On Saturday 28 Mar 2009 5:32:39 pm Bert Freudenberg wrote:
Having seen various attempts at that I think splitting Morphic is *not* the best way forward. Instead, I think the current FullMorphic (i.e. including Etoys and all the goodies) should be treated as one unit and there would be complete replacements for it.
+1. Is this a proposal for Mtoys (Morphic+Etoys)?
Has anyone noticed that the new Plasma engine in KDE 4.2.1 is sounding more like a Morphic world: --- see userbase.kde.org/Plasma Plasma's components are widgets called Plasmoids. Plasmoids can take on a variety of functions, ranging from displaying your desktop and associated wallpaper, showing your laptop's battery level, displaying your plugged in devices, and drawing the taskbar: basically, they are small applications that live on the desktop. Plasmoids can be grouped together in "containers" called containments......
It doesn't sound too new... other operating systems have done that.
The key difference here is that plasmoids can interact together. You want a better view of your laptop battery in order to find out when you are running low? You just drag it away from the taskbar and put it on the desktop. Also, applets can be resized and rotated at will, thanks to the use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs). As you can see, the desktop not only interacts with you, as the user, but also with itself in new and interesting ways. You are now able to control how your workspace behaves and what it displays, in a visually pleasing and user-friendly manner. Since Plasma is the sum of its plasmoids, every element, even the desktop itself, is a widget. This allows you to move your desktop anywhere with respect to the windows (back and forward). It is no longer rooted behind everything and becomes instead another element of real interaction. ---