KDE Developer Working On Windows 8 Inspired Look

[staalmannen]

People, you're close, but not quite there; this is a brilliant example of KDE being flexible, and showing it off. It has potential to be what you want. Any publicity is good publicity when you want to get public minshare so why not ride off the back of the biggest MS UI FUp in history. Not everyone on the planet hates Windows and seeing a desktop that can be whatever the bloody hell it pleases is nothing short of incredibly USEFUL. Imagine all the custom desktop configurations you will start seeing in the future. I recall XP's Luna being replicated long ago as well.

Kudo's on the quick mashup KUB.

I remember seeing KDE plasma running on Win8 as an alternative shell. I wish the KDE on Windows project got active again (the last binary downloads pretty old). It would be awesome if one could use KDE as a complete shell replacement on Windows. There is a big desktop environment modding community on the Windows side of things that could do amazing things if they had access to the flexibility of KDE.

[unixfan2001]

Personally, I very much liked Ken Vermette's mockups of what a Windows 10 themed KDE could look like. I'm not much of a KDE user (even though Knoppix was my first plunge into the Linux desktop), but that design looked sweet enough to make me want to try it.

While I don't really like the overall design of this "Windows 8 theme", the SettingsFlyout control feature is certainly neat. Flyouts like that are generally a really good and solid design feature. They're an oft overlooked innovation of the Windows platform.

PS: "Metro" hasn't been called Metro for at least a few years. It's "Modern" now.

[plonoma]

Desktop Actions / Jump Lists

Like that very much, would love to see this feature come to Linux! Very useful feature!

[Slartifartblast]

Don't you just love KDE, so customizable. I'm sure the the kind of people who will enjoy this who hanker for back to the days of their Fisher Price toys however I think I'll pass. They sacked Steven Sinofsky for a very good reason.

[Michael_S]

Boy am I glad this wasn't a planned KDE development. One metro is enough horror for the world, we don't need another :P

Microsoft's Metro was poorly executed, but I think they were trying to solve the right problems:
1. Introduce a new design format that scales better to small mobile devices as well as large monitors.
2. Introduce a new design format that is more touch friendly.
3. Copy the iOS and Android feature for all applications to save user status automatically, so you don't have to train people to use Ctrl+S or File-Save.
4. Copy the iOS and Android feature for applications to save their state and sleep or power off in the background, to save on battery usage (for mobile devices) and save in memory usage (for desktop devices with limited amounts of memory).
5. Get developers to use a new toolkit for making Windows applications that handled 2560x1440 and UHD gracefully.
6. Get developers to use a new toolkit for making Windows applications so Microsoft can start to use other processor architectures besides x86.
7. Get users accustomed to the apps on Windows Phone when the users use Windows desktop, so more shoppers will consider Windows phone.

But it needed more work when they launched it. They were just in a hurry for fear that their window of opportunity to stop iOS and Android from eating their lunch in the consumer market was closing.

I don't like Microsoft, mind. And I wouldn't be posting this message from Windows even if they had gotten Metro right. But I understand what they did and why they did it. And as soon as they release all of it under an OSI-approved license, I'll buy it.

[SystemCrasher]

I'm glad I've moved to XFCE. Kde looks like a real crap these days, and this thing looks even worse than KDE itself. Actually, Win8 had awful market reception due to crappy appearance and MS struggled very hard to sell it. Win10 fixed at least some obvious idiocies and odds and looks at least a bit less crappy. Sure, now its time to show KDE can look just as bad as Win8, right? Come on, let's also replace window decoration with win 3.1 style. Or maybe give it a black & white look & feel of genuine Windows 2.0, downgrading to Win 3.1 level of graphic isn't enough!

[rabcor]

Microsoft's Metro was poorly executed, but I think they were trying to solve the right problems:
1. Introduce a new design format that scales better to small mobile devices as well as large monitors.
2. Introduce a new design format that is more touch friendly.
3. Copy the iOS and Android feature for all applications to save user status automatically, so you don't have to train people to use Ctrl+S or File-Save.
4. Copy the iOS and Android feature for applications to save their state and sleep or power off in the background, to save on battery usage (for mobile devices) and save in memory usage (for desktop devices with limited amounts of memory).
5. Get developers to use a new toolkit for making Windows applications that handled 2560x1440 and UHD gracefully.
6. Get developers to use a new toolkit for making Windows applications so Microsoft can start to use other processor architectures besides x86.
7. Get users accustomed to the apps on Windows Phone when the users use Windows desktop, so more shoppers will consider Windows phone.

But it needed more work when they launched it. They were just in a hurry for fear that their window of opportunity to stop iOS and Android from eating their lunch in the consumer market was closing.

I don't like Microsoft, mind. And I wouldn't be posting this message from Windows even if they had gotten Metro right. But I understand what they did and why they did it. And as soon as they release all of it under an OSI-approved license, I'll buy it.

You would buy something with these service agreements? (Not to mention all the tracking that is embedded into Microsofts operating systems since 10 both to enforce these service agreements and of course for our best buds at the NSA)

Besides for gaming for the moment, I don't believe I will ever want to put my hands on a Microsoft product again, I am about as revolted by them as by Apple, and that's saying a whole damn lot (I hate them to the core, especially that Steve Jobs jerk, thank god he's gone)
(To spell it out)

...you grant to Microsoft a worldwide and royalty-free intellectual property license to use Your Content...

[TeoLinuX]

Keep in mind that this not a serious project, as the author said himself. It was an experiment on flexibility of Plasma, and took him 1 hour to create.

Thanks god.
I would have ditched KDE for good, if it was the community development direction.

[Michael_S]

You would buy something with these service agreements? (Not to mention all the tracking that is embedded into Microsofts operating systems since 10 both to enforce these service agreements and of course for our best buds at the NSA)

Besides for gaming for the moment, I don't believe I will ever want to put my hands on a Microsoft product again, I am about as revolted by them as by Apple, and that's saying a whole damn lot (I hate them to the core, especially that Steve Jobs jerk, thank god he's gone)
(To spell it out)

I realize I'm almost a month late responding, sorry.

The Microsoft service agreements only apply to their proprietary code. You can't add that kind of service agreement to an open source product, if you do it's no longer open source. My statement was purely a hypothetical anyway. Microsoft will never release core Windows or core Office under an open source license, well above half of their income comes from selling software licenses. So when I write, "If Microsoft releases Windows under an open source license, I'll use it" it's really as silly as writing "When Microsoft starts selling flying pink elephants for $3, I'll get one".

On the other hand, you wrote "Besides gaming for the moment". I understand that - when I played a lot of PC games, that's the same reason I kept a Windows installation too. But keep in mind that it only reinforces Microsoft's dominant position on consumer desktops. People will be writing "Besides gaming for the moment" about Microsoft on sites like this one in twenty years. I don't think free software operating systems will ever dethrone Microsoft on consumer desktops.