{"id":1238,"date":"2008-07-09T01:44:44","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T23:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/thoughts-on-innovation-on-the-desktop\/"},"modified":"2008-07-09T01:44:44","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T23:44:44","slug":"thoughts-on-innovation-on-the-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/thoughts-on-innovation-on-the-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on innovation on the desktop."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"If<\/a>
\n While surfing around on Teh Intarwebs, I’ve read complaints from people that we’re doing
\n something radically new to the user. Some of those users seem to have problems with all
\n that “radically new” stuff. Honestly, I don’t think they have seen anything we *can* do
\n yet. With KDE 4.1, we have pretty much implemented functionality that was there, made
\n applications smarter, and polished the looks. Almost all of the work on the UI,
\n especially in Plasma has been put into recreating functionality from KDE 3.5. What is so
\n radically new to it? Having a shallow look, both — KDE3 and KDE 4.1 have quite a
\n similar interface. Panel with tasks in it, an application starter menu, a simple clock
\n with a calendar, a virtual desktop switcher and the systray. Just about
\n everything is in the same place where people using KDE 3 used to find it. And in
\n 4.1, you’ll have icon groups on your desktop that work just like kdesktop’s
\n filemanager, only a bit more flexible. Overall nice improvements, but certainly
\n nothing radically new as a whole. That’s probably as far as it can get with
\n re-creating the traditional desktop. Nobody wants to create an exact copy of KDE
\n 3 at this point anyway. If we would have wanted that, we wouldn’t have started
\n this journey that is KDE4.<\/p>\n\n Yet nobody wants to take away the traditional desktop from the users. That’s why
\n KDE 4.1 looks like it is. It’s a relatively conservative traditional desktop. If
\n you look at the KDE 4.0.4 implementation of openSUSE, it’s even very close to
\n how KDE 3.5 looks like and works. Besides that, you have enough choice to run
\n any traditional desktop around, whether that’d be KDE3, GNOME, XFCE, or whatever
\n you like. And in August, we’ll release KDE 3.5.10 for those that prefer 3.5.
\n See, we’re nice people, we’re not abandoning 3.5. We don’t want you to move.
\n It’s completely up to you. KDE 3.5 is rocksolid and works really well in many
\n aspects. KDE 4 has not reached its full potential yet. You will be able to
\n decide yourself when it’s time to move to KDE4, if ever. And if you happen to
\n fall in love with KDE4 applications, which is quite possible, they also run just
\n fine in KDE 3.<\/p>\n\n Surely the developers do need some room for innovation and trying out new
\n ideas. It would be strange if we kept adhering to all those traditions and
\n copied 3.5. And it’s why we created KDE 4 in the first place. Two years ago I
\n talked with a Canadian friend on the phone about KDE 4 and Plasma in particular.
\n The idea was back then to create a desktop that is backwards compatible with
\n what people are used to, yet offers new cool stuff that gets you hooked. With
\n KDE 4.1 we’ve probably reached this goal. A desktop that’s pretty close to 3.5’s
\n functionality.<\/p>\n\n Regarding those relatively small adjustments we’ve made to the desktop
\n shell, one could wonder what some people say when their filemanager and
\n applications start dealing with information, rather than with data
\n understanding relationships between information, people, … and works with
\n metadata and semantics, rather than a hierarchic filesystems. (that’s what
\n nepomuk might bring us at some point) What about when we start blurring the
\n lines between the desktop, the network and other devices. Will people start
\n freaking out then?<\/p>\n\n A couple of days ago, I read that 166 new SVN accounts have been created in
\n the last 6 months, that’s a lot of new blood. That’s 166 people that plan to
\n contribute to KDE codebase on a regular basis. And those are people that are
\n obviously attracted by the direction KDE is taking.<\/p>\n\n So what will KDE 4.2 look like? Judging by what the Plasma team has
\n accomplished in the last couple of months and the magic crystal ball, we might
\n see some mighty cool new things. I’m certainly looking forward to integrated
\n uiserver and Plasma notification applet, the concepts of detachable extenders
\n and Plasma’s ZUI integrated with KWin and generally made more polished.<\/p>\n\n I’m sure KDE 4.1 will be a blast, and if people still complain that it
\n doesn’t do exactly the same as 3.5, we can probably never get it right for some.
\n I’ve personally always found KDE a friendly bunch of people that like creating
\n cool and free technology together. Let’s concentrate on just that. Happy hacking!<\/p>\n\n Props to Wade<\/a> for the picture.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While surfing around on Teh Intarwebs, I’ve read complaints from people that we’re doing something radically new to the user. Some of those users seem to have problems with all that “radically new” stuff. Honestly, I don’t think they have seen anything we *can* do yet. With KDE 4.1, we have pretty much implemented functionality… Continue reading Thoughts on innovation on the desktop.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vizZzion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}