Enrico Ros proposing a SoC project for improving the GUI

[Mark Kretschmann]

Hey all,

first I have to give you some background information on Enrico Ros -
only old time Amarok hackers might still know him. Enrico is an
Italian scientist, working in the field of robotics (I believe). He
also happens to be a programmer and an absolute expert with computer
graphics. He has done many graphics/GUI improvements in KDE, Amarok,
and other applications (I think Okular), and the man is a _wizard_.

So Enrico contacted me with the following proposal (I hope he does not
mind quoting him here):

<quote Enrico>
Hello Markey, dunno if you remember me, I did some paches to amarok ages ago
;-) Well, for this Summer of Code I'm willing to offer for implementing a good
looking GUI for amarok 2. Not that the current one isn't good, and it's really
getting in shape, but I'm talking about using OpenGL by default where
available, having 3d analyzers softly behind the playlist, etc (and of course
the new GUI will be optional). Of course the playlist and other QGraphicsView
based classes will be shared.

I think I could take this (I'm sure you're aware about those):
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Amarok2+Look+and+Feel?content=93854
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/A+Media+Player+for+KDE4?content=94472
as a starting point.

What do you think about that?
<end quote Enrico>


My first personal thoughts about this are the following:

1) OMG yes, we want this man to work on Amarok.

2) He might be going too far, completely redesigning the GUI. We need
to be careful and communicate precisely what we want, and what is "too
much".

3) He should work together closely with our artists and usability experts.


What are your opinions?

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org