KDE 4.9 to Get a New Widgets Explorer

As you might have heard, KDE is, more or less, getting a whole new rewrite again. Some folks may read (or write) that with dread given how the last rewrite went for users there for a while. However, perhaps we should take a look at some of the good things instead. One that's come to light recently is a brand new widgets explorer.

Marco Martin (a.k.a. notmart), KDE Plasma developer, recently shared some images of the upcoming 4.9 Widgets explorer. You know, it's that thing that pops up when you click the Acorn and then Add Widgets. Martin says that the old one looked "crowded and dirty, because elements were too cramped together, not very well aligned and sizes were quite eterogeneous. Now we paid a lot of attention about the sizes and positioning of the elements, as shown below, everything is positioned along a quite precise grid, that makes the view look less crowded that it actually is."

Martin continues by saying "for each release of the KDE Plasma Desktop having some element not only rewritten, but its UI becoming significantly more elegant with few but important improvements in the look or in the behaviour."

This is attributed to being written in QML. Martin says that's what giving the newer versions a much smoother look and feel. He also said that QML makes it easier for those who would like to start contributing to do so. It also "makes it easier to maintain, easier to spot possible problems, easier to modify and experiment new ideas." 1000 line of code in QML has replaced 4000 lines in C++.

Visit Martin's post for a bit more detail. He has also posted some handy links to QML documentation for those who might want to learn.