Plasma: The Next-Generation KDE Environment Review

slashy writes, "MadPenguin has taken a quick look at Plasma, the next gen. KDE environment. 'Plasma is an ambitious project being pursued by the KDE 4 team which aims at providing a workflow-sensitive design of the user interface that improves productivity of an average KDE user. The focus is on improving the clarity and reducing the clutter present in today's desktops. The plasma development will bring together key contributors, such as the visual artists, usability experts, technology experts, programmers, and enthusiasts at a very early stage during the development process. This will enable them to create a new desktop environment that meets the requirements of novices and experts alike.'"

So KDE is...

[intangible]

So KDE is turning into Gnome?

I prefer to design my own desktop

[rueger]

... which aims at providing a workflow-sensitive design of the user interface that improves productivity of an average KDE user

My experience with both Windows and OS X is that anytime the OS tries to "help" me it makes life more difficult.

For me the holy grail of desktop design is one that allows me to place what I want, where I want on the desk top and have it remain exactly where I put it.

Even better, when I switch from the 12" laptop to the big flat screen on my desk, allow me two desktop settings that make best use of the different real estate available.

OS X widgets seem like great idea, but I find that the need to pop up or drop into the widget level, and then wait for the actual widgets to load up and begin functioning is a pain in the butt. I'd rather have things like calculators or weather or currency converters right on the desktop and immediately available.

Apple's solution just seems to add more clicks and more time to do routine tasks.

If KDE goes the route of trying to guess what I want, please give me the option of turning that guessing game off.

Re:Reducing clutter

[Zantetsuken]

somebody said in another post somewhere beneath the top of this thread:

"toss in firefox which automatically sets downloads to the desktop, and the battle is lost"

maybe it would help if in firefox's initial setup wizard, it prompted where you want downloads to go to - somewhere like My Documents\Downloads for Windows, and somewhere like /home/username/downloads/ for Linux with the option to change directories...

Re:the grass is always greener

[Quasar Sera]

I think it's a pain when you see some cool feature or eyecandy or whatever appearing in the desktop environment you aren't using... but it isn't enough to make you totally switch your current desktop. And just when you do go and switch, your old environment will come out with some sweet feature and you're back to square one.

Let's say for argument's sake that Gnome and KDE are the only GUI choices for Linux and that they are (magically) totally merged tomorrow. Of course, by definition, the problem you outlined above is never going to occur -- there is only one environment. But that doesn't remotely imply that you're going to get twice as many cool features and eye candy. It doesn't even imply that you wouldn't get, overall, 1/16 the amount of cool features and eye candy. I don't have data to back this argument up, but it seems to me that the existence of competing (but fairly compatible) standards is one of the major forces driving innovation in Linux GUIs. How much have Gnome and KDE changed in the last few years? How about the Windows GUI? Just something to consider.

Vaporware

[protomala]

Plasma is the biggest vaporware open-source has ever producted. For now, it's just a vague idea, they didn't even created some conceitual images to guide from when star programming.

Don't take me wrong, I belive plasma will be great, I want to some presentations from Aaron Seigo and liked what he said... but I DOUBT it will launch with KDE4. Probally the interface will still (mostly) be the one used on KDE3. You know, we should learn from Microsoft mistakes, they ditched a lot of things (WinFS, most of interface, etc) from Vista because changing a lot of code at once isn't a good thing (TM).

There will be always be a 4.1 or 4.2 release where the new interface can be inserted.

Re:the grass is always greener

[bhalo05]

Actually, only KDE has a choice of philosophy. For Gnome it's the only way since they don't have the technology to follow KDE's steps and compete with them on those grounds.

Re:Vaporware

[bhalo05]

"Plasma is the biggest vaporware open-source has ever producted"

Really... obviously you don't remember the times when things like Bonobo or Orbit were supposed to revolutionize the free desktop. Then came KDE2 along with Kparts and DCOP technologies, making true what others had only hyped. I don't expect it will be different this time, since the KDE project has a tradition of delivering what was promised. The only thing I fear it will not be in KDE4 will be Tenor, since Scott Wheeler has already stated he doesn't know if he will be working on it, but I bet Plasma will be in KDE4.