Quantum Project (KDE4/Qt4 Fork)

zester · 2011-08-31 13:26:16

Just got done reading a post(rant) on phoronix about the "A Fork Of GNOME 2: The Mate Desktop", I just love it how people who
dont code love to tell everyone who does, what they should and shouldn't work on or that there wasting there time.

Speaking of here is my response to you diegoxter.

diegoxter wrote:

Forks, forks everywhere!
Why dont you help on razor-qt instead?
Latest DE forks are on their way to their own death, reason? They dont get new features, just get their code updated, maybe new names and thats it...

First your not my wife so you don't get to tell me what I should or shouldn't work on. Second
would you care to show us what great projects you've worked on?

Ive put my time in on both sides of the fence Gnome and KDE.

sbfreak · 2011-08-31 14:00:01

May I ask what is the reason behind providing a web browser with Chipara ? Most users are going to remove that and install what they want anyway.

Mad Fish · 2011-08-31 17:33:02

Hey, zester, If you like qtpanel, and are making modifications, please consider making them upstream-able quality, and send patches/merge requests to me. I am still here and willing to make it better, but I just don't have much time to work on it (and also due to lack of motivation - it works for me well already, and no one has joined the development).

zester · 2011-08-31 19:42:48

Mad Fish wrote:

Hey, zester, If you like qtpanel, and are making modifications, please consider making them upstream-able quality, and send patches/merge requests to me. I am still here and willing to make it better, but I just don't have much time to work on it (and also due to lack of motivation - it works for me well already, and no one has joined the development).

No problem Mad Fish I will do that. At this moment I have qtpanel in a bunch of different pieces.
Ill make what I have available once I finish setting my repo up. But I am probably going to take
stuff like x11Support, and a couple of different classes in the rest of the code and build them into a library.

You can add this to qtpanel for stylesheets instead of having everything
hard coded.

QFile file("/root/.qtpanel/style.qss");  <----- Just replace the hard coded path with a path variable
file.open(QFile::ReadOnly);
QString styleSheet = QLatin1String(file.readAll());
setStyleSheet(styleSheet);

I am willing to work with you just give me a min to get setup

sbfreak wrote:

May I ask what is the reason behind providing a web browser with Chipara ? Most users are going to
remove that and install what they want anyway

Arora isn't a requirement its something I am hacking on that you can download and use if you want. No application will be
required. If you dont like a panel or the desktop I provide you can take the pieces you do like and combine them with something
else. I have a couple of different panels and desktops I am working on some are minimal some are not.

See my google code page for an example.
http://code.google.com/p/zester/

You can also look here for a QML example
http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/6664/

Here is a video of an example Qt/QML desktop with animated wallpaper
http://zester.googlecode.com/files/out-1.ogv

Last edited by zester (2011-08-31 19:56:19)

Japanlinux · 2011-08-31 22:26:57

So are your changes easy to port over to KDE 4.8+? Or will this be a KDE 4.7 thing for a long time? I ask because the 4.x updates all seem to be bug fixes so you'd probably want those since they are good for stability.

Once you get this all finished, are you planning on making an unofficial repository so that people who are really wanting to try this out (me! ) can install it all fairly easily?

sbfreak · 2011-08-31 22:31:00

@zester Fully understood.Just one question.I looked at the video with the animated wallpaper and saw the way the Application button behaves.Will the black space hold launchable apps similar to the way Mac Os X's launchpad / Kde's TakeOff / Elementary's slingshot do ?

zester · 2011-09-01 10:16:11

sbfreak I am not familiar with that feature but I will look into it.

So I have .desktop file support mostly completed I just need to put in the error checking and fix an
issue with .desktop files requiring icons that are not part of the chosen desktop icon theme.
Have a look and you will see what I mean.

The desktop is pointed at the /usr/share/applications dir

Larger View

Still a lot more work to do but I am getting there.

Speed wise it is crazyyyyy fast all icons on the desktop load instantly
zero lag. And I haven't even optimized yet.

sbfreak · 2011-09-01 11:37:59

Well, it will basically look like that screenshot expect all apps will be in the dark area.

zester · 2011-09-01 11:51:31

sbfreak wrote:

Well, it will basically look like that screenshot expect all apps will be in the dark area.

Sooooo You want the applications in the sliding panel? And the whole thing slides down?
Yahh defantly I can do that

sbfreak · 2011-09-01 15:14:00

I was just asking because I didn't see a reason why the panel to slides down when clicking on Applications

Unia · 2011-09-01 16:24:39

zester wrote:

sbfreak wrote:
Well, it will basically look like that screenshot expect all apps will be in the dark area.
Sooooo You want the applications in the sliding panel? And the whole thing slides down?
Yahh defantly I can do that

That should be interesting! I'm following this project with great curiousity to see where it will end. I like the idea of a lightweight qt4 desktop

zester · 2011-09-02 16:35:32

I have added to new applications to my work load

Pacman Frontend

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Note: The $0.00 that you see in the top right hand corner
is for 7digital it's the services ubuntu uses for there Ubuntu One
music store, i will probably move that option to the multimedia
player.

A Image Viewer (Gwenview Clone)

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Note: It uses magick++ supports 100+ image formats
and 54+ visual effects, like the swirl effect you see in the
screenshot.

I need a c++ OAuth2 library so I can support all the differant
photo services like Gwenview does.

I also have experimental libgphoto support but I am not sure
if it works right because I dont have a digital camera that uses
libgphoto. Mine just mounts as a mass storage device. So
I will have to rely on others to tell me if it works right lol

I also fixed a bug with the Desktop. The desktop wallpaper
wasn't scaling properly. Its fixed now.

Last edited by zester (2011-09-02 16:51:44)

Japanlinux · 2011-09-02 19:50:09

I'm trying to figure out how that frontend is related to ubuntu... Is it a qt version of it's package manager program? Also, if those window decorations are still eggwm, you did a good job on them

zester · 2011-09-02 22:20:49

Japanlinux wrote:

I'm trying to figure out how that frontend is related to ubuntu... Is it a qt version of it's package manager program? Also, if those window decorations are still eggwm, you did a good job on them

lol No thats a frontend to pacman the arch linux package manager. And no the window decorations in the last two screenshots is kwin.

Last edited by zester (2011-09-03 01:20:11)

Japanlinux · 2011-09-03 21:14:01

I have a quick question for you. If you intend to use eggwm/razor-qt or any of these lightweight qt managers, would you still have the whole of kde installed? I ask because without kde, there is hardly any way to customize a qt theme. qtconfig has very few options.

diegoxter · 2011-09-03 22:06:06

zester wrote:

Just got done reading a post(rant) on phoronix about the "A Fork Of GNOME 2: The Mate Desktop", I just love it how people who
dont code love to tell everyone who does, what they should and shouldn't work on or that there wasting there time.
Speaking of here is my response to you diegoxter.
First your not my wife so you don't get to tell me what I should or shouldn't work on. Second
would you care to show us what great projects you've worked on?
Ive put my time in on both sides of the fence Gnome and KDE.

Ok ok, I'm sorry you misunderstood my comment, i guess i actually sound like an assh*le. Anyway, i was just concerned about the direction of this project, there are a lot of projects who dont do anything new to the code, just change the name and thats it *ejem* iron browser *ejem*...
This is looking good, and i'm looking forward to it (still waiting for the code to be released)...
Again, sorry for being a misjudging troll (and for my bad english too).

PD: Are you going to use eggwm as wm? Or are you planning to change some things to kwin?

ANOKNUSA · 2011-09-04 02:21:10

Japanlinux wrote:

I have a quick question for you. If you intend to use eggwm/razor-qt or any of these lightweight qt managers, would you still have the whole of kde installed? I ask because without kde, there is hardly any way to customize a qt theme. qtconfig has very few options.

I actually want to piggyback on this question, as I'm curious about what your intentions are: are you looking to actually strip the KDE lib dependencies from KDE apps, or is this primarily a Qt-based DE inspired by KDE? I ask because I love using several KDE apps, but don't like the fact that I need several KDE components (a salient one being Nepomuk/Strigi) installed, trying to run when I open Dolphin or Kate. It'd be fantastic to have Qt-only versions of those apps, but if that's not the direction you're heading in, so be it. :)

zester · 2011-09-04 03:39:09

diegoxter wrote:

zester wrote:
Just got done reading a post(rant) on phoronix about the "A Fork Of GNOME 2: The Mate Desktop", I just love it how people who
dont code love to tell everyone who does, what they should and shouldn't work on or that there wasting there time.
Speaking of here is my response to you diegoxter.
First your not my wife so you don't get to tell me what I should or shouldn't work on. Second
would you care to show us what great projects you've worked on?
Ive put my time in on both sides of the fence Gnome and KDE.
Ok ok, I'm sorry you misunderstood my comment, i guess i actually sound like an assh*le. Anyway, i was just concerned about the direction of this project, there are a lot of projects who dont do anything new to the code, just change the name and thats it *ejem* iron browser *ejem*...
This is looking good, and i'm looking forward to it (still waiting for the code to be released)...
Again, sorry for being a misjudging troll (and for my bad english too).
PD: Are you going to use eggwm as wm? Or are you planning to change some things to kwin?

Maybe this topic was misleading, and should have been called a KDE4 Partial Fork/Clone. There are certain
parts of KDE4 that I would like to keep and parts that have to be replaced or highly modified.

There is a lot to say on the topic of Qt5, Project Lighthouse & Wayland, KDE5 and how a perfect
storm of all hell is about to break loose. I dont want to make this post to long, but if you use or play any type
of application/game that uses or needs hardware acceleration graphics. Your not going to like what Qt5
has in store for you. Any hope of AAA games is dead. And the Nokia/Qt - KDE5 Devs are not only aware of this
but they don't care. Svg graphics are dead also. Unless that is you want your desktop in a web browser. I have to find
the links to the conversations me and some other developers had with Nokia/Qt devs prepair to get sick to your stomach.

I haven't released any code "yet" for a few reasons.

What applications I have already started are missing something that keeps the application from being usable at the moment.

A. Desktop
Completed:
1. Desktop Wallpapers
2. Desktop Icons Support FreeDesktop Spec Compliant
3. CSS Styling (Icon Selection Box, Text Color) Note: Might also work for styling the rubber-band selection but I haven't tested yet.
4. Left Click on Desktop Icons (Action)
5. Ability to make any directory show on Desktop
Not Completed
1. Spawning detached process from clicking on a desktop icon
2. Right Click menu
3. Full FreeDesktop Mimetype support
I need to subclass/re-implement QListWidget & QListWidgetItem for the above three to work.

Not sure what I am going to do about the Window Manager situation eggwm is missing a few basic features and seams to segfault on 64bit builds and kwin is a total cluster F%^&

ctarwater · 2011-09-04 04:27:40

I continue to get more and more excited about this the more you reveal...it's the little kick I've needed to start playing around with programming QT (slowly, since I have only a little python and html/css experience).

Regarding the desktop right click menu...is there any chance we could get a Root Menu similar to Openbox? It's one of the main reasons I've never been able to leave openbox for long.

zester · 2011-09-04 05:40:48

ctarwater wrote:

I continue to get more and more excited about this the more you reveal...it's the little kick I've needed to start playing around with programming QT (slowly, since I have only a little python and html/css experience).
Regarding the desktop right click menu...is there any chance we could get a Root Menu similar to Openbox? It's one of the main reasons I've never been able to leave openbox for long.

Absolutely a root desktop menu like openbox was on the todo list.

Here are some different options I have in mind.
1. Standard Desktop with Right Click Menu
2. Desktop that acts like a File Manager (So if you clicked on your Home dir icon the desktop would change to and display your Home dir)
3. A Right or Left Click Root Menu
4. A Desktop with no Icons just a wallpaper
5. A Desktop that was built around QtDeclarative/QML like (Plasma)
6. A 3D Desktop like (BumpTop)
7. A Mobile/Tablet like Desktop like (MeeGo Touch)
8. A Desktop that displays your Open Windows as Desktop Icons (xfce use to do it like this)
9. Animated Wallpapers and Icons and 2D Physics Effects/Partical Effects

Most if not all of these ideas I have already experimented with in one shape or another.

Python that's great! You can do alot with python I did this ...

Larger View
With PyQt4 and Panda3D.

Documentation, Tutorials, Example Code, Desktop, Game, .... Development
will be very big. I have even fixed & or written Qt4 (Ogre3D, Irrlicht, Horde3D, Panda3D, SFML)
widgets that will become part of the Qt4 fork I am doing.

I have plans for a libalpm Qt wrapper also, think ubuntu when you are trying to play
a media format you dont have a codec installed for.

As far as names go right now I am just calling it the Quantum Toolkit(Qt) which if I am not mistaken was the
original name planed for Qt like 15 years ago

But everyone keep the conversation/ideas/requests coming dialog is a good thing

Here is the github repo Note: There is no code there yet and the name's may change
if you have an idea for project names or web site theme/design or anything I am open to what
ever you have to offer. Wallpaper, Icons, System Sounds/Themes, Mouse Cursor Themes,
Fonts, UX or UI designs/concepts or maybe you know of a usefull Qt library that I might not
be aware of anything is game just post.

https://github.com/zester/Chipara
Web Site for now http://zester.github.com/Chipara/

Last edited by zester (2011-09-04 05:54:02)

zester · 2011-09-04 06:25:39

Japanlinux wrote:

I have a quick question for you. If you intend to use eggwm/razor-qt or any of these lightweight qt managers, would you still have the whole of kde installed? I ask because without kde, there is hardly any way to customize a qt theme. qtconfig has very few options.

Good question. An one that has plagued me right along with what to do about a Window Manager.

Well Qt does have an api for this and there is also Kdelibs. You wouldn't have to install any other
kde library other than kdelibs. Kdelibs should now have or soon to have a mobile build option that strips
out un-needed features.

I am thinking about using the QtCurve themes as a bases for a standard themeing
base/api.

And I know of two different css parsing librarys.

Hopefully we will be able to have a single application for customizing the look and feel
of Qt3?, Qt4, Gtk2, Gtk3 applications. And use the same Style but different Color scheme
for different apps.

Oxygen Style, Tango Green Color Scheme

Larger View

Note: Thats the Qt4 Irrlicht widget I was talking about earlier. It's loading an external qss stylesheet. That could be parsed
and modified with a css library.

Last edited by zester (2011-09-04 06:31:26)

syltman · 2011-09-04 13:31:27

Hey I've actually wanted something like this for quite some time so I was very happy when I saw this project. I will be following closely on this project and perhaps I'll be able to help out some as well however I only got a quite small experience with c++, java and ruby. I'll start toying around some with qt programming right now.

zester · 2011-09-05 21:50:44

ANOKNUSA wrote:

Japanlinux wrote:
I have a quick question for you. If you intend to use eggwm/razor-qt or any of these lightweight qt managers, would you still have the whole of kde installed? I ask because without kde, there is hardly any way to customize a qt theme. qtconfig has very few options.
I actually want to piggyback on this question, as I'm curious about what your intentions are: are you looking to actually strip the KDE lib dependencies from KDE apps, or is this primarily a Qt-based DE inspired by KDE? I ask because I love using several KDE apps, but don't like the fact that I need several KDE components (a salient one being Nepomuk/Strigi) installed, trying to run when I open Dolphin or Kate. It'd be fantastic to have Qt-only versions of those apps, but if that's not the direction you're heading in, so be it.

Sorry I missed your question

There are actually quiet a few really useful classes in Kdelibs that I would like to have and hopefully I can rip them out, as far as other Kde
application's it really depends on the application and if it's easier to port or to rewrite. Dolphin and Kate are both really nice applications and if I can free them of there Kde ways then great but if not they can always be cloned. The one thing I am not going to do
is be like Kde and have hundreds of services and process all starting up with the desktop. If a user want a desktop search services that should be something that they have to enable as a services and not something that is turned on by default. All Qt would be ideal but if we will probably have Kdelibs as an optional dep for those that need it. Kdelibs isn't that bad it doesn't have any other kde deps.

Japanlinux wrote:

So are your changes easy to port over to KDE 4.8+? Or will this be a KDE 4.7 thing for a long time? I ask because the 4.x updates all seem to be bug fixes so you'd probably want those since they are good for stability.
Once you get this all finished, are you planning on making an unofficial repository so that people who are really wanting to try this out (me! ) can install it all fairly easily?

We will be pulling in any updates that fix bugs, improve performance or add's a worthy feature for the remainder of Qt/Kde 4.x
We will be with the 4.x release for awhile.

Note: This isn't written in stone but more of my current state of mind.

-----------------

As far as progress of the desktop. It's 90% complete, I added right click desktop and desktop icon menu support.
Experimental directory and config file watching support. So if you say make a change to the desktops config file
the desktop will automatically update its self. Or if you install an application that installs a .desktop file to the desktop
then the desktop will update. Also file mime-type support is completed.

Whats not done is "Spawning detached process from clicking on a desktop icon" <-- the most important feature lol
this is because I need to build a preferred application, program so if you click on an image file or a html file or what ever it
will open the file with the correct program. And I need to also build the config gui so you can change the wallpaper with a
gui program instead of editing the config file for the desktop. And lol I need to connect the different right click menu action to
the correct functions.

In the next day or two I will upload the desktop to my github repo regardless if its completed or not, give you a little preview of where I am
at. The code base is very clean, minimal and commented. If you have any experience with Qt at all, the code will just make sense for those
that are learning Qt for the first time then the desktop will be a good project for you to use to learn how to build your own custom version.

The licenses is simple you can choose to use any licenses compatible with the GPL. (BSD, MIT, GPL, Apache, Public Domain, .....) doesn't matter.

Last edited by zester (2011-09-05 22:00:13)

z0id · 2011-09-06 07:11:42

Kde? Dolphin? I thought it was qtfm + eggwm + qtpanel + custom desktop integration. I suppose a stripped down Dolpghin wouldn't be bad. Anyway, looking forward to testing.

Teho · 2011-09-06 09:47:55

zester wrote:

There is a lot to say on the topic of Qt5, Project Lighthouse & Wayland, KDE5 and how a perfect
storm of all hell is about to break loose. I dont want to make this post to long, but if you use or play any type
of application/game that uses or needs hardware acceleration graphics. Your not going to like what Qt5
has in store for you. Any hope of AAA games is dead. And the Nokia/Qt - KDE5 Devs are not only aware of this
but they don't care.

Could you please explain how Qt5 is going to ruin all apps that need hardware accerlation?

zester wrote:

Svg graphics are dead also. Unless that is you want your desktop in a web browser. I have to find
the links to the conversations me and some other developers had with Nokia/Qt devs prepair to get sick to your stomach.

QtSvg is going to remain(?) in Qt5 so I don't see the problem here. Even if it were to be removed most likely KDE developers would adopt it or qtwebkit would have matured to the point where QtSvg is no longer needed.

Arch Linux

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