A dozen cool plasmoids for your KDE desktop

A new development environment spurs new applications
Lancelot is a plasmoid application launcher menu for KDE 4 designed to provide a place from which all jobs begin

Lancelot is a plasmoid application launcher menu for KDE 4 designed to provide a place from which all jobs begin

  • Lancelot is a plasmoid application launcher menu for KDE 4 designed to provide a place from which all jobs begin
  • The PeacyDock plasmoid is a rewrite of PrettyTasks that aims to bring complete OS X dock-like functionality to the KDE desktop.
  • QuickAccess is a simple plasmoid designed for the KDE panel to allow quick access to popular folders.
  • The Email Notify plasmoid checks any type of pop3 or IMAP server for new e-mail messages.
  • Amarok now has its own KDE plasmoid - Plasma-am3rok
  • The Oxygen System Monitor is an improved system monitoring plasmoid
  • The Stockoid plasmoid lets you display stock prices on your KDE 4.1 desktop
  • Drop a folder onto the Picture Frame plasmoid to start a slideshow of the images in the folder
  • KDE has a Twitter plasmoid you can use to follow people’s microblogs
  • The KDE plasmoid lets you monitor your downloads right on the desktop
  • Use the Color Picker plasmoid to get the colour value of any colour on your desktop
  • The Panel Spacer plasmoid allows you to put some blank space between the other applets located in a KDE panel
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Okay, before I begin writing about plasmoids, we have to get one thing straight – what on Earth is a plasmoid? A plasmoid is an applet developed with KDE’s new Plasma application development environment. More information about Plasma can be found at its Web site.

When I interviewed Plasma’s chief architect Aaron J Seigo earlier this year, he told me one of the goals of Plasma was to make it easier to develop applications for KDE. Plasmoids are the embodiment of that goal and can be written in C++ or a scripting language like JavaScript and then easily shared among other KDE users.

So let’s take a look at what people have been cooking up with Plasma – the results are quite surprising and many are already shipping with the standard KDE 4.1 desktop.

Lancelot

As a plasmoid Lancelot must take the cake for the biggest so far. According to its sole developer Ivan Cukic, Lancelot is an application launcher menu for KDE 4 designed to provide a place from which all jobs begin. It provides quick access to applications, places, documents, contacts and system information. Lancelot features a no-click interface, integrated search and drag-and-drop to the desktop.

Color Picker

This plasmoid needs no introduction, if you’re doing HTML or graphics, use it to get the colour value of any colour on your desktop.

Panel Spacer

The Panel Spacer plasmoid allows you to put some blank space between the other applets located in a panel. You can set a minimum fixed size and/or allow the spacer to stretch if there is free space to the right. A line separator is optional. Panel Spacer is good for grouping icons on the panel.

KGet

KGet is a download manager for KDE, and the plasmoid lets you monitor your downloads right on the desktop. This plasmoid can show a bar chart, a pie chart and a speed graph.

PeachyDock

PeacyDock is a rewrite of PrettyTasks that aims to bring complete OS X dock-like functionality to the KDE desktop. It has an applet (PeachyApplet) and a containment (PeachyDock) and is now being developed in the KDE SVN-repository. It almost seemed inevitable that someone would try their hand at cloning Mac OS X’s dock in Plasma.

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Comments

1

andreww

Mon 29/09/2008 - 14:41

Plasmoids

These look neat, especially the 'Color Picker'. There are similar applications called screentlets for those who use Gnome.

2

Rodney Gedda

Tue 30/09/2008 - 16:11

Plasmoid tutorial

There is a guide to plasmoid development on KDE's TechBase:

[[xref:http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/GettingStarted|http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/GettingStarted]]

3

Anonymous

Tue 06/10/2009 - 19:30

where do u get the twitter plasmoid

4

Cycle Heart

Fri 11/05/2012 - 20:14

Your way of describing everything in this piece of writing is genuinely
nice, all can without difficulty be aware of it, Thanks a
lot.

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