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Plasma Mobile

plasma-mobile.org

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Re: Plasma Mobile

#121

Post by joshuapants »

shadeslayer wrote: post #59
joshuapants wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, even if they did have a talented team of designers nobody would use this.

>Let's be honest, even if they did have a talented team of designers nobody would use this. Why?

Windows Phone has a talented team of designers, an innovative and easy to use UI, and backing from a major corporation with practically unlimited funds. It also has a tiny sliver of market share. Jolla has great designers, compatibility with Android apps, and killer hardware. Their marketshare is even smaller. Realistically, right now Android and iOS have all the mindshare and there is not a chance in hell that a me-too mobile OS is going to get any meaningful traction.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#122

Post by boudewijnrempt »

madez wrote: post #41
arianvanp wrote: post #21

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.

I also think it is an interesting project, even if it doesn’t find any adoption. It’s good for finding bugs in the software stack they use, and this projects existence means users have one more option. I'm curious (and a little bit excited to see) where it will bring us.

what was really awesome was discovering how pretty much all the work we did on kwin_wayland brought wayland on desktop closer. The mobile-specific bits of code are _tiny_.

The biggest problem actually was getting graphics up and running to begin with, there were weird libhybris/Qt 5.4/QtCompositor incompatibilities that had me stumped for months, _until_ we decided to go for Kwin directly.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#123

Post by tdkl »

0xFFC wrote: post #74
tdkl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no money in targeting the couple %. Hell, there's almost no money in Android either unless you're Samsung.

There is no money in android ? That is one of the funniest thing I ever heard in my entire life ! Just calculate how much android brought people to the internet , Then multiple it by some rate , it will be the money google make from advertising on android platform . How much internet going to grow , Google income will be grow also. Every search , Every app which you download from google play , It is direct money whic…

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/apple-eating-all-the-profit...

Re: Plasma Mobile

#124

Post by emilsedgh »

RivieraKid wrote: post #81
emilsedgh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Hard to say, it's an instinctive feeling, but let's say that it's a culture of bloat. "Should we do this or that? I don't know, let's make it an option in the settings!" Also, they seem to lack design taste.

"Should we do this or that? I don't know, let's make it an option in the settings!"

That's not how it happens.

It happens like this:

Person 1 creates something.

Person 2 wants slightly different behavior and provides a patch to make it configurable.

And you know what? Its not a bad thing.

My KDE is heavily configured and you have no idea how productive it is for me. I love it :)

Re: Plasma Mobile

#125

Post by chestnut-tree »

wz1000 wrote: post #31
chestnut-tree wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem is that the open source model of software development doesn't really work when it comes to visual or interaction design. We've all heard that phrase 'design by commitee' but that's what you get when everyone wants a say in the way the UI works. I can understand why this happens even though the outcome is often an unfriendly UI. Imagine you're a developer who's spent time and effort contributi…

What do you find 'unfriendly' about Plasma 5 and Breeze?

I was talking in general about Open Source and design not about Plasma. But since you ask, here are some small things I noticed in the video

- Mismatched visual styles: when you tap the phone icon, you get a bar of three icons. Two are simple line icons (History and Contacts), the third is a detailed picture of a keyboard to denote keypad. A minor thing and easily fixed.

- Interface inconsistencies: I noticed that a large red X is used for closing a screen (which I like over the sometimes unclear Back button behaviour you get in Android). But at 3:16 in the video the Wallpaper screen has a 'close' button (with X) and below that in the tab bar is the larger red X for closing too. So you have two close functions on the same screen. You see the same duplication on the date and Time screen at 3:41. By the way, I think the way Windows Phone lets you change date and time is much nicer. It's a similar spinner approach to Plasma but less cluttered. Here's a video of it in action: https://youtu.be/kIsWgCX7qtE?t=54s

Also, the commands 'close', 'cancel' and 'delete' all tend to use the same X icon in many UIs so if there is no label for X, then it's meaning (and behaviour) should be consistent across the OS.

- Weather app: there is a 'hamburger' menu on the left and another slimmer hamburger menu on the right. They feel too similar visually. Presumably, the right-hand menu is equivalent to the overflow menu you find on Android. But are two menus needed here? Could they not all sit in one menu?

Obviously, this is a beta and these are relatively minor points. I can see some influence from Android, which is fine - there's no doubt that Google, Microsoft and Apple all study and are influenced by each others work. I just hope the OS stands up well as a unique UI rather than just a clone of bits from other OSes.

Overall, it looks quite polished for a version 1.0 and I hope the project succeeds. I would love to see an open source project take the lead in design/UX over existing projects.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#126

Post by 0xFFC »

tdkl wrote: post #123
0xFFC wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no money in android ? That is one of the funniest thing I ever heard in my entire life ! Just calculate how much android brought people to the internet , Then multiple it by some rate , it will be the money google make from advertising on android platform . How much internet going to grow , Google income will be grow also. Every search , Every app which you download from google play , It is direct money whic…

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/apple-eating-all-the-profit...

You clearly misunderstood the article.As I mentioned eariler Yes , there is no profit in selling Android products _hardware:some , software:none_( which indeed article talks about that) , but that is not Google's strategy at all.Please search and read about Google's making money strategy.

Remember Android is "strategy" for Google, "point" is to bring more and more people to cloud/internet.thats why Android as software developed and available from Google for free.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#127

Post by keithpeter »

zanny wrote: post #109
keithpeter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI design - how would someone with strong views (and experience!) on gestures and UI features but with little coding experience get involved? Just put some mocks somewhere and post them to where the UI team meet? Edit: In fact, where do the people interested in UI design actually meet and make their sausages in KDE? I can't seem to find a central place similar to http://design.canonical.com/ There is this gap between…

https://vdesign.kde.org/ And the UIs for all this stuff are going to be done in QML, and if you can do HTML and CSS QML is much easier and more intuitive. It puts all the animations, gestures, etc in the QML files and they have a visual designer in QtQuick so you don't actually need to write code at all if you don't want to.

Thanks for pointing out that page. I'd not found much but then I was searching for 'user interface testing' &c.

"The goal of the KDE VDG is to create a central point for all visual design work – a one-stop for all KDE's visual design needs, if its logo's, icons, visuals, illustrations, launch pages, plasma themes or presentation and promo-material."

Above from the 'what' page on that site. Might be just my expectations but I read that Web site as being about branding and visual design rather than UI and workflows.

The 'who' page mini-bios do not appear to have anyone from a UI / workflow background - or is it that am I just out of date with the job titles that cover those skills these days?

https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability

There appears to be a kde-usability group, but their mailing list archive is not public, you have to subscribe.

PS: Fedora 22 KDE spin does look really nice in my opinion.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#128

Post by dzhiurgis »

_lce0 wrote: post #104
maheart wrote: post #99

So much negativity in this thread. Where's your hacker spirit? It might not yet be as feature-rich or polished as Android or iOS, but this is a very hacker-friendly project! I for one am really excited about this. I wrote about why on reddit[1]. Keep up the good work devs! [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ejo62/plasma_mobile...

Exactly. Pleople here should compare this against early Android/iOS, not with their 2015 version. We should always support open/libre projects, as they makes us all richer, even if you dont directly use (or like) them Cant wait to have a REAL linux in my pocket

I don't think people need Linux, but solid web applications support. Web will always win, yet now web apps on phones still suck. We try to wrap them into hybrid, but I think centralised distribution model is temporary solution.

I think we need a way to easily switch between fullscreen tabs, navigation between tabs and solid hardware acceleration for web stack.

Re: Plasma Mobile

#129

Post by soapdog »

sho_hn wrote: post #51
soapdog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great project, can`t wait to play with it. Just a little nitpick, as far as I know Firefox OS is not using SurfaceFlinger but talking direct to the GL layer.

Looks like you're entirely right: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Platform/Arch... Sorry! FWIW, there's an old ZTE Open bought retail during a KDE event in Spain on this desk somewhere and I consider Firefox OS a a Very Good Thing. :)

Hey, there more systems available for the users the better! :D

Thanks for the kind words about Firefox OS. As soon as I get a hardware compatible with Plasma Phone, I am taking it for a spin :-D

Re: Plasma Mobile

#130

Post by wvh »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #128
_lce0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Pleople here should compare this against early Android/iOS, not with their 2015 version. We should always support open/libre projects, as they makes us all richer, even if you dont directly use (or like) them Cant wait to have a REAL linux in my pocket

I don't think people need Linux, but solid web applications support. Web will always win, yet now web apps on phones still suck. We try to wrap them into hybrid, but I think centralised distribution model is temporary solution. I think we need a way to easily switch between fullscreen tabs, navigation between tabs and solid hardware acceleration for web stack.

I'm not sure you can guarantee a great user experience on a free, open web with user privacy and choice on a device you don't have rights to because it's completely locked down beyond your control by the vendor.

There should be a way to run a device that's not controlled by Google, Apple or Microsoft; not just because you're "paranoid", but because you'd like to learn and contribute, and maybe come up with some cool ideas yourself.

Point in case, because it's open-source, you could work on those browser features you'd like to see on mobile systems.

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