KDE 4’s Plasma cannot only handle it’s own native widgets, but also foreign ones. The Plasma developers have shown that it is technically possible to load Google Gadgets natively within Plasma.
Plasma is KDE 4’s way to handle widgets – not only embedded on the desktop/wallpaper (like Superkaramba did within KDE 3), but also in panels and even in other plasma enabled applications like the coming Amarok. So Plasma widgets can be extremely useful and handy. And since the Plasma team didn’t want to exclude developers, the widgets can be written in C++, javascript and ruby (yet).
Plasma can not only use native widgets, but also Superkaramba plugins and Mac OS X dashboard widgets. Additionally, with the integration of WebKit into Plasma, HTML/CSS/JavaScript constructs can also be loaded as kind of a plugin.
Now this list was extended by a new set of widgets: the Google Gadgets. The following screenshot shows that Google Gadgets can be run on Plasma:
As the title says, this is a proof of concept right now: it shows that it can be done. Nothing less, but also nothing more. The next task is now to integrate it with the GUI and for example to fetch new Gadgets right from the Google page. Currently it looks like this is a candidate (nothing written in stone yet of course) for KDE 4.2. Maybe the technical capability will be available with KDE 4.1 already so that experienced – and brave – users can give it a first try.
In any way this proof of concept shows again that Plasma can host all kinds of things – so even if new things turn up in the future Plasma might be able to host them. Technically that shows that Plasma is ready for future developments for example in case a new competitor turns up in the widget area. From a user point of view this brings a large range of widgets to the users.
From an administrator/security point of view the fact that Plasma is the host makes it easier to keep an eye on the widgets: Plasma is part of KDE, and therefore it can be configured – and stripped down if necessary – with the help of Kiosk. So administrators can simply disable certain for example Google widgets for security reasons with a simple commando at runtime, just like they can do it every where else in KDE.
Thanks to the Plasma developers for providing me with the necessary infos and image. And thanks the guys at Google for doing much of this integration work! Some infos are also available at google groups.
