Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
We already went shopping for the stuff you asked before (yesterday) :/ and I have all my weekend busy with family stuff I can't skip. Maybe we can arrange to somebody to take care of this. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Friday, June 08, 2012 05:58:46 PM Marco Martin wrote: in there any shopping mall nearby? (or not so nearby but that can be done while we're there) There is, but I don't think we will find Yarns there, so I will try to buy that today. We will go to that mall to buy all the rest, including the cereal boxes I will end up eating after the sprint :p ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Friday, June 08, 2012 05:41:25 PM Kevin Ottens wrote: - A dozen white boxes (ideally roughly the cereal box size, can be slightly bigger I doub't we can find this easily, anybody can bring those? I have been told they are sold in ikea for example. This we can buy at a carrefour near the venue: couple of old empty cereal boxes (full is fine as well, but we'll have to make sure we eat the content during the sprint) :-D - Sharp-tip markers (could be the same ones than the black ones for paper, the tip is somewhat important though) - Colored markers - A few pair of scissors - A few rolls of Scotch tape - A few staplers I will try to buy those today. - Yarns in assorted colors (at least red/blue/green) No idea where to buy or if they are available at carrefour - Plenty of stickers of different shape and colors (at least a few large golden star ones, but the most types we have the better) - A dozen colored soft balls (yeah you can find that in a kid store) If anyone can bring scissors, scotch tape, staplers, please do ! the more we have the better ! ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:02:34 AM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 05:34:47 Alex Fiestas wrote: Plasma workspace should be excellent on launching, switching and getting applications and it shouldn't bother the user while using those. i think it is a fine (start to a) functional goal to reach for, in that it approaches a specific use case (applications). I think I already asked this in another email (I'm jetlagged so my brain is acting weird XD) but, why is this specific? and to echo an earlier question of yours, i don't see how to apply it to Bluedevil / RandR / Kamoso? (i'm fine that it doesn't, i'm just curious that this was on your mind earlier, but i don't see how it fits here..) It doesn't, it only applies to the shell (plasma-workspae + kwin), which I did in purpose because I'm not sure of what a desktop | workspace contain. If we include bluedevil, randr etc into the workspace then the vision should be extended. For the users that need it, which people need it? which don't? why? You only need to organize things when you have things to organize. A user that only wants to watch lolcats on youtube and talk to friends via facebook doesn't. A user that use the computer for multiple things or in multiple areas (work, home) may want to. There is another part of my vision focused on developers, I don't think it is relevant here. be daring and share it anyways ;) The workspace should be extensible by third party developers and thus should be able to integrate their applications with it not mattering on which technology the application is written. Nothing that current plasma can't do. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 12:51:16 PM Marco Martin wrote: On Wednesday 16 May 2012, Alex Fiestas wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 09:49:22 AM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 05:24:56 Alex Fiestas wrote: On Tuesday, May 15, 2012 10:07:08 AM Björn Balazs wrote: Have you been aware of this vision? No. If no: looking back would it have been helpful for your work if you had known it (and how)? No (I don't see how to apply it on Bluedevil / RandR / Kamoso). two that are immediately applicable: * organic and scalable user interfaces I don't exactly now what those are, can you explain? or better, can you apply those concepts to the current BlueDevil implementation? organic: looking less as a computer object, but interacting more as a real object: so animated instead of immediate transitions (something appearing immediately is magic), rounded corners, shadows, preferring direct manipulation rather than by some proxy (ie resize by dragging instead of writing the number of pixels somewhere) and many things like that. if you compare with kde3 we are miles ahead on this regard but still not there. note that this is different, and risking to be confused with skeuomorphism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph), that tends to destroy coherence and create uncanny valleys, so one moves over a thin line here ;) scalable: mostly referring to the available space so screen size (or just containment size, applets in panels vs desktop) we started with the formfactor concept and gone forward with the device specific qml files for plasmoids (experimental news reader, microblog) Thanks for the definitions. Both organic and scalable interfaces are means to an end if i understood them correctly: making interfaces that feel natural. Maybe we should put that into the vision instead? For RandR I could add the posibility of modify the default settings and tied them to Activity (pretty much like PowerDevil does right now). Not that interesting imho. a little inner voice is whispering presentation with a beamer ;) the activity switch causing also the powermanagement settings to switch and the right presentation files to open could even be triggered by the detection of the projector :p /bluesky Oh that's a good idea indeed! I'm a bit worried though about things changing automagically. Considering that applications like Dolphin or Gwenview are part of it as well as Solid (hardware integration) I find many parts of that vision vaguely applicable or at least not clearly applicable. to me the boundaries should blurry more and more until nobody cares what an app is, every functionality shared in any way between apps, just going in the global environment (like we did with slc) dolphin should be part of the workspace without the user even noticing on what they are using (yeah, i know that for the developer having the name of his product well visible is important and ) *** fuck ego's *** :p Also there are some parts of the vision I don't understand, imho we should explain them or use other words. yep, i agree especially in last years there wasn't much put out on the outside -scalable interfaces ? -today's contexts ? -direct manipulation interfaces -organic look and feel. hmm, maybe a glossary could be compiled on the wiki? also some of them derive from actual psychology studies (like why not having sliding animations for appearing things plays bad tricks to the brain), I would like having a bit of bibliography on this, but sadly i don't :/ there is a minimum common language that should really be a given for participating on a thing like that, I advise to everybody (but especially to who is coming there) some good reads (those are more about ux design details but are concept useful anyways for a broader vision definition): http://www.andrewschechterman.com/AndrewSchechterman/Qi_Fa_files/UX%20Glossa ry.pdf http://cyborganthropology.com/UX_Glossary http://blog.usabilla.com/the-usability-abc-part-2/#more-3075 http://uxmag.com/ If for understanding our vision we have to read all that then it is not a good vision imho. Maybe I don't understand what a vision should is though (this is the first time I'm participating in something like this). i think most of what's written in a permanent place is there: http://community.kde.org/Plasma#Interface_Standards_and_Research sadly quite outdated. a thing that would be very good from the sprint by the non coders that will participate is to write, write and write about those topics ;) I hope seba's is updated since he is the only core plasma developer comming (aham aham u.U). At the end a user spent most of its time on applications. true, but the fact that this distinction exists in the first place may be part of the problem (false dichotomy?) ie with the machine i want to perform task x to produce or view a certain thing,
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 12:54:16 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: there was something started quite some time ago by .. i forget who? .. here: According to the history of the page, by you. http://community.kde.org/Plasma/TheWaysOfThePlasma there are other bits spread around the wiki there as well. i am fully supportive of streamlining and updating the text. This is something we need to do so we can work on them before, during and after the sprint. I can imagine a future where my workspace acts as a iGoogle (www.google.com/ig) or something like that, and I can imagine that being sorted by activity etc I saw it in Active and I like it but I don't think that should be the vision but instead part of it. here's where you lose me because that *is* the vision we've been working towards. device spectrum, organic scalable interfaces and activities. arriving 4 years into that and then saying let's not to those who have been doing the work is .. well ... :/ Well you have to understand (you and any other plasma developer) that newcomers are always newcomers and if they come with preconceived ideas they are even worse so please, have patience with us/me. I have been years reading all plasma-devel and #plasma channel talking with you about all kind of things related to plasma (with you, notmart, sebas, etc) and is just know I'm learning all this vision so I need time to digest and process :p the alternative proposed of make applications launch great is anemic in comparison. it is very clear you have a set of concepts you wish to work on, and that is important. but i'd like to challenge you to look around those concepts and place them within the context of a larger scope of ideas, and then design from that point of reference. this is what vision and design do for each other ... I'm really afraid that willing to do this more complex vision we will end into something that is not good doing the basics, whatever the basics are. Specially I'm burned with the current paradigm as you all know, I hate being stressed by the defaults we have that's why I'm so tiring with the app switching. Applications are too important to be excluded from it in many ways, the i agree that applications need to be well supported. how that happens needs to be derived from the goals of the workspace in terms of user benefit, which means knoing what those goals are. support application work flow is not a vision. perhaps where you and i disagree is that i do not think any one uses an app because we like using applications. i believe we use apps because they let us accomplish specific things like read a web page. and we do those things because they fulfill needs for information, social contact, etc etc etc. I see this now (previous notmart email opened my eyes in this area), I'm still processing it. those are the elements of the goals that need to be met. the eventual design needs to reflect a deep awareness and respect of those goals. there are N different ways to launch, switch between, integrate, etc. applications. which one(s) do we want to create? well, that depends on what we want them to help the person using the system accomplish. which means: the design needs to be prefaced by the goals, or vision. vision should include: -What the desktop does when an app is executed (for example be quiet and not bother) i assume you read that i wrote almost exactly this in my previous email, yes? Yes, but it wasn't part of the vision, instead it was part of some vision extension for the application management. -Application integration. absolutely .. we started with centralized, consistent management and display of services applications use; i'm sure we can go much further, too. the question is: to accomplish what? the centralization was to provide single well-known places to do common things that run (from a user's POV) largely external to an application (aka the window we can see) in a consistent manner. the hope is to limit the number of things / places people need to learn and think about when using the system. that principle, extended, brings us to things like SLC ... what other sorts of application integration can we do, based on that goal? and, btw, i can think of other sorts of application integration we could do that don't meet the principle above. which is why starting with principles is important, because otherwise saying integrate applications will likely not result in a coherent and usefully designed thing, but a bunch of features smacked together because they are cool or seem to look nice. At the end a user spent most of its time on applications. is that why they are using the computer, to use applications? or is there something more fundamental going on for them, and applications are a means to that end? if so, what is it and how can we support that. Still processing this :p ___
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 01:20:21 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:14:46 Alex Fiestas wrote: So, what is the workspace for you? the components that take care of supporting the working area of the computer and practices of the person using the system. these tasks include: * user session start / stop / switch * power management * application launch * window management * locating resources available on or to the device * quick reference to information (some items in the system tray do this, some plasmoids do this) * interaction with system services (local file indexing, sound, networking, etc.) * presentation of actions belonging to the system (from a user's POV), which would include things like file operation progress or notifications perhaps there are others as well. all of these bits need to be fit well together. and applications which don't play a key role in the above are not part of the workspace. so there's a bit of scope to which we can add a set of big idea goals (aka vision) so we can chart how to accomplish each of the things in the list above. Considering that applications like Dolphin or Gwenview are part of it as dolphin and gwenview are applications. they are not part of the workspace. this is evident because: * they fulfill specific tasks (file management, image viewing); in contrast plasma-desktop, kwin, krunner and system integration components such as bluedevil do not meet specific tasks but enable one to engage in those tasks. you can use kwin without a file manager; it's annoying to use dolphin without a file manager. it's the app/system split. * they can be used in other desktop / workspace implementations without feeling foreign or that they are duplicating an integral system service * the workspace can be used without them without any degredation of service well as Solid (hardware integration) I find many parts of that vision vaguely applicable or at least not clearly applicable. that's because they are not part of the workspace. that begs the question: should we have an application vision? hell yes! (we have one for Active, btw...) should it harmonize with the workspace vision? double hell yes! there will be commonalities, there will also be differences. big ones. applications are all about framing and delivering content. the workspace needs to get out of the way of that as much as possible and provide an integrative system for those applications to tap into. the vision for an image viewer is neatly confined by the defined task. the vison for a workspace is not, so those boundaries and parameters need to be derived from a much large possible solution space. on the other hand, it can also embody more dynamics as a result of not having a single, self-evident task as an image viewer or file manager does. I see and I agree on all you said (again be patience with me :p). We need then something like active where we can put all visions (workspace, applications, hardware support...) and create a more unified experience. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 01:44:26 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:14:46 Alex Fiestas wrote: well as Solid (hardware integration) separate email for a separate topic: frameworks and the workspace definition. :) Solid is not part of the workspace Solid == subcommunity of KDE dedicated to hardware support. When I said solid I meant BlueDEvil, Power Management, NetworkManagement, etc. You mean libsolid not solid. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 01:04:13 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: an answer to finding alex's email is not manage applications. Good point. an answer to turn my computer off is not manage applications. Not a valid example, I never turn off my computer (suspend) and even if I did I turn off the computer once a day. an answer to have my music volume be appropriate to what i'm doing on the system (e.g. mute it when i get an incoming call on mumble / jabber / googletalk / etc) is not manage applications. Good point, though we don't need an interface for this. an answer to how do i organize my information, which is the reason i turned on this damn thing in the first place, so that it reflects what i'm most interest in is not manage applications Well this is a need you believe people have, in my case I do but I'm not sure if the the average user have this problem. Is there any user story written? which kind of users are we targeting? Do you think that Penny[1] needs to organize information? A user that only wants to watch lolcats on youtube and talk to friends via facebook doesn't. A user that use the computer for multiple things or in multiple areas (work, home) may want to. which is more common, which do we want to design for? is one a super-set of the other? if so, can we design for that super-set of needs? Well imho there are more people from the first group than for the second, most people I know don't want to use computers but they do because they need them to ex: play games, surf web, write documents, etc No doubts they will change the computer for something simpler when the alternative exists. The need of having to organize information implies having information to organize, most people only have few mp3, few videos and few documents. The workspace should be extensible by third party developers and thus should be able to integrate their applications with it not mattering on which technology the application is written. sounds good to me .. we've also tried to focus on easy so that we avoid something super duper flexble and extensible but also too hard to make things for preventing people from doing so; we've also tried to focus on produces nice results so that people feel rewarded for their efforts (sth kicker failed at imho, resulting in orders of magnitude fewer addons for it compared to plasma) Yay we agree on something! xD step by step :p [1] http://community.kde.org/NetworkManagement#Persona_2:_Penny ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 03:04:04 PM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 14:48:58 Alex Fiestas wrote: We need then something like active where we can put all visions (workspace, applications, hardware support...) and create a more unified experience. i agree ... and, btw, i'm stupidly excited that we're actually at a point where we can even conceive of doing this! Yay! we agree on two things now xD (better take all this with humor :p) ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
It sounds good, maybe we should start a new thread since this got contaminated with offtopic (sorry for that :( ) ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Tuesday, May 15, 2012 10:07:08 AM Björn Balazs wrote: Have you been aware of this vision? No. If no: looking back would it have been helpful for your work if you had known it (and how)? No (I don't see how to apply it on Bluedevil / RandR / Kamoso). Is it too general / just right / too specific? I think it is focused on the shell while we are working towards a workspace, which includes more things than the shell (working out a definition for workspace would be nice too). Is there anything missing or unnecessary in it? I'm surprised that the word application doesn't appear even once, the most basic thing to do with the shell is switching and launching applications. Once that is done in a excellent way, then we can think on how complement it. Something I asked myself while preparing for this sprint: How much time do you use the shell and for doing what? My answer to that question is: I use the shell for launching and switching applications most of the time. Most of my time is spent into applications not in the shell. Apart from switching applications, I use it to configure the network and I do this at most once per place when using a laptop, never when using a workstation. Funny story, using master version from time to time I found myself with plasma-workspace not working or crashing once executed. I'm still perfectly able to work thanks to KWin effects and KRunner (which are part of the shell as well). My answer is based on my experience using the current shell. A possible objective for the next thing would be change that habit and make users spent more time on the shell. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
This would be my vision: Plasma workspace should be excellent on launching, switching and getting applications and it shouldn't bother the user while using those. For the users that need it, the workspace should offer a way of organazing the different tasks performed on it (work, entertainment, personal communication, school..) by providing easy ways of sorting all kind of information. There is another part of my vision focused on developers, I don't think it is relevant here. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Workspace Next Sprint Organization
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Martin Gräßlin mgraess...@kde.org wrote: On Friday 11 May 2012 09:29:29 Ivan Čukić wrote: while i will not be there, i would be interested in doing a remote presentation, e.g. video over the net. let me know if that would be of It'd be nice if the presentation (and more) would be on a (for example) G+ hangout so that a few of us can watch it. We clearly have to do something in that way. Both you and Aaron are very valuable when considering technical aspects, so we need you at least in a remote way :-) yeah, that would be very useful (i'll probably won't be able to come as well, maybe over the weekend but it's quite tight :/) aanyways, that's not entirely bad: you'll be free from who knows the implementation too much to clearly think outside of it (and advice for who will be there, try to not think too much on the parts of implementation you know best;) then whatever the results are is something that we can walk trough the implementation of it, what's doable, not so much, what will require changes in the platform and so on (at akademy?) Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
