A few weeks back we ended up talking about the state of this interface and I note that, with all honesty, I really don't have the resources to push it forward while keeping libplasma, plasma-desktop, the Plasma plugins, my other responsibilities in the KDE codebase and KDE e.V. all moving as well. Bille suggested I appoint a lieutenant or two to take it on and be the obsessive-compulsive maintainers of it. Knowing a great idea when I hear one, Artur and Marco were quickly deputized.
The topic came up again last week when a rather concerned developer accidentally woke me up in the middle of the night (I'm not very good at ignoring concern :) to discuss why having a netbook interface is so darn important. They wondered if it would be possible to get something out for the KDE 4.3 release ... I didn't think so.
So yesterday a few of us got together on IRC and put together a roadmap and did another revision of our netbook design ideas. I'm really happy with the results, and we're targeting KDE 4.4 for the inclusion of a netbook interface. It will be usable on a regular laptop or desktop as well, and I expect some will do just that.
Now, I'm not going to spill to many of the beans here as to what our plans are, I'll leave that up to Artur, Marco and whoever else joins them to blog screenshots/screencasts as progress is actually made, but here is what I think the important points are:
- We aren't making an interface for a "smaller laptop" or a "larger handheld"; the interface is for a netbook, which has a unique set of use cases and should have a unique, if familiar, user interface. To our knowledge, nobody is really doing this yet. We feel that just as Apple made popular an interface style on handhelds that is for handhelds with their iPhone/iPod touch interface, netbooks deserve a similar treatment.
- Being based on libplasma, we don't have to start from scratch. In fact, the bulk of the work is already done. This will give us a nice showcase for the concept of a "primary user interface framework" and how it can be used to reapply existing work to new physical form factors with minimal investments.
- Being based on libplasma, it will automagically work with other Plasma tools. This will make working with a Plasma netbook and a Plasma laptop together easy and coherent, especially when the SoC projects on things like network transparency in libplasma come to fruition in KDE 4.4.
- Being part of the Plasma project, it will share the visual identity of the Plasma desktop shell: you will be able to put your netbook next to your laptop/desktop and they will look like they belong together. Only Apple manages to do this with their products right now.
- Because it's not some esoteric software stack all welded together with a kernel and various "made for mobile only" toolkit work, it will be easy for people to get involved and work with it.
- The emphasis in the design is on full screen usage, speed to information, integration with appplications and visual beauty.
As this shapes up, I'm going to be actively looking for market opportunities for this new bit of software. If you'd like to get involved, find Artur (aka Morpheuz) and Marco (aka notmart) on irc in #plasma. Bring your text and/or SVG editor with you. :)
11 comments:
One interested person here, but I don't think I can contribute with anything except mockups at the moment. However, I'm going to try learn more C++/Qt this summer (I call it my own SoC =), so I might be able to help with the coding part then.
I wonder what do you mean with "the interface is for a netbook, which has a unique set of use cases and should have a unique, if familiar, user interface. To our knowledge, nobody is really doing this yet". Ubuntu Netbook Remix[1] and HP's attempt[2] comes to mind, any reason why those aren't counted?
1. Link to UNR page
2. Picture
While i don't have a netbook this is encouraging. The more exposure the better.
I would also love to see a 10' interface as well. I was excited by the LinuxMCE announcement forever ago but that seems to have fizzled out.
Don't know if my HP Tx2500 counts as a netbook, but would be quite interesting to see an interface that makes using the touchscreen easier.
Don't know if this collides with the netbook usecases(never had a real netbook) but if it does I'll be holding my breath.
UNR is a full screen launcher with window management tuned for full screened applications. In other words, we could take kickoff, make it full screen, and play with kwin a bit and have something not entirely unlike it. This is what I mean by "a small desktop".
The HP approach is a lot more interesting than that, if only because of the radical graphic design of it all. But look at the "File / Settings / Logout" at the top right, the system tray on the bottom right and the very "hey, this is like a media center .. you know media centers, right?" design of the UI. I don't really get the purpose of that gigantic "this is not taskbar .. ok, it is a taskbar. but it's different" thing. Honestly, the link you put up there is a cluttered mess.
So while the HP design is a lot more interesting than the UNR one in my opinion, it's also heavily inspired by two well known worlds (desktop and media center) and doesn't really make you go "holy crap!" like the iPhone interface did for smart phones and music players. It doesn't diverge enough into "what is a netbook used for"; it just diverges.
One obvious question is why there is no work on bridging the difference between full blown applications, small utilities and useful "start page" widgets.
And perhaps this is where we are diverging in our thinking: we aren't looking at the netbook as a small laptop but as, well, a netbook: a simple system used for specific types of tasks, usually one at a time.
I saw in a recent interview Mark Shuttleworth mention exactly that point so it's not a mystery, but I just don't see recognition of that in any of the netbook products out there.
Everyone is more or less stuck on the EEE PC concept of a launcher page that kicks you off into full blown applications with all their desktopyness and little to no recognition of the fact that it is not a desktop.
The HP Mini 1000 gets closest to addressing this with the email/web/music/pictures synopses .. but it's only close and is still too desktop+mediacenter=netbook.
.. and that's really just one of the issues.
To once again abuse the example of the iPhone: it wasn't unusual to see phones that display a grid of applications that you select from, and that when select open an application that you then work with. My Blackberry does that, even. Same workflow as an iPhone right? Not really. ;)
What Apple brought to the table was an implementation that embodies a realization of what people would probably really would find useful and interesting on a phone type form factor. They did things just a little bit differently (from how the apps are managed, to how you get the apps, to how you create the apps, to what's available to the apps out of the box) .. but it made all the difference.
It's also why I don't think Android on phones is really all that interesting. It's another UI that's trying to shove a nice interface into a form factor that it just doesn't quite, well.. suit.
Device appropriateness is going to become a critical issue in the coming years, and achieving that with an affordable investment of time and effort will mean the difference between success and failure as devices proliferate ... all imho. :)
Oh, now I see. Thanks for the excellent explanation, Aaron.
So are you saying that we can create this new interface with Plasma alone? To me, KWin also seems like a crucial part of this.
This plasma theme looks like UNR, it could be a good start:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Netbook+Plasma+Theme?content=92433
It don't work fine in kde 4.2, there is a gap between the task item and the application. I don't know if it is a problem in the theme or in the taskbar plasmoid.
Moreover there is no close button on the selected taskitem.
This plasmoid could be used as workaround:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/ActiveWindow+Control?content=91258
But it don't work on kde 4.2.
I think the best way, at the moment, is Dell approach...the GUI is very usable and a good look & fell...I think can be a good start point.
UNR or HP, IMHO, are more invasive.
gp
Oh please use KWin if possible. I have set up the KDE4 for sub-notebook class computer (aka netbook) and because it has this normal small screen (Acer Aspire One 110A) the KDE4 does work great when using KWin effects to switch windows etc.
I like a lot what the Acer did for Linpus XFCE4 modified screen (The start page for 4 groups and showing 3 main apps from every group) and I hope something similar would be possible to do with Plasma. I have never liked the step what Asus toke with Xandros. The LXDE tries something with own plugin but I just feel it is someway "lost" case because switching windows is painfully slow because it goes too much same way as on Windows XP / Vista / 7.
KWin + virtual desktops (grid) + Expose and you can actually manage your small sub-notebook easily!
@megabigbug: that's some cool and imaginative use of theming! however, we're really breaking out fairly completely from the taskbar concept as we're not trying to make a "smaller desktop"
@Fri13: kwin will be providing all the window effects that we need, such as expose for application switching.
Very exciting! Plasma is like a Transformer Transformer - a Transformer that can transform into another Transformer.
While this new interface is shaping up, though, it seems like there are a few minor things that might make the current desktop shell work better when the screen is small. (Whatever else they might become, netbooks are also little laptops, especially when they don't have a touchscreen...)
For instance, the netbook theme that megabigbug posted would work better as a proper taskbar plasmoid with close buttons. And adding a toolbar button that calls up the menus from the menubar would save precious vertical space. Those two changes, combined with an easy way to tell Kwin to maximize everything, would already save more space than Ubuntu's Netbook Remix.
Google Chrome might be worth looking at, by the way. It's the best interface I've yet found to access the titular net on my netbook. It gets itself out of the way, the open tab button is like a launcher because of the option-ful new tab page, the "omnibox" is a command line/universal search, and, for those few situations where it's not best to have everything maximized, they've got window tiling using mouse gestures.
My netbook looks so cute!!!
I tried with UNR (Gnome :( ) but i don't like what you call "small-desktop or Asus approach", i don´t wanna see all my applications working full screen all the time.
I really liked the KNR, it's pretty, fast and a lot of enjoyable.
I can´t wait for KNR in Lucid Lynx, i´m sure it will become the best of netbook releases of 10.04
Just a plain user, man-of-the-street, thankful for your great job. It has impressed very much my friends on the dark side yet. (UNR not, just boring).
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