Open Source

Plasma Active

By · October 13, 2011, 3:01 PM PST

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  • Plasma Active

    KDE has annouced the first release of their Plasma Active project that provides an alternate interface for tablets.

    Based on Qt 4.7 and the Plasma framework seen in the KDE Platform, KDE says that it will run almost any software that is available for Linux platforms. On the hardware side, compatibility is a lot less.

    Here is the About screen for Plasma Active One, as seen in our instance running on top of MeeGo, recently abandoned by Intel and Nokia Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: User Interface

    The Plasma Active interface is designed around Activities that are intended to help users organise data. Old school users would probably recognise them as named desktops.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Activity Scroll

    Activities have the ability to scroll endlessly in a vertical direction — the number of widgets that one can place on an Activity is not limited by physical screen size.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Peek

    Pulling down on the bar at the top of the screen, much like an Android notification bar, reveals the currently running applications. Plasma Active calls this area Peek.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Peek Application Launcher

    Pulling Peek down further reveals the application launcher.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Konsole

    Here is the Konsole running and Plasma Active's on-screen keyboard.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: KWrite

    The venerable KDE text editor: KWrite.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Settings

    The settings panel, depending on the Activity configuration that could be very hard to read; hopefully the transparency issue is only due to running Plasma Active inside a virtual machine.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Web Browser

    The Plasma Active web browser.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Date and Time

    Date and time settings: a classic KDE settings screen.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Activity Background Selection

    The panel for selecting a new background image for the current Activity.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Kontact Touch event

    Creating a new event for the email and calendaring application, Kontact Touch.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Kontact Touch email

    Kontact Touch in email mode.
    Photo by: KDE
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Activity Switcher

    The Activity Switcher on the right-hand side.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: MeeGo Welcome

    This is the screen that welcomes the user when installing Plasma Active with MeeGo.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Disk Format

    In this screen: initialisation means format.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Installion End

    As the text says, the operating system expects to be installed with a USB thumb drive.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Introduction

    It's a nice touch to have a clickable video to play that helps explain basic interactions with the interface.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Activity Description

    How Plasma Active describes Activities.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

  • Plasma Active: Shut Down

    A familiar KDE log-out dialog, shut down also provides the option to suspend to RAM or to suspend to disk.
    Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
    Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

Plasma Active

KDE has annouced the first release of their Plasma Active project that provides an alternate interface for tablets.

Based on Qt 4.7 and the Plasma framework seen in the KDE Platform, KDE says that it will run almost any software that is available for Linux platforms. On the hardware side, compatibility is a lot less.

Here is the About screen for Plasma Active One, as seen in our instance running on top of MeeGo, recently abandoned by Intel and Nokia Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.
Photo by: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
Caption by:Chris Duckett/TechRepublic

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