Join the elementary crew in #elementary on freenode to chat about the future of elementary! And talk about UDS!
Nautilus discussion is taking place May 12, 2010 10AM Bruxelles time. And there is a possibility that elementary Nautilus will be part of Ubuntu, to find out more join us at freenode! Which is available online: http://webchat.freenode.net/
Along with Nautilus Seif, Ryan (author of Gwibber), and Dan Rabbit are working on AppCenter elementary’s version of the Ubuntu’s Software Center.
The elementary GTK has received some updates!
The big changes in the new GTK are the new Metacity theme. Totem has received some customizations including some sexy new monchromes.
It also uses some of the new stuff from the latest murrine so panel text gets an etched look.
Download the latest update from PPA: https://launchpad.net/~elementaryart/+archive/elementarydesktop
The sleek and awesome designs that are a part of elementary (no bias on our part of course!) continues to inspire the work of others. More recently in a Metacity theme called eHomosapien. Download the theme and see it in all it’s glory from Deviantart.
We think it’s great so many are inspired by elementary! And remember feel free to share any ideas you may have that could make elementary better on our forums.
This should be the first of many posts made by me. I’m Brian and I’m a new member of the elementary team! I hope to further document and blog about the future and current status of the elementary project. Expect the blog to contain much more frequent news and updates! And please feel free to comment and give us your feedback!
Banshee manages your music!
What does the elementary team mean when we say that we want an Operating System to “just do.” We mean that we want to be the first to offer a desktop OS that doesn’t include any way for the user to manage files. That means no file management and no browsing files, at least not in the traditional sense and not through a file browser. How do you get to your files? We think that files should be accessed from the applications that the user will use them in. Think of how Banshee manages music and the way F-Spot manages your photos. We think that the user shouldn’t browse their files…. but instead use them. Let the applications manage your files for you.
F-Spot manages your photos!
What are our short term goals when it comes to eliminating the necessity for managing files? Well first to make sure that Banshee and F-Spot properly take care of their respecitve libraries by default. When it comes to the short term we also will make sure that the file browser will be just that, not file management, but file browsing. Another thing we can do right now is to enable the Zeitgeist plugin by default in Docky, this gives users easy access to their files through the application that are organized by date, time and even category. Again let the application manage your files and leave you to enjoying the files whatever they may be.
Zeigeist manages the files for you!
Over the long term our goals are to use additional technologies that make file management irrelevant. Of course all of this doesn’t mean that we will leave power users out in the cold. One of the things found in the current builds of elementary OS is that power user tools like gconf-editor and alacarte are hidden, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be accessed. We’ll probably not leave you with no way to manage files, but it won’t be something that will be entirely exposed to the default user. While our default behavior will branch off from the user managing files to using them we will still ship a file browser, you can use it all you want. And linux is still linux. You can remove Docky, change the theme, uninstall all the applications and make it just go to terminal if you want. We don’t want to restrict the freedom. We just want our users to not have to manage or browse for their files, which in itself is a freedom all it’s own.
Here’s something you wouldn’t expect: The new SmartQ 7 right out of China runs a Linux OS that features elementary icons.
Here’s a quick shot of the desktop:
Look at those icons!
And here’s a video of it being unboxed:
The good stuff starts about 6 minutes into the video. That’s some pretty exciting stuff. It just goes to show you that elementary really is something to be impressed with!