<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Michele Kipiel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michele.kipiel@gmail.com" target="_blank">michele.kipiel@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Il giorno mer, 18/09/2013 alle 18.10 +0200, Mark ha scritto:<br>
<div><div class="h5">> -- bottom post please --<br>
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 4:59 PM, Michele Andrea Kipiel<br>
> <<a href="mailto:michele.kipiel@gmail.com">michele.kipiel@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hello<br>
><br>
><br>
> thanks for the quick reply :)<br>
><br>
><br>
> the interaction you describe as "truly communicating<br>
> plasmoids" is pretty much what i imagined when i referred to<br>
> yahoo pipes. i imagined some scenarios for that interactio<br>
> too: think of a "picture frame" plasmoid which displays a new<br>
> picture every time a twitter profile (national geographic, for<br>
> example) posts a picture. that would require a background<br>
> connection between the two. Another scenario i imagined is a<br>
> stock based one: imagine you have a "stock ticker" plasmoid on<br>
> your desk, wich is connected to a "spreadsheet" plasmoid which<br>
> registers all the variation of a certain stock and then saves<br>
> them in a file.<br>
><br>
><br>
> The core idea of my proposal is to enable a new interaction<br>
> layer wich is accessible straight from the desktop, without<br>
> the need to even launch a single application after boot&login.<br>
> The desktop itself would become an active environmnt, instead<br>
> of an empty space.<br>
><br>
><br>
> Would such a desktop fit your workflow?<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> 2013/9/18 Mark <<a href="mailto:markg85@gmail.com">markg85@gmail.com</a>><br>
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Michele Andrea<br>
> Kipiel <<a href="mailto:michele.kipiel@gmail.com">michele.kipiel@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> hello everybody,<br>
><br>
><br>
> the following message is part of an email i<br>
> sent a few days ago to Marco Martin, who then<br>
> asked me to share my thoughts on this mailng<br>
> list.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> ***<br>
> my name is michele kipiel and i am a ux<br>
> designer. I currently work for the Kering<br>
> luxury group, where i design and user test the<br>
> checkout processes and the overall UX of the<br>
> luxury sites.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> i recently came across a video showing the new<br>
> KDE framework 5 improvements (the one posted<br>
> by phoronics, in case you were wondering).<br>
><br>
> watching that video reminded me of what<br>
> immediately struck me when i first tried KDE<br>
> 4: the apparent lack of a true purpose for the<br>
> plasmoids. as a ux designer i constantly<br>
> strive towards simplification and<br>
> rationalization of the user experience, and<br>
> the first thing i noticed about the plasmoids<br>
> was that they didn't improve my experience in<br>
> any relevant way, while taking up lots of<br>
> space on my small 13" laptop screen.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> i asked myself a simple question: what do i<br>
> need on my desktop? what i came to realize is<br>
> that i could really use a desktop which acts<br>
> as a connection point between the hundreds of<br>
> apps that live on my hard drive.<br>
><br>
> current plasmoids act as discrete information<br>
> bubbles (weather, rss, im, social feeds etc..)<br>
> and threy don't communicate with each other,<br>
> which in my opinion hampers their usefulness.<br>
> in other words: what would happen if KDE added<br>
> a common backend to connect all the plasmoids<br>
> (i'm thinking of something similar to what<br>
> elementary OS is doing with contractor)?<br>
><br>
><br>
> imagine this scenario: i have a file manager<br>
> plasmoid open on my desktop, along with other<br>
> ones. i want to share one of my pictures to<br>
> facebook. i drag and drop the picture from the<br>
> file manager plasmoid onto the "facebook feed"<br>
> plasmoid, which in turn activates the sharing<br>
> feature, allowing me to add a caption, tag my<br>
> friends and eventually share the picture.<br>
><br>
> now imagine i want to turn the picture in b/w<br>
> before sharing it: i just drag and drop the<br>
> picture onto the "gimp" plasmoid, which shows<br>
> me a preview of the picture and lets me select<br>
> an action form a pool of simple, predefined<br>
> functions. once my picture is rendered, i just<br>
> have to drag it from the "gimp" plasmoid onto<br>
> the "facebook" one to share it.<br>
><br>
><br>
> in these scenarios each plasmoid acts as a<br>
> graphic frontend that exposes some functions<br>
> of the related programs, which don't even need<br>
> to be launched. it could be even possible to<br>
> create predefined sequences connecting<br>
> different plasmoids (think of yahoo pipes, for<br>
> instance).<br>
><br>
><br>
> i don't know whether this is possible or not,<br>
> but i believe it could be a massive leap<br>
> forward for the KDE desktop paradigm.<br>
> ***<br>
><br>
><br>
> thank you in advance for every comment,<br>
> positive or negative.<br>
><br>
><br>
> regards,<br>
><br>
> MK<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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><br>
><br>
><br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
><br>
> First of all, i'm not a plasma developer so i can't<br>
> really comment on your ideas from a plasma desktop<br>
> point of view. I can on a technical point of view.<br>
><br>
><br>
> What you describe as plasmoids talking to each other<br>
> with the examples you provide isn't really talking to<br>
> each other at all. It is just properly implementing<br>
> drag/drop for all plasmoids. So for example, if you<br>
> want to "drag" an image from your file browser to the<br>
> "gimp" plasmoid then the "gimp" plasmoid would have to<br>
> support dropping that specific image format.<br>
> Furthermore if you want to manipulate that image on<br>
> the gimp plasmoid and drag the results to facebook<br>
> then it would have to support drag functionality as<br>
> well. The facebook plasmoid would then have to accept<br>
> a drop with that image type and handle it. That is not<br>
> easy stuff to implement properly. In fact, in pure QML<br>
> (which the new plasmoids for plasma 2 are) that only<br>
> becomes possible in Qt 5.2. Now i think KDE had some<br>
> custom drag/drop components that implemented the same<br>
> support.<br>
><br>
><br>
> Then for plasmoids _really_ talking to each other. If<br>
> that where to be implemented (which i doubt) then i<br>
> guess it should work somewhat like this. Reusing your<br>
> example here. Imagine you have a facebook plasmoid and<br>
> you're using it. If you then move to a "file manager<br>
> plasmoid" it should know that you came from the<br>
> facebook plasmoid. If you then select and drag an<br>
> image it could automatically pop up a "gimp" plasmoid<br>
> to throw some fancy filters over your image. The gimp<br>
> plasmoid (which then knows you came here from the file<br>
> browser from facebook) should offer an option:<br>
> "Publish to facebook" or something alike. That would<br>
> be really plasmoids communicating with each other and<br>
> would frankly be quite scarry :)<br>
><br>
><br>
> Lastly how i use the plasmoids. I'm a developer so i<br>
> have an interest in more then one console window. So i<br>
> simply put a bunch of consoles on my desktop along<br>
> with a CPU monitor. That works quite well, but only<br>
> works if you have the screen room for it. It doesn't<br>
> work on one screen since you just don't have the room<br>
> to see the plasmoids and other windows. I have two<br>
> screens so that's why it works for me that way.<br>
><br>
><br>
> Cheers,<br>
> Mark<br>
><br>
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><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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><br>
><br>
><br>
> Err, i actually don't think it would fit my need very much..<br>
> Lets take my developer example here.<br>
><br>
><br>
> How would you make that more interactive?<br>
><br>
><br>
> If you follow your example with a stock tracker then it kinda feels<br>
> like logging functionality.. Not something special as an plasmoid that<br>
> communicates with - lets say - kexi or some other excel application.<br>
> And with the twitter profile, that can be done with data engines.<br>
><br>
><br>
> In fact, i think all the stuff you want can be either implemented<br>
> using data engines or (my preference) as a separate QML component.<br>
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<br>
</div></div>What exaclty is a data engine? :)<br>
i'm not a coder, sorry!<br>
<div class=""><div class="h5"><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><a href="http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/DataEngines">http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/DataEngines</a><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
Quote: "<span style="color:rgb(46,52,54);font-family:'Open Sans','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:22.390625px">DataEngines provide a standardized interface to various data sources for visualizations to use.</span>"</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">In simple terms: they provide data to a QML plasmoid. Like for instance the current CPU load, hdd usage, notes, ...</div><div class="gmail_extra">They often are read only (i don't even know if there are dataengines that allow to write data).</div>
</div>