Will someone please tell me what Plasma is/Does?

[jincast90]

Hello. I read and hear quite alot about Plasma which will be released with KDE 4. I have tried reading about it, and I don't really understand what it does. Maybe someone can tell me about it, or give me a good link where I can read about it.

[GeneralZod]

Aaron Seigo seems to be keeping it very close to his chest, but there's a video + commentary from the talk at Akademy 06 about it at this page (http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Plasma%3A+What+the+Bleep+Is+It%3F+b y+Aaron+J.+Seigo). This presentation contains no screenshots/ demos of any kind, mind.

Sounds pretty overhyped to me, alas, but you never know - it might turn out to be pretty good :)

Edit:

A thread about the video:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=267293

[ComplexNumber]

Hello. I read and hear quite alot about Plasma which will be released with KDE 4. I have tried reading about it, and I don't really understand what it does. Maybe someone can tell me about it, or give me a good link where I can read about it.
just put "plasma kde"(without quotes) into google. the first hit is the main page, but it just seems like lots of talk saying nothing at the moment.

[taurus]

For a second, I thought you were talking about plasma tv!!! ](*,)

[Pathfinder_]

For a second, I thought you were talking about plasma tv!!! ](*,)

same here

[migla]

Aaron Seigo talks about plasma on the Linux Action Show episode 19, about 28 minutes into the podcast. http://www.linuxactionshow.com/?p=51

"What is plasma? ... At the most fundamental, basic, boring level it is panels and desktop."

[Bloodfen Razormaw]

Plasma is basically the replacement for kicker, kdesktop, superkaramba, and kmenu in KDE4. It has a single unified framework for development applets in numerous languages, and lets you use those applets consistently in panels, on the desktop, in menus, etc. The more interesting aspects of the project are that they intend to make the desktop fully integrated with the applications. You can pretty much do that with superkaramba and similar applications now, but this is supposed to make it a standard modus operandi and very simple to do. e.g. Your KMail launcher can also show you how many unread messages you have, or your Kopete launcher could show you your status or unread messages, and so on.

[kuja]

I can't remember if it was this KDE4 project, but if I do in fact remember correctly, the reason they wanted to keep things more tightlipped than usual is to keep folks from places like Microshaft from stealing ideas.

[Bloodfen Razormaw]

That is false, and absurd. The concept of free software is letting others build upon your ideas. They have said they are keeping the Appeal projects under wraps until release because they wanted it to feel new. They don't want people, say, making their own early releases of new icons so that they feel like old hat by the time KDE4 comes around.