I'm testing the Balsam Pro 12.1 image of Plasma Active on my Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 tablet. So far I'm very happy with it, but there are a few questions I have about certain features.

First of all, is there a way to enable advanced buttons for the virtual keyboard? Omitting the Ctrl, Alt and other buttons makes it impossible to use certain hotkeys. Also, speaking about the virtual keyboard, is there a way to call it outside the designated areas? For instance, in YaST, which is not designed for Plasma Active, it seems impossible to enter any text.

Another issue I have is low performance due to the Poulsbo graphics drivers being rather poor at the moment (there is no 3D acceleration and minimal 2D acceleration, from what I can tell). So I wonder if there is any way to improve the performance of the UI. All the transparency and glide effects are nice to look at, but given that the device slows down when trying to render everything, it would be nice to have an option to turn off most of those. I looked into the Desktop Effects section of system configuration, but I don't see an option to turn off compositing as a whole. Am I missing something, or is it not implemented?

And finally, is there a Journal-type program planned for Plasma Active integration? I can always use Xournal, but it would be nice to know if something like that is planned. It would sure be a good thing to include in Plasma Active, given that Journal-like programs are probably the most important tablet productivity application (provided you have a stylus; it is included with my tablet).

Other than those few issues, I have to say that everything is working pretty much perfectly! I was very pleasantly surprised to see that, since even installing any kind of Linux was a difficult thing to do initially. So thanks a lot to everyone working on this project!

I think is no way to graphically disable compositing in PA. You can edit the file ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc. In the section [Compositing] add the line:

Enabled=false

and then restart the device.

I cannot help with the Journal-type application. The only one I have ever used was Xournal and that was some years ago.

That's strange, there was a button to disable compositing in earlier KDE versions, I wonder why it was removed...

Yea, so far I will just stick with Xournal. Although the blackboard plasmoid is also nice, the only problem is that Plasma Active usually thinks you want to drag the screen when you start writing something on it.

Also, I use Kvkbd for entering text into places not made for PA, but for some reason it doesn't appear on screen anymore, it's really odd... And rather inconvenient, since the docking icon is nearly impossible to press.

Overall one thing that really annoys me in PA is that everything still works on the principle of clicking. On a tablet, there is really no way to click, you almost always drag a little due to the way touchscreens work, and that makes it very hard to input anything into plasmoids. Especially the K menu/Lancelot.

Hi,

GreatEmerald wrote:First of all, is there a way to enable advanced buttons for the virtual keyboard? Omitting the Ctrl, Alt and other buttons makes it impossible to use certain hotkeys. Also, speaking about the virtual keyboard, is there a way to call it outside the designated areas? For instance, in YaST, which is not designed for Plasma Active, it seems impossible to enter any text.

You can edit the file /usr/share/kde4/apps/plasmaboard/tablet.xml (be sure to make a backup copy though ) and add buttons you miss in the current layout. It would be great if you could post your modified version here and/or send it to active@kde.org so we can see if we might integrate it into the standard.
Currently the keyboard only works in applications were it's specifically enabled. I just read in the German forum that yast2 has been keyboard-enabled by now, though. But generally only applications adapted to Plasma Active work with the keyboard.

And finally, is there a Journal-type program planned for Plasma Active integration? I can always use Xournal, but it would be nice to know if something like that is planned. It would sure be a good thing to include in Plasma Active, given that Journal-like programs are probably the most important tablet productivity application (provided you have a stylus; it is included with my tablet).

I agree that note-taking is a very important usecase for tablets (I often use my tablet for that as well). We probably won't focus on stylus-optimized applications though, since afaik the majority of tablets does not come with a stylus. But since we are in the free software world, application contributions are always welcome of course
Long story short: There are no plans for an application for (handwritten) notes from the core PA team yet, but we're not opposed to the idea at all.

Other than those few issues, I have to say that everything is working pretty much perfectly! I was very pleasantly surprised to see that, since even installing any kind of Linux was a difficult thing to do initially. So thanks a lot to everyone working on this project!

We're glad you like it and your feedback is always welcome!

GreatEmerald wrote:Overall one thing that really annoys me in PA is that everything still works on the principle of clicking. On a tablet, there is really no way to click, you almost always drag a little due to the way touchscreens work, and that makes it very hard to input anything into plasmoids. Especially the K menu/Lancelot.

Well, K menu / Lancelot were not made for PA and we simply do not recommend using them (e.g. they also make use of hovering, which is not possible on tablets).
As for the general use of Plasmoids: We know they don't work perfectly on touch devices yet (again, they were not made for them) but we'll be working on that. There won't be no guarantee that plasmoids made for keyboard/mouse will ever work 100% fine on touchscreens, though.
So you will basically have to hope for (or create ) Plasmoid versions for Plasma Active to have the best experience.

GreatEmerald wrote:That's strange, there was a button to disable compositing in earlier KDE versions, I wonder why it was removed...

The button was removed because there is the Alt+Shift+F12 shortcut to disable it. While you can't do that from a tablet, you can still goto system settings (using search in the pull down applications screen) in Plasma Active, and then untick "Enable desktop effects at startup" in "Desktop Effects".

However, the important question is why you want to disable compositing? If its slow, the better way is to find out why is it so.

If anyone is willing to port Lancelot (starting with the shelf applet, and then more) to QML and make it touch-friendly, I'll be glad to give advice.

That is something that I'm planning, but there are too many things to do even before I start to think about it

colomar wrote:You can edit the file /usr/share/kde4/apps/plasmaboard/tablet.xml (be sure to make a backup copy though ) and add buttons you miss in the current layout. It would be great if you could post your modified version here and/or send it to active@kde.org so we can see if we might integrate it into the standard.
Currently the keyboard only works in applications were it's specifically enabled. I just read in the German forum that yast2 has been keyboard-enabled by now, though. But generally only applications adapted to Plasma Active work with the keyboard.

Ah, that's nice, I'll take a look.

As for YaST, it's good to know, although probably the most important application I need to have it enabled on is actually kdesu... It's rather annoying when you are asked for a password and have no way to enter one.

colomar wrote:I agree that note-taking is a very important usecase for tablets (I often use my tablet for that as well). We probably won't focus on stylus-optimized applications though, since afaik the majority of tablets does not come with a stylus. But since we are in the free software world, application contributions are always welcome of course
Long story short: There are no plans for an application for (handwritten) notes from the core PA team yet, but we're not opposed to the idea at all.

True, although there is just so much you can do with a tablet and without a stylus Handwriting, as I noticed, is considerably faster and more accurate than pressing keys on the virtual keyboard.

colomar wrote:Well, K menu / Lancelot were not made for PA and we simply do not recommend using them (e.g. they also make use of hovering, which is not possible on tablets).

Well, that's another problem. The Plasma Active program launcher is nice and all, but it has two main downsides: it doesn't categorise applications and it doesn't have the logout/turn off buttons anywhere. I guess this is something to consider for later releases, though. Same thing with many other of the Plasma Active-specific applications, like dfbrowser - in theory it's nice, but in practise it's missing a lot of functionality that is available in Dolphin (and has the same issue with it being hardly possible to open directories, given the inability to click). However, KOrganiser works pretty nicely already.

Shaan7 wrote:The button was removed because there is the Alt+Shift+F12 shortcut to disable it. While you can't do that from a tablet, you can still goto system settings (using search in the pull down applications screen) in Plasma Active, and then untick "Enable desktop effects at startup" in "Desktop Effects".

However, the important question is why you want to disable compositing? If its slow, the better way is to find out why is it so.

True, although this only takes effect after a reboot.

I already mentioned that it's because of the graphics drivers for the tablet. It's a Poulsbo device, so naturally the support is not all that great yet. Which reminds me - is there a way to get the latest kernel version on Plasma Active without breaking any optimisations made to it? The psb_gfx driver is under heavy development and an update like that would solve quite a bit of problems, I believe.

GreatEmerald wrote:Ah, that's nice, I'll take a look.

As for YaST, it's good to know, although probably the most important application I need to have it enabled on is actually kdesu... It's rather annoying when you are asked for a password and have no way to enter one.

True. We're still figuring out more touch-friendly means for authentication, though. But I think you should file a wish in bugs.kde.org (product "Active") anyway so in case we don't come up with a better solution soon, we will at least enable the keyboard in kdesu.

True, although there is just so much you can do with a tablet and without a stylus Handwriting, as I noticed, is considerably faster and more accurate than pressing keys on the virtual keyboard.

Absolutely. Right now it's just a matter of priority as we want to focus our energy on applications that all tablet owners can use instead of just those privileged to have a stylus But as I said before: A note-taking application with good handwriting support would of course be very welcome. So if you are a developer or you know a developer with enough time and motivation to create one, go ahead, many users will be very thankful!

Well, that's another problem. The Plasma Active program launcher is nice and all, but it has two main downsides: it doesn't categorise applications and it doesn't have the logout/turn off buttons anywhere. I guess this is something to consider for later releases, though.

True. But good news here: We are aware of both things and we are already working on a logout options button and dialog (we will ship it with Plasma Active 2 if it's ready by then). We are still thinking about how to do the categorization best. We already had a tag cloud for categories technically ready but disabled it before release because it did not work well enough interaction-wise yet. We probably won't get it done before PA2 but it's definitely on our agenda!

Same thing with many other of the Plasma Active-specific applications, like dfbrowser - in theory it's nice, but in practise it's missing a lot of functionality that is available in Dolphin (and has the same issue with it being hardly possible to open directories, given the inability to click). However, KOrganiser works pretty nicely already.

DFBrowser is more of an interim solution for the lack of a "real" Plasma Active resource browser. That one will be our "next big thing". But it will be much more than just a touch-optimized file browser as we want to "revolutionize" resource handling (leveraging Nepomuk to its fullest). Therefore it takes a lot of time to design and implement. It has the potential to be a huge leap forward from what we have now though, so be patient and you will be rewarded

In general there are of course still lots of rough edges and tons of things to do. Therefore we're glad that you and other users recognize the fact that Plasma Active One is just an early release and don't blame us for its imperfections but see its potential instead!
This is were the benefits of "release early, release often" shows: We can get feedback early and see what our users need.

colomar wrote:True. We're still figuring out more touch-friendly means for authentication, though. But I think you should file a wish in bugs.kde.org (product "Active") anyway so in case we don't come up with a better solution soon, we will at least enable the keyboard in kdesu.

All right, I'll do that if I won't forget it.

colomar wrote:Absolutely. Right now it's just a matter of priority as we want to focus our energy on applications that all tablet owners can use instead of just those privileged to have a stylus But as I said before: A note-taking application with good handwriting support would of course be very welcome. So if you are a developer or you know a developer with enough time and motivation to create one, go ahead, many users will be very thankful!

I see, that's fair enough. And although I am a developer, but I already have too much work on my hands to take up another project, especially given the fact that it would mean learning the API of an unfamiliar platform.

colomar wrote:True. But good news here: We are aware of both things and we are already working on a logout options button and dialog (we will ship it with Plasma Active 2 if it's ready by then). We are still thinking about how to do the categorization best. We already had a tag cloud for categories technically ready but disabled it before release because it did not work well enough interaction-wise yet. We probably won't get it done before PA2 but it's definitely on our agenda!

Ah, that's definitely good to know! Speaking about PA Two, do you have a roadmap, or is it released when it's ready?

colomar wrote:DFBrowser is more of an interim solution for the lack of a "real" Plasma Active resource browser. That one will be our "next big thing". But it will be much more than just a touch-optimized file browser as we want to "revolutionize" resource handling (leveraging Nepomuk to its fullest). Therefore it takes a lot of time to design and implement. It has the potential to be a huge leap forward from what we have now though, so be patient and you will be rewarded

In general there are of course still lots of rough edges and tons of things to do. Therefore we're glad that you and other users recognize the fact that Plasma Active One is just an early release and don't blame us for its imperfections but see its potential instead!
This is were the benefits of "release early, release often" shows: We can get feedback early and see what our users need.

Once again good to know, I can't wait to see how that will turn out! Nice to see that the project is under heavy development.

And yes, I use the release often scheme as well, it does indeed have a lot of benefits to it.

GreatEmerald wrote:Ah, that's definitely good to know! Speaking about PA Two, do you have a roadmap, or is it released when it's ready?

The release date for PA Two is the 13rd of December (in less than two weeks)