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the triumphs and travails of a shift-key-challenged KDE hacker

semi-random thoughts for the dayMarch 19

Plasma Netbook Reference Platform

A couple days ago I downloaded a build of the Plasma Netbook Reference Platform (PNRP?), threw it on a USB key and for the first time ran it on an actual netbook. Up till now I'd been running it either on my laptop or on funky "developer devices" hooked up to a normal monitor. Putting it on one of the first-gen EEE PCs was really eye-opening. The whole form of the user interface makes so much more sense on a smaller screen, and it worked right out of the box quite nicely. There were a few issues here and there, and some new issues related to design came to light as I sat there watching P. use it (he loved it, and is now back to using that rather old netbook now because of the new interface on it). This is exactly what we hoped for when getting PNRP up and running: being able to easily see it in the proper context and get working quickly and effectively on improvements. Since my experiment with P and the old netbook, there have been two new builds and I'm about to update his USB stick to today's version.

Some have also been asking how this relates to the Kubuntu Netbook effort. Kubuntu put out a tech preview of Plasma Netbook and continues to ship a netbook version. Why didn't we go with Kubuntu, then? Well, that question is a loaded one. In particular, it implies that only by sticking exclusively with Kubuntu would Kubuntu's effo

5 days and counting!March 19

Plasma Javascript Jam: 5 Days and Counting

As is noted on the timeline page, the Plasma Javascript Jam Session is just 5 days away from being open for subsmissions! From the 24th on there is a one week window (ok, plus one day ;) for your submissions to come rolling on in to javascriptjam at kde.org. I can't wait to see the results! :)

The Plasma Netbook Reference PlatformMarch 15

What It Is

The Plasma Netbook Reference Platform is a Linux-based software distribution that gives you quick access to the KDE Plasma Netbook experience.

It's designed to be easy to get: If you have a 2 GB (or larger) USB memory stick and a device (laptop, netbook, tablet) that can boot from a USB stick, you are one download, two (copy and paste) commands and a few minutes away from having the latest build of Plasma Netbook up and running.

It's designed to be easy to get involved with: We are using an openSUSE Build Service project that you can not only use and monitor but which you can even modify in your very own "playground". You can share your changes with others easily and even request merges from your work back into the main project.

Why?

Testing Plasma Netbook, demonstrating the possibilities of it to others or even just simply using the latest builds has not been easy or reliable enough. The Plasma Netbook Reference Platform gives us the opportunity to build and deliver a quality example of Plasma Netbook that is constantly kept up to date with development. This will hopefully allow us to:

The Plasma Netbook Reference Platform: A PreambleMarch 15

Whenever I was working on kicker back in the KDE 3 days, I was quite focused on panels and applets in the panels. It was a pain to test at times because panels can be in any number of positions on screen, they can be hiding (in various ways) or not, etc. Ignoring the repetition involved in testing, however, it was pretty straight forward development.

When moving from Kicker to Plasma I bit off a lot more to chew on, though I didn't immediately realize all the nuances of those decisions.(I probably have more to learn about them still, in fact. :) It wasn't until the 4.0 release was a few months away that the following aspect of it really set in: I was no longer creating one tool (kicker) that Someone Else(tm) would pick up and somehow cram together into a desktop environment, I was now working with a group of people to create a complete and coherent desktop shell that would encompass the run command dialog, the desktop layer, the panels, the window manager, system information ... as a coherent product. Yes, each piece still runs very nicely on its own and nothing is welded together at the seams (kwin, plasma-desktop and krunner all happily run without each other, for example), but they do support the user experience across those boundaries when run together as can be seen in how KWin provides more and more of the windowing effects used by plasma-desktop (such as the slide in and out effects on the panel).

Every time I press the volume up/down key on my k

Plasmate 0.1-alpha2March 10

I just tagged and uploaded a tarball for Plasmate 0.1-alpha2. Plasmate is our Plasma add-on creation tool and we're aiming for a summer release. Improvements since the alpha 1 release last month include not only a large number of bug fixes (thanks to everyone who tried it out and reported issues they came across!) but also some great new features, of which probably the most cool one is the online integration which allows you to grab a Plasmoid via GetHotNewStuff and instantly start working on it as well as upload your own creations using your opendestop.org account.

Download it and give it a whirl!