6:30 AM

Dot 8

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
Or 4.8, is Out......

The reason I say dot 8 is that oxygen started with the 4.x series, so now with dot 8 its alive for 4.5 years, its not a juvenile anymore.

Looking back I must say that I'm incredibly happy with what we did over the years, I think its without a question a fantastic proof that OSS people can coordinate efforts in to creating huge pieces of coherent design made by many, for more.
And doing that with the single motivation of sharing the LOVE poured in to that work.

OXYGEN is a true work of LOVE.     

From the early days 6 years ago, when me Ken and David started with that ambitious crazy project of redoing all of the KDE icon set, (yeah we thought that was ambitious), when we were going to be sported to do that job by a popular Distro. To the moment the plug was removed from the project. Passing trough the days I thought the future was black (literally i made all the icons black :) ). And the days we thought  we could do a widget theme as well, and inviting Thomas L. to help, To the moment we Saw Oxygen explode into everything you see in KDE this days. There was a common element.... The LOVE, the love for a project, the love for a community, the immense fun it was to push the boundaries of what our users expect and appreciate in KDE from a design perspective.

I love working with people Like  Hugo, (must mention him for the superb amazing work he as done), were we can almost hallways complete each others sentences.
Must mention our Ruphy (ricardo) that was for a good part, oxygen soul.
Also can't forget Casper, that literally saved us when all seemed lost.
And Marco Martin, for being the amazing person he his.
Ooooo and  Martin Gräßlin and the kwin team he represents, you guys rocked the way we talk together.
And the other many many many many people that shared the love of/for Oxygen over the last years.
I know I'm being terribly unjust to not mention you, but you have my LOVE.
And Finally, the most important person of them all YOU, the user of Oxygen, the countless You's that moaned at a icon or a folder I did, that congratulated Hugo on his work, or that still use David's icons, You that LOVE/HATE Oxygen, to you my utmost, thank you.

Today.

Oxygen still as a long way to go.  KDE 5.0 is still a distant mirage and oxygen still needs a lot of work, I will keep making what I know best, Icons, I still have over 1000 to do, we now have this missing piece of the Oxygen experience being worked by Vernon, the Oxygen Font.
And we have new people joining in every day like Eshat that is doing all of the 4,8 specific branding Kudos for that.
And by the time the last 4,X comes out Oxygen will be I hope mostly finished... and also I hope dead...:)

And Tomorrow.

Please do not see it as a bad thing, its a good thing, its just part of evolution. And the reason I'm saying this is to start to stern the designers out there to Join oxygen NOW!!! to be part of its future, I can say its has been the most fun personal enrichment experience, of my life. I don't know what will be the future, nor do i think I should as YOU must  have a word in it, But I'm super exited about it.
Do you want it to be the good child of oxygen? using many of Oxygen's lines and elements, or the rebel kid that denies is father??? Its is up to you to be part of that amazing journey now!

The challenges Oxygen faced 6 years ago are vastly different from the scenario we have for KDE in the coming years... From a Desktop design paradigm we now have to face several scenarios, several gadgets we need to excel at, wile keeping the same design language, new design paradigms languages we need to keep up with, new generation of users with different expectations and desires.
Plasma helps allot by providing flexible desktop shells that adapt to several different user interaction paradigms, with QML components, porting desktop apps into more different from factors will become less problematic (but they do require massive redesign in most cases). Having a Font will help us a lot manage the increasing range of display DPI's, on the market.

But all of this needs to be fulfilled by a new project.. Oxygen is/was great, join in to be part of the Next great thing OSS does in design.....

Please tell-me if I'm wrong in my assumptions, is this a good bad idea?

9:04 AM

The California Gold Rush....

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
"brought a flood of treasure seekers...in 1848 " To San Francisco.... in 2011 people are still flooding to the valley in search of .... treasures....  or, well something like that :).
 (end of silly introductory text)

I'm not going to try to go against the wave, so I will be attending the  Qt Developer Days San Francisco were we will be giving a training on Designing UIs with Qt Quick I like to call this training Qml for designers as it is IMO the main focus of this training. This will be the second time I'm doing this training in just one day, First time was in devdays Munich just a few weeks ago.., and the feed back was good.
Given that I expect that just like in Munich most of the attendees are Developers, and that the full training is over 4 days, we will try to focus a bit on the social/management aspects of dealing with designers that try to do code, we will also do some examples of design techniques that can be used in QML to provide the users with better experiences... 
So if you are in the bay area, and have an interest in design and Qt Quick, stop by DevDays2011 to attend our One day training... 

Also for the full length of DevDays I will be doing a UX/UI clinic. So if you have an application that you feel could do a bit of UI review, if you have a new project and you are not sure how to start the UI/UX, If you just want to talk about new/old UI design paradigms, You area sure to meet me During DevDays2011 San Francisco... if you want to set up an appointment already send and email to ui-doctor@kdab.com We will see you there...




P.S. Designers do code 2 :D and I published my first application to the OVI store, it is for the most part the same app we used in the Desktop Summit to show the remaining time to the presenters, with a few adaptations/integration with harmattan components. (latest version is 0.2.0 not 0.01, should be up soon) 
Must find some time to create a version of this for Plasma.  

7:11 AM

Stop me please!

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This

In a couple of weeks, I will need to deliver yet another default wallpaper for KDE's 4.8-49 desktop editions.

So my brain wile starting to go in to “crazy” mode to try to find that specif edge, design pattern, blue, that will make me happy and hopefully our users happy as well... decided to have a look at what we have done over that 4.x series and, I saw a pattern alright.


The most common element in all of them is.... some guy named Nuno...

This must stop NOW!!.... Please help-me....but how??

So I had this idea.... what if some one else can create something better???

We are starting a contest to be ended 4 of December to create a new default wallpaper for 4.8-4.9.

The rules.....

Send it to nuno@oxygen-icons.org subject wallpaper2011 (please use this)
The license for the chosen ones will be LGPL In case they are not selected, they will remain sole property of its creator (I will not publish them).
Minimum size is 1920x1200Bonus points for creating other screen ratios.
Photos are accepted.
Must have a defining element that can be used in kde branding (very important)
Jury, composed by me, Lydia Pintscher, and Ingo Malchow.

Prize..... Having your work used by millions (or close to that :) ). Not having yet another Nuno's wallpaper in your desktop.

Results will be visible in next KDE release, winners will be informed as soon as we know :)

We will chose up to 3 wallpapers only one will be default.

Some side notes..... KDE core branding values, revolve around Elegance, Freedom, and ease of use, we would love to see that in the default wallpaper.

Have fun :)

1:36 PM

1996!

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
Lets keep it short and to the point!

If we managed to to do all of this in 15 imagine what we can in 15 more?


4:43 PM

Back from the Future!

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
So I'm back from the desktop summit, were like usual I had good fun meeting up with all my old and new friends.
Had the chance to give a talk about QML, and how I think it can be a major "game changer" for the way we work together and how Designers can be part of the processes and not some one you ask for "this is my app its great, now make it pretty".
Also noted that QML olds lots of dangers, and its not trivial at all to create final polished integrated applications, aka takes more than a decent designer to make it work, ( I repeat coders are designers 2).

Apparently (I have been told) I talk to much and should show more demos :) next year I promise I will tray not to talk ;), (evil idea in the making)

Any way the videos of the talks should be up soon so :)

Also participated in a couple of Bof's about some new exiting stuff Björn Blazazs is hading to his great platform and another called UI clinic were me Björn and Aurelian served as general practitioners to several patients (apps) was really allot of fun for me, I focused on zanshin and scroge and I hope my aspirin tablets caused more good than bad ;), any way I hope we can do it again for future meetings and do it for more hours.

Now I need a random picture of an icon to finish tis post..... hummmm.
Yeap one of the demos was of K3B (3B stands for burn baby burn) fast links screen done in QML

1:48 PM

Desktop Sumit or paper planes

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
In a couple of hours I will be entering a slightly modified version of the example up above in direction to Not so Sunny Berlin, Hoping I will meet some old friends and recent friends, and make quite a few more along the way.

I will be giving a talk about a very Hot topic also involving paper planes.. QtQuick and its language QML, how I feel about it and how i think its a great thing but also a terrible one, if in the wrong hands.


O BTW have you noticed that 4.7 is out of the door including some new folder icons ??? :) more interested to know if you hate them I'm interested in all the people that after a period of disliking them now think they are better than the old ones.

4:46 PM

Icon fun....

posted under by Pinheiro | Edit This
After mostly finishing the great folder redo in oxygen, and wile trying to achieve an effect in QML (trying to do a shutter like open/close animated effect), I ended up with a to fancy svg to let it rot on my hard drive, so, and if you have the shutter part done you can do the remaining bits, and that gives you.....
A icon, tadaaaaa! instant Fun :D.... or should I say instant DSLR fun :)...

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