly how this will work. Hopefully it will still allow themes like liquid weather to work – otherwise I might have to learn C++ and port liquid weather to becoming a “true” kde app.
> So with this move is SuperKaramba being obsoleted?
superkaramba is being folded into plasma. some superkaramba code is coming along for the ride, but more importantly the concepts and developers are part of plasma project. working together == good
> working together == good
Really? Can’t this KDE vs Gnome was just be dropped then?
Really? Can’t this KDE vs Gnome was just be dropped then?
Any “war” (I assume you meant war and not was?) between KDE and Gnome exists only among the most zealous users, which serves only to propogate pointless bickering, empty rhetoric, FUD and needlessly trollish behavior. As amusing as it can be to watch sometimes, it does get tiring and undermines any sense of unity within the community. The community would be much better served, and linux desktop acceptance could start to advance further, if people would just get it through their heads that choice exists for a reason, it’s a strength and not a weakness. The aggressive posturing back and forth about which DE people should use can only serve to turn people away from linux for the very reason they should be exploring it. CHOICE.
Fortuantely the developers themselves do work together, for the most part, focusing on common framework elements (ie. freedesktop standards) but differentiating where their DE objectives require it. If the “war” really did exist between the developers, we’d all be screwed.
Too many people assume the users speak for the developers, it’s simply not the case.
> Did anyone notice Zachs comment on the EGL and XGL
> cvs commits by Eric Anholt.
yes, it’s a fairly important and interesting turn of events. not unexpected though, and was why i orginaly blogged about the problem. i was hoping we’d be able to avoid a fork. *sigh*
> Imagine how much faster we could get both, if
> everyone was working together.
yes, the situation sucks. but you can’t force people to play well with others. one can only take what they are given and make the best of it.
I’m amazed! The first time I picked up Linux, the only WM installed was fvwm (And what a shocker that can be).
Now, 10 years later, we’ve got two awsome desktop environments that kick the pants off Windows. Gnome has made recent improvements in many areas, the new (and improved) programs in the last three releases have really made it an awsome desktop.
The last time I used KDE was around version 2.2, at the time it was a nice desktop, better than Gnome 1. KDE 4 has won me over, without even using it, I can’t wait for its release.
Here is a big thumbs up for both development teams, you’ve come along way, and are going to go even further. Good work guys!
Just to be a nit picking bastard; The Canvas tag is not the same thing as the Canvas element.
For example, this is a Canvas tag:
</canvas> OR <canvas>
And this is a Canvas element:
<canvas></canvas>
See the difference?
The tag is just the textual representation of a canvas DOM node.
I don’t get it, really. Can someone explain all the excitement about these widgets? From what I read about Tiger they are applets
1) written in js/DHTML
2) living in a transparent layer that you can summon/dismiss at a keypress over the ‘usual’ desktop
Point by point:
1) maybe makes sense for OS X. Maybe the rationale here is that a prominent part of their target demography is graphic artists / web publishers and the like… ppl that are unlikely to be familiar with coding in C++ or Java or Python, but that could be happy if they had a layer to build small applications in.
I think Linux/KDE community is quite different, and I bet most contributors would find it easier working with C++/QT or Python/QT or whatever. I know that I could build better stuff after a week with python/gtk than I could in DHTML in months of work
2) makes sense for OS X, because as someone pointed out before me, there’s no builtin virtual desktops. Doesn’t make much sense in KDE, as it manages virtual desktops. So you can just place real windows and real applications in a virtual desktop of your choice and again summon/dismiss it at a keystroke or mouse click.
The real neat thing that is coming with Plasma is the panel/applets/superkaramba integration and overhaul. Now that is interesting, as it could lead to better applets, monitors, containers… it could really help getting a better experience out of the desktop.
I can understand the KDE developers wanting this compatibility layer, getting something in return from the KHTML-> Apple webcore code integration and tinkering… But it sounds to me like a toy project, not something to be genuinely excited about. Unless, and I’m ignorant on the subject, there’s yet an extremely lively, growing community of OS X dashboard widget coders out there, and a big library of extremely useful stuff you want to be able to use. If it’s not the case, well, I see a ‘real’ applet being better than a js/HTML widget every day of the year.
One last thing about the ‘layers’ idea I read about in Zach’s post. Can someone come up with actual uses for it that is not the whizbang eyecandy that you wow at for 5 minutes and then you turn off, except to showoff with friends? (a-la animated backgrounds as seen in E17 demos). The only thing I could think of were effects like using the water ripple one to locate the mouse pointer in an accessibility framework, or using again that same layer to magnify screen areas (using hw shaders I suppose). But then again, wouldn’t it be better if a real scene graph/compositor piece of code took care of that? Using layers just as a way to stack up information seems to overlap with the 2.5D nature of windows on one side and the avialability of ‘horizontal’ space in the form of virtual desktops on the other.
Genuinely waiting for suggestions to change my mind on the subject.
As many people have said before, KDE is starting to pick up and gain more spotlight. Tools such as Beagle, Mono and Ubuntu have been keeping GNOME in the front recenetly but some cool annonucments make KDE very appealing.
Maybe 2006 WILL be the year of the desktop with Kubuntu, KDE 4 and Qt 4….
i never had such problems with superkaramba… i always thought gdesklets was up to superkaramba’s standards, but that’s clearly not the case, if you’re right…
To me gdesklets has always been full of potential but superkaramba has always been the better of the two. The development also seems to have slowed down over the last year.
Hi, I am one of the (currently) two gDesklets authors. We’re taking a break at the moment. gD 0.35.2 is quite stable and people are happily using it. Packages are available for any popular distributions out there. There’s no need to compile gDesklets anymore (except for those distributions, which aren’t that wide-spread).
Martin (pycage) and I have big plans for v0.40; there might be another 0.35.x release to solve a bug/feature which has been introduced in gtk+2.8: we’re abusing a gtk+ widget to display a gauge, which won’t work anymore.
gDesklets 0.40 will have a new vastly improved shell (it will totally rock!!), themeing support, new effects, full multimedia support using GStreamer. Also, the app will use less memory/cpu time, because it’ll make use of cairo instead of gtk+ to draw the widgets. We’re going to drop the bonobo/gnome dependency once and for all, which doesn’t mean gDesklets won’t use any GNOME technology anymore (e.g. if gnomevfs available, it’ll use it, if not it’s going to use python’s urllib). That should make everybody happy, who wasn’t happy about the huge dependecy list. Furthermore, we might improve certain elements/widgets like the svg widget.
We’re not yet sure when gDesklets will be out, it depends on our spare time 😉
If you’re interested in our plans, drop us a mail…
P.S. The gDesklets and adesklets team will try to work on a common ADL (applet description language), so that you’ll be able to use your adesklets and gdesklets. Initially, I also wanted to work on a (super)karamba converter, but since the library will be totally integrated in KDE now, I don’t see any necessity. But, you’re still welcome to work on it 😉
Regarding konfabulator and dashboard a converter/interpreter might be more complicated, since they are using javascript and we don’t have any plans at the moment to offer javascript support (js is a cpu/memory hog: I tried to use konfabulator on my windows machine some time ago…)
Edited 2006-01-02 17:09
“We’re taking a break at the moment.”
Why? All the upcoming features you’re mentioning seems worth coding for!
“If you’re interested in our plans, drop us a mail…”
Is there a news feed you can subscribe to? I’m always interested in following the progress of promising OSS projects and this seems like one. (Plasma is certainly another.)
Why? All the upcoming features you’re mentioning seems worth coding for!
Well, we also have to work on another project at the moment to earn some money. gDesklets is our fun/spare time project 🙂
But, yes, we know that those features are what people would like to see.
Is there a news feed you can subscribe to? I’m always interested in following the progress of promising OSS projects and this seems like one. (Plasma is certainly another.)
http://www.gdesklets.org is currently being set up. The forum (even if it’s still not as good and frequently used as the old one) might be the right place. Or just email martin(AT)pycage(DoT)de and chrisime(AT)gnome(DoT)org.
Cheers,
Christian
i don’t know exactly about the dashboard widgets, but i DO remember the hearing the lead plasma developer say he intends to keep KDE running smoothly on an old 128mb ram box he has lying around…
all gnome devs are totally free to join the most innovative DE and make it even better
and of course, there is freedesktop.org with some collaboration between dev’s from lower and higher level software and between the several DE’s…
there are indeed many usefull OSX widgets already available, so having these work in KDE would be cool, esp for those apple fans who want to try linux but don’t want to lose their favorite widgets…
on the point of eyecandy, in itself this might not be usefull – but i’m sure things will pop up that ARE usefull. look at the genie effect mac OS X uses – when you minimize a window, it’ll slide smoothly into the dock. eyecandy? yes. but also usable – you SEE what is actually happening, much better than the “window animations” linux and windows offer.
sorry, that’ll be 2007 i’m afraid. KDE 4 will most likely be ready before the end of 2006 but the first ubuntu release carying it will not be 6.10 as i don’t think theycan be ready that soon. it’ll be 7.04, i think.