Awesome project. I pitty the negativity here because I always think it's good to hack around with new ideas and techologies, as it will catch many bugs and give possibilities to fix them. Speaking of Wayland, is it stable enough yet? I heard Gnome now fully supports it, which is neat. I wish XMonad would be ported to wayland though.
Plasma Mobile
21–30 of 141 posts
Re: Plasma Mobile
#22I've lost all hope in the KDE project, they simply don't understand UI / UX design.
What defines UI / UX design? I am not a KDE user (currently). Well I use it once in a while, but compared to Windows, Mac OS (old and new), Android and iOS, which I all have used the only two things I've seen working well, as in being easy to understand and still efficient to use are KDE and XFCE. Oh and Squeak/Pharo.
Both Android and iOS are horrible when it comes to easy of use and know what you are doing in my opinion. Everyone using those systems ends up just using a bunch of patterns of clicking and swiping that they repeat every time, because they don't know which of the things they just did actually causes the effect they wanted.
In my opinion UI/UX are huge research fields, which you can see when you look at how the paradigms and "dogmas" from two years ago are now known to be the exact opposite of what you want. I think the only reasons things appear easier these days is that people have been exposed to technical interfaces way longer and more intensely.
I am not saying that things don't get better, but I think there are a lot of misunderstandings. Users just get used to certain systems after time. They adapt. They adapt to their CLI-based interface, their Macbook (they need too, else they'd have spent thousands of USD for nothing), to new versions of Windows and do KDE/Plasma.
Show a completely new computer user (maybe generation 70+) various interfaces and they will learn each of them efficiently after a while. (yeah, I have done that with older people)
I think the main thing stopping people from using KDE and having troubles with it is that it's not the common thing that one usually starts out with. It used to be and people were happy until KDE4, which was something new to learn again.
This sounds way more defensive of KDE than I intend to. I am not a fan. I use it when I have to choose between Gnome/Unity or KDE (but would probably choose another option, if there is one), just because it feels way more intuitive and easier to use. I never managed to get along with Gnome, but I think that's all based on what I said above. If you are exposed to one thing you will probably stick to it.
However, I am happy about every alternative coming up, because it means there is a chance for them improving status quo.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#23Their website is a blatant copy of the http://spotify.com/us/ website.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#24Free OS on your phone is great and all, but it's got that quirky linux UI problem where usability is an after thought to "me too" features. For example, I can't read any of the text on the phone image on the front page, and physically the image on my screen is bigger than my iPhone. So the text is unreadable in the OS by default?
The front page is just a marketing thingie. Look at the video. It looks great.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#25So, there is not much information on the website yet, but this is basically a full stack for mobiles, based on Wayland and Kwin for the UI and Ofono for the phone part. The reference implementation is based on Ubuntu Touch, and use libhybris to get hw support. However, it's different from UT, by the fact that it's not using Mir, but Wayland directly through Kwin. It seems to run Ubuntu Touch applications, X11 applica…
I'd be very interested in porting MOAI to this - do you know if it supports SDL, or OpenGL ES apps?
Technically, you should be able to support both.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#26Yeah... new mobile platform is a really hard thing to do - and without a designer (whom they clearly don't have), it's impossible. Nobody will use this.
Why are you so negative? Why do you say they don't have a designer? Did you ask? This is a technology preview, and for a new development platform, it's quite nice already.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe contribute to it then? :) Disclaimer: I contribute to kde.
I've been actually thinking about creating a new desktop environment (or a whole desktop platform ala Android if I had more time). Because there's a lot of space for improvement and innovation on (not only) Linux desktop. But this is not the case for mobile IMHO. As for contributing to KDE, it's not as fun as starting a new project, things move slowly, you have limited options of what you can do and I just generally…
I just generally don't agree with the mentality / philosophy / culture of the KDE project.
Mind if I ask what do you dislike about it?
Or what is your perception of the mentality/culture?
Re: Plasma Mobile
#28I've lost all hope in the KDE project, they simply don't understand UI / UX design.
I think the KDE Visual Design Group is doing a great job and that Breeze and Plasma 5 look great.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#29This is great. I really look forward to seeing where it goes.
As an aside, KRunner is the best, most powerful and useful launcher I have ever used.
Re: Plasma Mobile
#30Free OS on your phone is great and all, but it's got that quirky linux UI problem where usability is an after thought to "me too" features. For example, I can't read any of the text on the phone image on the front page, and physically the image on my screen is bigger than my iPhone. So the text is unreadable in the OS by default?
The front page is just a marketing thingie. Look at the video. It looks great.
You must have some very low standards for "looking great". Like they say, this is a prototype and it shows. The design is all over the place. The one thing that sticks out the most is that there is no sense of scale at all. Everything is either ridiculously huge or tiny.
For example, look at the compact status bar: really small text and icons. Then look at the navigation icons on the bottom of the screen, the dialer tab icons, the contact pictures: all huge. But then there's the text next to each contact picture: tiny again.