I was actually referring to:

jensreuterberg wrote:How will this work?
1) We define what apps need are the very base apps needed
2) We start working on mockups and talk about how to improve them, visually and from a usability angle as well as make them fit the others
3) We contact the devs (if they are not already on board)
--- 3a) If they say "yes" we get to work!
--- 3b) If they say "no" we accept that handsomely and keep the mockups to see if they can be used elsewhere
4) We spread the word of "Made for Plasma"/"..by KDE" and show the mockups and how awesome they look!

Specifically concerning the order of steps 2 and 3. If reality is different, we should perhaps also update this list.

Well one of the things I've noticed is that visuals tend to be very inspiring. A mockup, although often not as useful as an interactive wireframe, have a certain pull. It attracts people and you WANT to see it complete. The mockups so far are making rounds and rounds on various forums and social networks.
Now I can't make ANY promises - lets be totally clear here - I can on the other hand promise that I will work my butt off to make sure that what we create will see completion. Some times I fail and thats the way it is but it tend to go well because dev's like a nice looking application as much as the next person.

So for the base applications I posted above there are devs. For the others, not just yet but give me a month

I really understand that sensation of building for nothing - it's boring, its infuriating and it can really break your heart. So I get why you're sceptical but, trust me just for a little while. I will be as open as humanly possible about how the "dev hunt" is going at all steps of the way. If there are none then I will be clear on that. I will try to get answers why no one wants to and I will make certain devs take a long look at the work being produced (and they do, there are devs who have started visiting the forums again to check out the mockups).

And finally. We gain from every mockup. It sounds corny and stupid and vapid I know - but every single mockup is an inspiration to someone (or at least to me so "win me!").

Hello everyone!

I love all these new designs and support the idea to form a set of core applications. One idea missing so far (in my opinion) is support for remote media streaming (DLNA/AirPlay/Chromecast). This should belong to a modern desktop experience and not limited to specific applications only. Until now support for DLNA, etc. is really bad in KDE or other desktops. I know that this mainly depends on underlying frameworks & libs but how about designing and shipping UI widgets shared between the media applications (Music player, Movie player, Image gallery). I'm thinking of a Sharing/PlayTo option in all the media applications calling a system wide remote playlist/player control widget.

An example could be a remote playlist as in Songbird or Windows Media Player:
- http://de.tinypic.com/view.php?pic=29kumf9&s=8
- http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/e7/Wind ... age_38.png

I also posted this in:
viewtopic.php?f=285&t=122273&p=320017#p320017

What do you tink about this suggestion?

I think its sexy as nothing else!

BUT - and this will take my previous promise to a test - it sounds like something with a lot of technical issues dancing in the wings. Lets get a dev in to see what they think about it and its possabilities technically before going forward. As you say it's more of a technical issue than anything else. (Will start hounding the poor devs now brb)

We talked about this a couple weeks ago (again) and the primary problem is that we have no UPnP/DLNA software stack right now. Most existing free software solutions are not very suitable. So, while this is definitely something we want to do, we'll likely have to invest some time first to work out what we want things to look like under the hood. Very unlikely to happen this year.

Heiko Tietze wrote:Approved by VDG.
Plus (tm) when it becomes a trademark for "Simple and Smart by Default and Powerful when Needed"

One concern that I have in "made for Plasma" is that is kinda KDE SC all over again, it mostly puts out the message "this application will only work in the plasma desktop" thing that we have been long fighting against.
"approved by VDG" in this sense would be better. would be needed something that sounds better, but it's better than suggesting is made explicitly for a particular desktop shell.. even if it's true, and it is

So, we should make a newish brand for well-designed, well-programmed and well-maintained apps...

"Made by KDE"?

"KDE Premium"?

"100% KDE"?

"KDE Awesome"?

"UltraKDE"?

"KDE Diamond/Platinum/Gold/Silver/Coal"?

"Awesome Apps"? or "AA+"?

"KDE Choice/Dream/Excellence/Super"?

"Neat"

"KDE Inspired"?

"Jens' Idea!"?

I'm out of suggestions...

As for names we could work with the theme name and use something non-committal like "Swift", "Next" or "Wave" or something that goes with the naming for Plasma. A short wellsounding name that defines the area of it without connecting it too much.

"Jens ideal" oh you charmer veqz!

As for the share proposal, thanks Apachelogger for info! Is there a chance for us all (everyone) to keep this in mind so that WHEN it comes along - it may be something to work on?

What the promo team would say. now we have
1. KF5 the Framework
2. Plasma the Desktop
3. Applications (every Application that use KF5 and/or Plasma)

And now we have a few applications (3.) with a consistent design, workflow, ... BUT KDE is never used in this list and I'm not possible if it is good to use it now for this few apps because a lot of people (including me) are useing KDE for 1, 2, 3.

Maybe bundle or suite.

Or software collection (SC) but than we are there where we are in kde 4. The other possibility was to have a consistent design, workflow, ... without a common name. For me also SC would work, because I think it is the same idea (KDE 4 SC and By KDE).

Just to formulate the idea more clearly: in my understanding, the moniker is supposed to communicate two things:

1. the application has gone through a careful design and quality assurance process and is supposed to represent the best we can provide
2. the application is a core application that is an integral part of the desktop experience

One suggestion I can think of is calling this group of applications something like "Desktop Essentials". It would at least communicate (2) clearly without restricting the audience (as "made for Plasma" does). It sort of implies (1) too. It does have a kind of corporate feel, though...

Right welcome to this super-secret-meeting everyone!

Sorry I'm late, been snoozing off lately .

The Music Player Bangarang
A content application which is made for consuming audio in all its forms

I've offered to work on this, just waiting for development plans to kick into gear. I'm also willing to work on any other apps needing internal work.

I like Tuukka's term "Desktop Essentials" feels generic enough but also very specific to what we're developing.

andreas_k wrote:What the promo team would say. now we have
1. KF5 the Framework
2. Plasma the Desktop
3. Applications (every Application that use KF5 and/or Plasma)

...

This is a big problem I feel. I did kinda bring this up on the mailing list but haven't got around to expanding on it there yet.

In a nutshell the problem is that distros are still going to ship a KDE variant, which will include KF5, Plasma, and Applications. It's KDE, but yet it's not, as KDE according to the promo team is the community. In the absence of KDE supplying a name for the compilation of it's software being used together (as it is meant to be used really), then I feel the distros are going to simply use KDE, which is wrong. Really, the addition of these 'Made for' apps only serves to confuse things even more from a marketing perspective.

Having said that, I have come up with rather a nifty moniker for the 'holy trinity' which I'm sure you'll agree is the way forward, which is: kfplapps5

Just a quick mockup that could work OK for several of these applications (it uses the proposed new image viewer as an example):

http://element-6.deviantart.com/art/Rou ... 1411396279

It's basically the window type with the 'navigation' in a pane down the left hand side and another 'actions' pane down the right. I've left off the 'action' pane down the right hand side so i can explain the idea without confusing everyone - if i'd have taken my time and done it properly then it would look something like the 7th image in the first post (the image viewer) but without the right hand 'actions' side bar.

The left hand navigation pane, rather than being static can be switched with a smooth sliding animation between several 'panes' by clicking on arrows added to the navigation pane or some other way to allow the application to change it's behaviour or focus depending on which pane is displayed. In the mockup you could switch to your 'Folders' pane to browse the folder structure of you hard drive, if you switch to the 'Filter by tags' pane then you (as you'd expect) be able to navigate & filter your image collection using tags. Other panes could include things like panes to help you tag your pictures easily, panes to help download photos from your camera onto your computer (this 'navigation' pane on the left could call up a suitable 'actions' pane on the right including the tools you'll need like rotation and renaming tools) etc. etc.

That would ensure that the navigation & actions sidebars stayed clean & uncluttered even if the application had lots of different functions.

Just a couple of ideas how it could work in some of the other 'Made for Plasma' applications:
* The new email app - if you had multiple email accounts you could have one 'global' pane that displays messages that are received by any of your accounts all mixed together whilst each individual account could have it's own pane so you could access each account individually.
* The new music app could have one pane to show your collection sorted by artist/album and another for your playlists etc.

@Ken:
+1, in general. We basically did exactly that with the file browser in Plasma Active:


The only difference is that we used tabs to navigate between the "panes". The advantages are that one can see which panes are available and can jump directly to any of them. The downside is of course that the tab bar could get crowded when many pains are available. However, if we use icons instead of text labels we could put quite a few tabs in there.
And I think that the better overview and navigation of the tabs is important because users might switch between tabs rather frequently.

apachelogger wrote:We talked about this a couple weeks ago (again) and the primary problem is that we have no UPnP/DLNA software stack right now. Most existing free software solutions are not very suitable. So, while this is definitely something we want to do, we'll likely have to invest some time first to work out what we want things to look like under the hood. Very unlikely to happen this year.

Nice to hear such things are discussed. I understand that this has difficulties in the underlying frameworks. I also think the target shouldn't be to support everything immediately (lets for instance concentrate on UPNP/DLNA first, what about Rygel?), but somehow I think right now (design phase) the integration of the Share/Like/Connect (SLC) concept into the stock apps (music, movies, images, etc) should be thought of. If SLC is to become a central principle of the KDE desktop, then it should be integrated by common and central UI widgets called troughout the applications.

I find Microsoft in this case created a good slogan with the "PlayTo" feature. Of course I keep the limited dev resources in mind, but wouldn't it be cool to serve such a feature neatly integrated throughout the KDE desktop? That would give KDE some novelty in this field. I like the idea of SLC and I think its time to incorporate that into the designs as well. Maybe also time to get in touch with the SLC people to hear what technical obstacles there are and how their vision looks like.

DLNA or Chromecast are of course just single technologies, but desktops nowadays will be more and more connected to the outside worlds as remote controls, media renderers or used for seamless switching of devices (as Apple does more and more):

Share (=PlayTo?)
Like (=Social Network Integration?)
Connect (=Seamless working?)

could be the right keys for a really modern desktop environment!