What a flockin' discovery!

Flock is a nice browser. This is my first post using the blog editor built into the Flock web browser. Flock nicely integrates many services that I already used and makes it dead easy to use other services. I know Firefox can accomplish the same things with addon extensions, but my lazy self never got around to downloading any. But with one click of a button, I have a single interface to Flickr, Blogger, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and more. Simple. Nice. I like it.

technorati tags:flock

Blogged with Flock

Latest Screenshot

The corner applets have been combined into 2 'bars'. The top is called the DesktopBar. The far left icon brings up a menu that provides basic functions like Run Command, Lock Session, and Log Out. A wrote a pager that resides in the middle. The far left icon shows the desktop, providing quick access to the Manager, Sidebar, or any other Kuartet applets. The Taskbar and System Tray reside at the bottom. Clicking those icons show/hide the taskbar/systray.

I got around to writing a few more plugins for the Sidebar. These can be removed by editing a text file, but I'll eventually get around to making a config dialog similar to the ones I wrote for configuring the Manager.

I'm going to release 0.4 today, though its not 100% complete. I still have a few things to do, however it's 98% complete and is at a more usuable state than any of my past releases. I'll post the link to the download as soon as I get it packaged and uploaded to Sourceforge.

It's starting to come together...

Like what you see?

The Kuartet Desktop project is really coming together. I've gotten the Manager applet to a decent point and have started work on the corner applets. The corner applets were originally planned for all along, however haven't become a priority until now.
The three applets in the screenshot are the taskbar applet in the bottom left, the system tray in the bottom right, and the new Utility Sidebar in the top right. The fourth corner applet will be in the top left, and will feature a simple menu that lets you open the manager, show the desktop, and log off or lock the computer. It has yet to be written, as it is the easisest of the bunch. However it will be included in the next release as well. All of these applets can be collapsed by clicking the icons. This leaves a very uncluttered, clean desktop with only four icons in the corners. Very appealing (at least to me :) )

You might be wondering 'What is this Utility Sidebar?'. Well, basically instead of writing separate applets that float on the desktop (this can/will still be done, though), a developer can use the same libraries to write an applet that docks into the Sidebar. So far, I've only included the Clock from AeroAIO, but I plan on including a QuickLaunch applet that provides quick access to favorite applications, a system monitor, and also a trash applet. I plan on incorporating Drag n Drop controls so that adding to the Sidebar is quick and simple.

Well, I have to run off to work, but in case anybody was wondering, this is what's new with Kuartet. Hopefully there will be a release by the end of the week, but that is very optimistic. Probably next Friday will be designated as the release date.

new manager screenshot

Here's a screenshot of what the new Kuartet Manager will look like. I'll post more details, but I have to go to work (yeah, 7-11:30 shift sucks).

Some new themes...

Working under the hood...

Here's a new screenshot featuring a new theme for my upcoming 0.4.0 release. Why the jump from 0.3.1 to 0.4.0 instead of 0.3.2? Well a lot of work has been put into kuartetlib to make it easier for third-party applet development. I'm trying to make 0.4.0 to be the first release of production-level.

I haven't worked on the Manager yet, however you can see a very useful applet in the top right corner. It's called Search-N-Run, and the name basically sums it up. You can easily run or search various web sites right from your desktop. Simple.

New Screenshot

After the 0.3.0 release, i spent most of my free time messing around with the Kubuntu Dapper Flight 4 live cd. After two days of trial and error (and a few wasted CDs) I was finally able to get Kuartet to load on boot.
After that triumphant moment, I debated whether or not I wanted to pursue a release of the Gomerix live cd, or if I should work on Kuartet. I decided to add some more features to Kuartet before releasing a live cd. It only took a day for me to come up with something nice...















This release sees the return of the panels of version 0.2.x. I realized that apps, places, websits, and documents are all somewhat related and should be grouped together. Also, I've ported a couple Aero AIO plugins over to kuartetlib. A few more applets are in the works, like a 'Communicate' applet that monitors email accounts, RSS newsfeads, and instant messanger (kopete and eventually gaim) notifier.
Most of my work will go into kuartetlib and the Manager applet, which is going to be the flagship Kuartet application. I need to add a filter function so that everything is searchable. With the release of a KDE interface for beagle, I'll spend some time getting that to work on my system so that I can add an interface to that as well. If I can make more progress on kuartetlib, I should be able to recruit some talent and thus speed up Kuartet development.

0.3.0 finally released

New Release of Kuartet. Grab it at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kuartetdesktop/kuartet-0.3.0.tar.gz