“As the second victim in the TinyMinds interview series we have picked the SlicKer project as our target. SlicKer aims to someday replace Kicker in KDE with its own more task-oriented approach. Today we talk to one of it’s developers; keyboard cowboy Shamyl Zakarika.” Read the interview here. Our Take: I worked with Shamyl back in the early BeUnited days, just right after Deej and myself founded it (the goals for BU were different back then), and Shamyl was one of the very few developers (a total of 130+) who actually delivered what he said he would. I have faith on Shamyl’s ability to deliver great apps.
Interview with Shamyl Zakariya on SlicKer Development
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It would’ve been nice if he told us unitiated folks what the kicker actually is. Even on the slicKer website it just says:
| A collection of utilities which provide alternative for
| our beloved kicker.
[shrug]
Kicker is the action bar (taskbar, menu etc) on KDE.
Thanks. Yup. I it that up at kde.org:
http://www.kde.org/documentation/userguide/index.html
There’s no index (!) but it was listed under kdebase applications as:
| Kicker
|
| The KDE panel, incorporating the taskbar, pager, clock
| and the K menu.
Whoops. That should read: “I looked it up at kde.org:”
The Kicker panel is described here btw:
http://www.kde.org/documentation/userguide/desktop-components.html
If they can make slicker look even half as good as the screenshots, provide all the functionality, and make it as lightweight as possible slicker will rock!
i think i should p00p on this wenie designer robotics buff for bustin up gtk+’s chops, people put a damn lot of hard work into that! I guess he may have redeemed himself alittle at the end tho
Kicker’s documentation with screenshots: http://docs.kde.org/en/3.1/kdebase/kicker/using-kicker.html
Well, like he says, I think that GNOME will be the first choice on the desktop, largely because of the influence of Redhat.
I will just have the article updated with the Kicker information, it never caught my attention that people might not know what Kicker was.
And thank you Eugenia for the insight into Shamyl not so shady past
…
Well, like he says, I think that GNOME will be the first choice on the desktop, largely because of the influence of Redhat.
Well, you got the “will” part right as KDE has considerably more “market share”
When specifically is everyone going to start switching to Gnome?
I was wondering, what happens when maximize windows on teh desktop? Which areas of the screen will be covered with the maximixed window? Like, in the current KDE and the Windows Explorer shell, when you maximize a window, the window streches itself up to the beginning of the task bar. What happens or would happen in Slicker?
Sorry for the typos but I am sure you can understand the text. I should have checked my spelling before I post my comment. I normally never check things up
hehe j/k 
This looks great! I can hardly wait to try it out. If they manage to put in all the stuff and features they talk about it will absolutely rock!!!
This guy is a frikkin’ UI genius – those “Kard” UI widgets are bril. With all due respect, I can’t wait until MSFT copies that feature into Windows.
“Mediocre artists ‘borrow’, great artists steal.”
– Picasso
Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but writing a PSD Translator is one afternoon’s worth of work. I wouldn’t base my confidence in someone’s ability to “deliver” on a project like that.
Cant you rewrite it then so it supports and keep the layers?
“If its only one afternoons worth of work”????
/Konrad
Well, it sure is were the format well documented. Sure, you can get a pdf describing it but try actually *doing* it. You’ll note when you go in with a hex editor that it’s not as well defined as you’d hope. For example, there are like 3 different string formats in the psd format, none of which are documented, and the docs won’t tell you where to expect which one.
Secondly, my api actually parsed quite a bit of the layer data. The translator just pulled out the merged image at the end.
So, what’s your problem, eh? I wrote the plugin and people liked it. Is that bad? Was it wrong of me to deliver a functioning translator?