Digested

When we learn new things, our brains reorganize. This process produces feelings of confusion and frustration. I like that state, and always pursue the limits of my understanding.

Keeping the above in mind, I explored the current Plasma desktop ideas. Very interesting, in fact, not frustrating at all. I've often wanted to explore the idea of zooming in and out of various work areas, or areas of interest. Right now I have 10 windows in my panel, and often have more, depending on what I'm doing at the moment. I would love to be able to zoom in and out of tasks, leaving everything open and where I left it. OS/2 had attempted this with the Workplace Shell. You could create a folder (don't remember the terminology of the time) with links to applications or files, open the folder which opened the applications, closed the folder which closed the applications. Handy, but flawed. The api was closed of course, and to do anything mildly useful required using undocumented interfaces. And the Workplace Shell didn't show the filesystem, but had something akin to .desktop files that linked to the various real files. So if you moved the physical files, the whole thing got confused. And in practice, it was flakey. Plasma didn't make the same mistake. Nice.

So far not much new learning for me. Only questions, which will be answered in time as things get done.

If you click on the cashew thingy, one item is Zoom Out. Try it. Your desktop, not including panel, will shrink. If you left click on the checked background, you can slide it side to side, hiding your desktop. There is lots of real estate open for exploitation. Click on the cashew thingy, and another item shows up. Add Activity will create another desktop. You can add widgets to that, zoom in or out to each one. Cool.

So here comes the questions. Will applications be able to work within the plasma zooming scheme? That would be a killer. Or will applications based on the plasma api be the only ones? Then the tricky parts. This could get complex in a hurry, which I have no problem with. But how to allow a user to keep track of what is there, easily switching etc. I see that the panel we know doesn't really fit into the paradigm. What would replace it, and how? As it stands it is just starting to be useful. There is a pile of work to be done yet, and I eagerly await what is to come.

One thing for sure. My monitor is suddenly too small. And I don't feel the slightest frustration. Maybe time to delve into the plasma api. I'm sure I'll get there quickly enough.