Monday Report #11 - Go time!

In which we talk about widget theme, community participation, ask for help, show off work by two handsome devs and mention some future promo work to come!

KDE VDG group member, hard at work!

This time I will focus primarily on the widget theme. Now as some of you may now there is a "quiet area" where we keep some of the work that either needs to be secret or where there are some issue or you want to test things or you need to work on it in quiet in a small group.

This isn't the end plan - the idea is that in the end everything except sensitive things (where perhaps the dev has asked us not to tell others about it yet) will be done in the open. Now is the time to try that out for reals!

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Andrew has been hard at work with the widget theme - now unlike before it doesn't demand that you know C++ just that you can handle QML. Now what does that crazy abbreviation mean? Well, QML is "Qt Meta Language" and it's the way we can among other things style Qt apps or widgets.
It is comparatively simple to use and learn. I say comparatively because I'm trying to learn it as we speak and I would be lying if I said it was a dance on roses BUT it's way simpler than any other method for styling AND it offers a ton of features and possibilities.
Andrew is well under way with it and the current iteration - as well as a sneak peak at the window theme - can be seen here:

With a sneak peak at window dialogues too.

But he needs the communities help refining it! In his post in the forum is a short recap of the issue and some instructions as well as an invitation to EVERYONE no matter what skill level (or indeed if the suggestions are done in words or mockups or QML) to participate. I can only suggest that you do! The more we are, the better it will become!

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Aside from that some rather fascinating possibilities have opened up. Alex Fiestas and Vishesh Handa, two of what I prefer to call "KDE's finest" have started working on a new Video Player.
Now many might think that this is a waste of time as there already are video players out there - then let me let you in on a little secret. Inside this thick skull of mine is a dream of crafting applications made for desktop usage. Where we take a sincere look at whats needed, how it can best be presented, how it should work and flow - without feeling stuck in the hellish "where did my X/Y/Z feature go in X/Y/Z software?" problem. When you remodel something existing you run the risk of ruining it. It's a simple fact - it also ties you down design wise because we're nice people (trust me, designers are not only "nice" we are also "people") and to storm in and tell someone who doesn't want to change their application that you're there to do just that isn't a great experience.

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Also this week hopefully a small promo video will be cut together for one detail or two of Plasma Next. Nothing long or fancy, no wonderful great secrets revealed BUT something to set the tone.

So this was perhaps not the longest monday report - but it was hopefully pleasant to read and informative! Until next time! (Oh and remember my promise "A year and a day for KDE"? 20% of the time has now passed...
(EDIT: I forgot to add the second image from Andrews post, sry fixed now)