on the upside, i got word yesterday that p. has been accepted to the waldorf school. so now we just need to complete the admissions process and that's done. i'm very happy about that. he'll be spending fridays in june at the school to start getting acclimated and make friends with some of the other students. neat-o.
also, as of today plasma now loads applets as plugins and by next week that will be upgraded to full on plasmoids. what is the difference, you ask? good question!
from a user's perspective an applet is an implementation detail. from a developer's perspective it's the code, be it a script or a bunch of c++ compiled into a library, that creates a Plasma::Applet object.
it takes more than just that to have a full widget in a plasma container, however. and that's where a plasmoid comes in. a plasmoid is the collection of files that, taken in sum, make up a plasma widget. these files include:
- metadata (.desktop file(s), sample screenshot, etc)
- svg image files (to be registered with Plasma::Theme)
- configuration data (KConfigXT xml)
- and of course ... code
the really good news is that we have, thanks to work by riccardo iaconelli, a packaging format that is tightly integrated with GetHotNewStuff2. for those who have been living under a rock for the last few years or simply aren't very familiar with kde, GetHotNewStuff is a way to provision application data add-ons over the network. the project has grown since kde3 and is now hosted on freedesktop.org. it includes both server and client side tools, and for kde4 we have some classes that allow developers to easily interact with packages of updates.
these packages are very simple, essentially documented zip files. they don't do complex dependency resolution or fight with your operating system's package system. they aren't meant to deliver complex pieces of software either. but they are perfect for plasmoids.
this part of GetHotNewStuff2 will appear in libplasma for 4.0 with the idea of proving them first in the workspace area and then moving more mature versions of them to kdelibs for 4.1. they are in playground right now, but should be svn mv'ing over to libplasma next week.
in the meantime, milliams is starting work on listing known applets in the desktop toolbox, which is handy little slide-out-of-the-side-of-your-screen widget that gives you access to things like adding new plasmoids to the desktop or panels, layout switching and desktop zooming. have i said how much i hate popup dialogs?
oh, and alexander "wirr" wiedenbruch has brought superkaramba into a library so now superkaramba themes can be rendered in plasma. he posted a screenshot the other day of it working. there's still more work to be done on it, but this is a major step towards providing a migration path for superkaramba users.
so .. things continue on a nice clip in plasma. lots left to do, so i don't foresee these blog entries stopping any time soon =)
11 comments:
Do we really have to wait until monay to see some screenshots?
of course not. you can grab the sources from svn and install a kde4 environment today! ;-P
but seriously, yeah, we'll have stuff, including a screencast i think, for the commit digest on monday but probably not before.
congrats to p. on the school, i know you've both been looking forward to it.
So do you get a binary in the plasmoid?
If so how is it going to handle linux's lack of forwards and backwards compatibility, and also BSD/PowerPC/etc.
Sounds cool otherwise.
I guess this is sort of on topic.. I know there are no plans to port the workspace elements of kde4 to windows/mac, but is there any chance of plasmoids being operating system agnostic?
There would be some redundancy (both apple and microsoft have similar technologies), but I think plasma has the potential to be *better* that what is currently available. And, being platform agnostic would expand the pool of users.
:)
(sidenote: where should questions like this be asked in the future? )
@michael: thanks =) i think next year is going to be a good one for the p-man ...
@anonymous: "So do you get a binary in the plasmoid?"
not in ones that you'll get as a plasmagik package over the network, no. those will have javascript, python, ruby or whatever other langs Kross supports. these are, obviously, platform independent and only rely on the kross backend being available.
@keifer: "but is there any chance of plasmoids being operating system agnostic?"
i have no intention of that occurring.
"There would be some redundancy (both apple and microsoft have similar technologies), but I think plasma has the potential to be *better* that what is currently available."
i agree. and that betterness (along with other things that work better in a full kde environment) is what i hope draws people to the full kde platform.
we are still a desktop environment, you know.
if we don't get enough users on Free software platforms, which is to say off of Windows (and to a lesser extent, MacOS), we will be in big trouble some years down the road.
when you don't control the platform, you are are the whim and mercy of the people that do.
and i'm sure it isn't news that Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, Apple) aren't particularly keen on seeing Free software continue to rise at the expense of their market share (and thus cash flow).
i'm very concerned about the longevity of Free software, and am absolutely convinced that sustainability means a friendly platform. which in turn means a Free software platform.
so as soon as Microsoft and Apple release their entire OS stack as Free Software, i'll be happy to entertain the notion.
" And, being platform agnostic would expand the pool of users."
economics is full of interesting situations where the apparent gain is actually a loss.
the fallacy of the broken window and the theory of comparative advantage are two good examples of this.
i'm quite happy with our millions of users that we have today. i'm happy that kontact, koffice, etc may end up with millions more than that by being available on Windows and MacOS.
but i'm also aware that the workspace doesn't need as many users in the same time span that apps like kontact need to be successful in the long term, and that to give Free software and KDE both the due they deserve, it is our best interest to ensure that there is a better platform available for people this open and Free.
imagine, if you will, if 30% of desktop users in the world run Linux. do you think it would be easier to get support for open formats such as Ogg in that case? KDE on windows might support Ogg, but realistically Phonon/Windows and Phonon/Mac will have "native" backends using the system provided facilities; that is the plan right now and it makes sense on many levels.
this is just one very trivial example. i could list many more, but i'll spare the column inches ;)
it simply comes down to: if we can attract enough users, we have a very friendly platform where we get to pick and choose how things work. we have no such luxury and live in a constant state of peril on non-Free platforms.
you can ask the hundreds of software companies Microsoft has put out business with such tactics. they aren't the only offender, just perhaps the best known and, in this case, the most relevant.
Sounds just great! Now I feel that Plasma is in the state where I as a small-script-and-niftie-stuff-guy can start to use it and start to port some of my desktop-thingies. I'll install kde4 in a vmware-machine or similar to try out how it works!
Thanks for all your hard work, your effort are certainly appreciated!
Since I've seen that there is some work being put into SuperKaramba for KDE 4 (last commit-digest) I was wondering what the relationship between plasma and SuperKaramba throughout the KDE 4 series will be. Is it going to coexist with plasma, become a part of it or will it be replaced?
@mata_svada: i actually covered that in the second-to-last paragraph of this blog entry. superkaramba widgets are being rendered on the plasma canvas providing a migration path to plasma.
it's not a permanent offering, but something to bridge between now and when there are plasmoids to replace all the superkaramba themes people rely on today.
I only hope you've read up on Rudolf Steiner if you are sending your son to a waldorf school.
"...to replace all the superkaramba themes people rely on today"
I like the attitude of saying "rely on" for even niche software.
I make my entire living taking advantage of unique features in KDE like using fish:// to access my company's documents from kate. I rely on the awesome "block selection" in Kate to save time editing documents. I find it amusing that most people have never even heard of such features.
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