Plasma Active One – Linux Tablet-friendly

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Plasma Active One is the new tablet-friendly UI for Linux’s Kappa Desktop Environment(KDE). It offers a custom user interface, and runs on a number of different ‘flavours’ of the Linux OS. Test versions of KDE are available for anyone interested to find how the other half live (actually approximately 8% of PC users use Linux-based operating systems, but Google’s Android OS is Linux-based).

In place of the normal app launcher with its range of app shortcuts, Plasma Active One’s homescreen shows a range of widgets or windows which can be populated with either browser bookmarks or application shortcuts, or interactive widgets such as weather forecasts or social network clients. It’s all a bit like a cross between a Windows Desktop and Google’s Chrome browser’s homescreen. Except with touch functionality.

Swipe a finger across the display and a list of other ‘activities’ pops up, allowing you to switch between multiple desktops or to access files from deeper in your system. The codename for Plasma Active One is ‘Activities’ because switching from desktop to desktop should make organizing or jumping between various projects simple. So you can have your home cookery project, with bookmarks, calorie counts and your favorite recipes, and another one for a photo montage you’re building for mum, or a complete ‘activity’ dedicated to social networking with all your friends’ pics and messages.

Linux being Linux, everything is tightly integrated to give the user total control – so there’s an Activity Bar, which presents a row of icons of currently-running apps, which you can use to control your system.

Other people will just use this system to give their Linux PC a touch-sensitive interface, in the same way as the HP Touchpad has been modified to act as a PC remote control – from across the room or across the Internet.
Very clever.

Here is a Plasma Active One intro video:

Source

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1. Tizen Mobile OS