Shaping up the time for KDE.

Just some more images of the work done so far on the extensions for the plasma clock, that i have been working on with
Riccardo Iaconelli. Right now i´m working on a time zone extension.
The one you can see here is the date extension... Basically, what you get when clicking the date area ;).

And a more integrated version.

DIGG

Comments

jospoortvliet said…
Maybe you should clearly note that the taskbar on the bottom is a mockup. The plasma developers will determine the final layout. The look is of course mostly up to the artists, but before ppl start to complain about the centered Kmenu and stuff...
Anonymous said…
But the taskbar in this screenshots is cool. I think the normal transparent kde4 taskbar I have seen in other blogs' screenshots is the worst looking thing kde4 have got right now.

A default looking like this one would be better. Or if not, another third different.

The date extension shown in this post is too really cool.
Anonymous said…
Would be nice if it was integrated with Kontact somehow.
Anonymous said…
cenebris, yes the idea is that it is deeply integrated with kontact.
Superstoned, yes i stated that in my previus post.
But layout has deep impact on looks so i have some opinons on layout issues...
In the end its up to the one making the code the final decision...
Anonymous said…
Confesso que, pela primeira vez, estou a gostar de ver o KDE.
Siraj Razick said…
Solid work. looks too cool to be real .this is the Perfect Kicker for KDE4

Really, Excellent 5* Mock!
Anonymous said…
Lindo, para que falar mais :), parece que afinal vou voltar ao kde...
Anonymous said…
first of all, i really love your mock-ups.

take a look at this to see what the gnome guys did. i'd love to see a kontact integration like this:
http://www.ogmaciel.com/?p=396
Anonymous said…
WOOOOOOOOOWWW!!
Unknown said…
I get the idea of the retro clock, but I'd like to see the line going through the middle of the numbers just a bit thinner. With the line as thick as it is, numbers like 3 are harder to make out. Other than that, this is a really cool look.
Anonymous said…
I think that plasmoids should have a smaller border. According to me, there's too much space wasted: try thinking about people with 1024*768 resolution display... they've no space to waste.
Leo S said…
The taskbar mockup looks cool now, but only because it has been tailored to be visually balanced. With normal workloads it won't look like that. Trying to cut the taskbar space in half with the kmenu is never going to work. In reality, you won't have 4 applications open, you will have 10 or 15. They will all be crowded in that left half, while the right half of the taskbar is mostly empty (the system tray and clock, and other applets don't take very much space).

The current (3.5 style) taskbar layout is much more sensible, although not as pretty.
Remember, form _follows_ function, not the other way around.
Marcel said…
Nice, but way too much wasted space.
Anonymous said…
Hey Nuno !!!!! I just saw some pictures in that directory and I saw this:

http://nuno-icons.com/images/estilo/rect3048.png

Do you realize this might be the best-looking style for choosing your virtual desktop...

cubes are lame, switching just like that is lame but this.... is perfect, sexy it's gorgeos... I SO WANT THIS IN KDE 4 !! :D

and the blue wallpaper is great !!!
Anonymous said…
Yeah, I have to agree with Darryl. The clock may look appealing but it can't be read that well. Make that black horizontal line thinner and it wil be possible to distinguish between 13:33 and 13:38 again ;) Still the question remains why you want to use such an error prone clock design in the first place...

Regarding the kicker mockup the central K is a step backwards since you lose the corner as one of the easiest targets one could possibly hit with a mouse.
The two-row taskbar from ancient KDE1 times has major drawbacks, too: the bottom row can easily be hit with the mouse since it "merges" into the infinity of the screen edge. The top row however is extremely difficult to hit because you have to exactly aim for its entries with the cursor.
The same applies to the systray. The items in its bottom row can easily be hit vertically, since they have an infinite size. The top row of the systray icons however is even more difficult to hit than the top taskbar row because they are even smaller and lack the help of the screen edge.

I hope I won't have to wait for KDE5 until these major deficiencies are finally taken serious and fixed.
Anonymous said…
When displaying the Calendar it would be usefull to also display the name of the month displayed (I like to use the clock/Calendar view to fast check dates in the future)
André Somers said…
It would be good to be able to show the name of the month, and be able to easily move back and forth in time, just like you can with the current calendar. I use that feature very frequently to look up things like "at what day does date x fall?".
Anonymous said…
Absolutely fantastic!
Anonymous said…
Possibly the most beautiful backdrop I've ever seen.
Anonymous said…
Wasted space, well that clok has a biguer than in realty borther, teh real one is just 9 px. Lasy artist here, also plasmoids idialy should be able to be grouped toguether and that would help alot.
About the bar, well i say it againg is just my vision but for the record, the systemtry right now in kiquer has no infinite space so no big modification there, the taskbar should have the apps ligned in the botom only then should they apear on top. so we would be talking about somthing like 33% of your hits.
As it goes, the fact that everything is so close togueter is very good has it eanbles you to look at the intire bar in a glance, no more visual scroll to find that link/icon you wont have to move your mouse so much so you will get beter Fits'law results, I have some rather big experience with this aproach of a bar as I been using it for several years, with superkaramba. Its very usable and is is were most of the action is going on, the midle of the screen, specily on the new wide screen trend.
A intire with bar is almost unusable on big wide screnns moving the mouse to the corner is actuly harder that to the midle couse the distance is shorter, and vertical mouse movement is not that big still.
On the other hand, the kmenu importance is droping for other methods of louching apps like krunner and find tools.
But hey this is just my ideas on the subject, i agrea they might be controversal, please share yours aswell.
Anonymous said…
Looks quite nice but is is possible to remove the horizontal line cutting through the numbers?
Anonymous said…
darryl wheatley i cant show it here but the numbers "flap" like train station clock's numbers.
Anonymous said…
For the Spanish speaking idiots out there: Could you please learn English or shut the fuck up?

99.9% of people has no idea what you're talking about.

OTOH, who cares what you have to say if you're stupid enough to write in Spanish on (international) internet forums...
Anonymous said…
@ Anonymous: That's not very nice. Besides, you should learn to speak proper English before telling others to learn English. Also, quit being a dick.
Anonymous said…
I have been following KDE4 for a few months now and am enthusiastic about most of the developments with the exception of plasma. The clock and similar widgets are interesting and useful I am sure, but all examples I have seen of panels take up a lot of space.

Will it be possible to use a traditional kicker panel in 4.0? The taskbar in this example is cool but would take up way too much screen space on subcompact laptops with 1024x768 screens. (Speaking from experience as a 12" powerbook user.)
Anonymous said…
@ Anonymous: It's Portuguese and not Spanish, you retard. And it's the 6th most spoken language and thus understood by more than 0,01%.

And could you please show me this written rule where on international forums English is the only allowed language? Why isn't it Mandarin since that is the most spoken language anyway?

Finally, if you happen to read the profile of the owner of this blog you should realize that he is Portuguese to. So, do us a favour and crawl back into your hole.
Anonymous said…
To the dick-head that derides somebody else's choice of language when posting on a public forum, go jump in the deep end of a lake, will you?

And it was Portuguese, not Spanish that those guys were using.

More on topic, Nuno, I love your sense of aesthetics and it is good to have people around that finally articulate an aesthetic vision for KDE4.

We need this type of leadership in our community,because it will lead to more people discussing the boundaries between usability, ergonomics and aesthetics and eventually lead to the creation of a better desktop. So keep on sharing your vision, because I for one like where you are heading.

The only things I do agree with is that it is important to be able to move back and forth in the calendar as it is a great way to check on a future date.

Thanks for your hard work.
Anonymous said…
@ louis and others: it's not meant to be nice... I'm fed up with these spanish and/or portuguese (what ever) speaking fucks.

I can speak *good enough* english, so at least the majority of people know what I'm talking about. Otherwise I wouldn't post on any english forums (I know, most of you probably would like that).
Anonymous said…
Visual shoud not be more important than usability. It is realy a bit harder to read 3 in the clock in small size (as it shoud be in the taskbar).

I understand that the K button in the center might be good for widescreen and that the wasted space might not be so big for you, but large widescreen users are an rich geeky minority. I hope that the defaut themes and plasmoids for KDE4 will be sane, and usable in all common screen resolutions.

Acording to W3 statistics, in the start of this year 14% of people surfing the web was using 800x600 screen resolutions, and the percentage is probably more if you include also the computers that don't have internet access. The 1024x768 resolution is also responsible by half of the hits. While the 800x600 percentage is diminishing, it is still considerable, and the 1024x768 is fairly stable.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp


@nuno: Mesmo com tudo o que eu disse, beleza é o que não falta nesses plasmoids.
Anonymous said…
Looks like somebody's nostalgic for Sun's old CDE...
Anonymous said…
OMG THIS IS AWESOMEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW

http://www.nuno-icons.com/images/estilo/rect3048.png
Anonymous said…
Again thanks for the coments, and the patience to bare my poor english skils.
The trend clearly show the amout of available dots on screnn, this is my vision for a desktop look for a 5 to 7 years sicle if the trend keeps up by that time this look will be ok for most of our ecosystem and specyly to boost the number in our ecosystem.
Anonymous said…
It's very Mac like. Great job guys!
Anonymous said…
> the systemtry right now in kiquer has no infinite space so no big
> modification there

But isn't KDE4 about improving things? Laying out the systray icons in one horizontal line, making all of them edge aware - that would improve things. Keeping the old system just for the sake of tradition and looks is simply irresponsible. There are so many examples out there where good looks come along with horrid usability. Your mockup is another one.

Have you actually read what Fitts' Law is all about? Have you taken the time and measured the horizontal and vertical size of the systray icons and taskbar entries. Have you put everything into the formulas provided by Fitts and related research? If you had you would have realized that your proposed approach is performing really bad.

Nuno, sorry, but I have the impression you have not the faintest idea what you are talking about. Please refresh your research about Fitts' Law and start designing from scratch again.
Anonymous said…
First of all: it would be good if the final work could be so polished as the mockup.

And other suggestion: use icons to launch apps and as the taskbar... i mean, like osx dock or AWN.
That would save a lot of space.

Think about it, the fact that other OS use that implementation doesn't mean KDE4 can't use it.

It would be very very good.
Anonymous said…
Hi,

First: it looks very nice.

Second: about the clock style, i agree with someone here asking for making the horizontal line of the numbers thinner.

Thanks and keep up the good work!
Anonymous said…
Despite what some say, i actually looked up fitts law.
What does it basically say?? well
MT = a + b log2(2A/W)
were
MT = movement time
a,b = regression coefficients
A = distance of movement from start to target center
W = width of the target

Well now this formula must be taken with grain of salt specially to the width of trget, if an object is close to a border it has infinite width. in the corner it has "double infinite with". (the formula does not take that in to consideration btw).
The idea is to minimize the MT.
Has a general idea making everything on the border would be better for the width thing, but i think that the fact that the screens are becoming beguer and the fact that you youhave to use 2 mouse movement to reach one corner is very bad, the formula does not take that into consideration, its just a general proposed formula that some times gives good results.
Also and in order to keep things well balanced i wanted that the bar was as small as possible so again you wont need to lift the mouse to go from one side to the other of the bar, also so that you can precive the entire bar just by looking at it.
The idea is that if you can drag the mouse fast to a determinate area were you clear know that want you are looking for is, you can easily click it. the mouse movement precision is kite good on a small radius around were it is right now, (think the formula does only linearly take that into consideration, think that is rader exponential in the short radius.
Also task bar it can become huge and you will have to scroll it visually until you find what you are looking for wen you find it you will probably need to mouse movements to click it so the amount of time was vastly superiorly to the one on my design.

Well i have loads of more arguments on the subject, yes i did thought about it for some time.
Anonymous said…
Pinheiro: your design is really good! keep up the amazing work, i never seen a design so beautiful like your designs, keep up rocking dude!
Unknown said…
Oh my god, that is the cutest wallpaper I've ever seen. I really hope it's one of the winners of the wallpaper contest.

Also, I think all of the submitted wallpapers should be able to download on kde-look.org. There seems to be too much good stuff to only publicise a few of them.
Anonymous said…
> Well i have loads of more arguments on the subject,
> yes i did thought about it for some time.

Good, then you must be able to answer some more questions:

> Well now this formula must be taken with grain of
> salt specially to the width of trget, if an object
> is close to a border it has infinite width. in the
> corner it has "double infinite with".
> (the formula does not take that in to consideration btw).

The original article by Fitts doesn't. However, there is subsequent research that offers various refinements to the formula and does cover both axes.

> Also task bar it can become huge and you will have
> to scroll it visually until you find what you are
> looking for wen you find it you will probably need
> to mouse movements to click it so the amount of
> time was vastly superiorly to the one on my design

A good deal on your argumentation is based on the "fact" that a taskbar with two rows can be scanned more quickly. How come? After all the amount of information is the same.Counting the width and height of the entries, even the projected area is the same. The difference is that now
- two rows have to be scanned.
- there is a break in the flow of scanning since at the end of the first row, one has to switch to the beginning of the other one.
- generally the entries have to be read both vertically and horizontally.
Question: Why is this actually faster? Proof?

Question: How do you plan to address the rearrangement problem? With a layout that has two rows, entries are constantly being rearranged and jumping around. So at one time entry A is in the first row. Now another task is added with the consequence that entry A suddenly is in the other row. How is this supposed to make repeated scanning easy/quick? The systray has the same problem.

Question: You repeatedly said that widescreen displays are the future. Widescreen displays imply that there is more horizontal than vertical space. Your proposal uses two rows and thus more vertical than horizontal space. How does using valuable vertical real screen estate and at the same time leaving cheap horizontal space unused fit with your observation?

And one more thing about Fitts: You actually measured the distances and icon sizes and applied the formula?
Anonymous said…
i think kde4 with oxygen will boost the linux desktop a lot, it will look so gergeous out there and people will say "wow, that's the best looking desktop i ever seen, i want it now!"
Pinheiro said…
No i did not applied the formula, to apply the formula we would need lots more information like, normal usage, most pressed buttons, screen average size, mean distance from mid point to bar...
It would give a great usability study just defining those aspects.
The fact that i did not applied the formula does not mean i cant understand it and predict results.
Has I'm sure you can anonymous.
but has i say i think fitts law should taken with a grain of salt specially cause its takes no consideration the fact that mouse movement and precision is not a linear progression according to distance but rather a different progression that grows exponentially, becomes linear then has a huge jump (need to lift the mouse to move further) and goes linear again.
Faster identification of app...
Well normally that is fastly done by the icon if they are close together you can see them all at once
Vertical space, well 2 rows that are smaller than the launch icon 48x48 px, so no wasted space there, Ofcourse that if the screen is smaller than a given number the bar should have a smaller launch icon and hence just one Row
If the bar with is bigger 75% screen width its should go into a more normal aproach has what we win in does not worth what we loose...
the way the bar scales is should be done in a way that is discreet with the bar becoming bigger until a max value and the app text area becoming smaller.
Thanks for your coments.
Btw if you what to discuss it further im at #oxygen.
Anonymous said…
is this panel usable then shrinked to tiny size of kde3.5 kicker (about 20 pixels height)?
I never liked so huge panel, it kinda gets on my way, especially with widescreen displays.
Pinheiro said…
Yes it is but it will need to be widther in that case couse you only have one row that way.
and that kinda elemitates the function of keeping everything toghether.
Anonymous said…
I would really appreciate if the oxygen team could go over the transparent-white border of widgets style and make up something more beatiful, which fits the oxygen theme more (so the widgets fit better to normal windows....) I like the black in the widgets but the transcluent border is something i think shouldnt be in the final release...
Anonymous said…
actually nuno could u make a version where there is no white-transcluent border please and upload it so people can compare ?

I think if the taskbar and the clock-calender where only on that clack background it would look quite sexy....
Anonymous said…
I meant 'black background' ;)

and i have to add so far i really like the calender-clock, gj ! :D
Iuri said…
I just hope in the final version you can adjust the border size and the widgets position in the taskbar.
Otherwise, looking great.
Parabéns!
Anonymous said…
can i get that wallpaper?
Anonymous said…
You know, it is tiresome to hear people using Fitt's Law like some biblical edict.

Fitt's Law is not the be-all and end-all of user interface design. It only speaks to time-to-target. Fitt's law does not take into account object recognition, functional locality or grouping, acceleration/deceleration profiles of the pointing device, discoverablity, among several others. It is foolish to design the entirety of the UI to satisfy Fitt's Law. KDE 4 would end up with little more than 4 hot corners overloaded with desktop functions. Doesn't mean we should ignore Fitt's Law, there is definitely immense value there, but you don't rearrange everything satisfy it either.
Pinheiro said…
Jamboarder, yes yes and yes.
Ohhhh and yes.
Anonymous said…
Nice work nuno, I like what I'm seeing. And I immediately liked the Kmenu in the middle like that, I think its rather striking. Its position it kind of says without needing to say anyting, "click me". And do I detect a little iPhone inspiration in the styling ? And, I really dig the retro digital clock as well. =)
Anonymous said…
Well, there goes the need for my dbKalendar creation :D
Hi Nuno,

Besides wanting to say that I like the design, I also want to say that I really appreciate that you have a fresh view on things, and are not swayed too easily.

I think it's incredibly rude the way in which people are criticizing your work without trying it. Besides, we all know KDE, and surely everything is customizable to the pixel.

I for one am glad someone is trying something new. Even if the final design isn't as usable as we'd hoped, you tried something.

Anyway, I love it.

Filip
Unknown said…
And let's not forget that KDE 4.0 is not KDE4! This taskbar looks very innovative to me, and i believe it should make it to KDE 4.0, so that people can try it before judging.

The KDE4 project is willing to make the desktop evolve; breaking existing rules might (and must!) be part of that process.

If the taskbar finally doesn't convince the majority of users, it can be replaced in further versions of KDE4 by another UI concept; that's what it's all about ;)

Anyway, it's all damn awesome, can't wait!
Anonymous said…
Awww, only a mock, I want it now!!! Seriously sweet work...

Anyway, love the calendar too, have to, seeing as it's using the calendar system classes I'm overhauling :-). I hope the ability to switch calendar systems gets included,,,
Anonymous said…
That must be the default taskbar of KDE 4.0, pixel perfectly. No compromises. It's so beautiful and aesthetic and functional. Perfection.
Anonymous said…
love it
Anonymous said…
Fitt's Law, as most usability "laws" go, is a bit like The Holy Bible: it's the same for everyone, yet every culture gets a biased interpretation of it after many years of rumination over its wording.

For those of you worried about the need to tuck as much of the GUI as possible at the corners, I can't recall Fitt's papers mentioning anything like that. In fact, there are way more efficient and unobstrusive ways to satisfy Fitt's law. A good set of contextual menus is a good example: the controls are right there, on the spot where you click your mouse (zero travelling distance), and your target "widget" is the whole desktop, no less (~infinite surface).

Anyone here has ever used Alias Maya, the powerfull 3D package? Maya uses a sort of "context menu on steroids", combining well laid-out, angular (pie) menus with full context-awareness and basic mouse gestures. The menu appeared at the tap of the spacebar, and its content would change depending on the type of object you were pointing to. Screenshot here:

http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/manual/UserGuide/Overview/images/WorkingMaya.fm.anc1.gif

Now, I can't remember having ever used a GUI in which one felt so focused, so productive. The interface was just "there", waiting for the user to be invoked with a quick key tap, though it never felt on your way, it never distracted you away from the creative proccess.

Anyway, my point is -and I think I agree with Nuno here- The GUI does NOT have to present all the information all the time. If you display too much important information at once, it becomes unimportant. An always-visible part of the GUI, such as Kicker, should present ONLY essential information (eg: the most frequently switched-to applications, a few common shortcuts, the clock and perhaps a CPU metter or something). Everything else should be still easily accessible, but NOT necessarily on the screen.

I know it will never happen but, boy, would it be cool having stuff like those pie menus integrated in KDE's Plasma. I think they could work very well with the planned new "zooming interface". Here's to hope!
Anonymous said…
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous said…
Nuno what about the plasma icons? are that kind of icons icluded in kde beta released?
Chandru said…
Hi Nunno,

What can I as an user do to ensure that the panel looks this way in KDE 4.0 release? This is just damn cool.

If the desktop looks like this in KDE 4.0, I will definitely say the "WOW!" which I couldn't tell for Vista.
This task bar is very helpful for developers.

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Solid work. looks too cool to be real .this is the Perfect Kicker for KDE4

Really, Excellent 5* Mock!


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afrodisiacos said…
It can't really work, I suppose like this.

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