Update: Please see this forum thread for details.

What is “Desktop 2.0?”

“Desktop 2.0″ is to the operating system what Web 2.0 is to the Internet. The following are the key elements of Desktop 2.0 (unless you’re new to Linux, you may want to skip a large part of the following explanation and go directly to here):

• Mini programs that provide instant access to information. (E.g. Mac OS X Widgets, Vista Gadgets, Awn Applets, Screenlets, etc.)
• Instant access to information via “all in one” search applications. (E.g. Spotlight, Deskbar, Affinity, and Vista Instant Search)
• Web Desktops that try to close the gap between the Internet and the Desktop. In other words, applications that let you access online services (e.g. Facebook and email) without opening a browser. (E.g. The GNOME Online Desktop.)
• New “desktop shells” that have new designs and focus on ease of use. The term “desktop shell,” is explained here as: “The shell is what users interact with on their computer, and includes everything from how buttons look and window animations to where menus appear and how you browse through files on your hard drive.” The explanation is talking about Windows and things are slightly more complicated on Linux. Nevertheless, the explanation is good enough for out purposes. (Examples of new desktop shells are Gimmie, Awn, Plasma, and Cairo Shell)
• Design matters! All across the board, we’re seeing a new focus on aesthetics, design, and eyecandy.

Note that many of the above elements often overlap

The following are the GNOME Desktop 2.0 apps that show the most potential:

• Awn- Awn started out as a dock and rapidly developed until it had went far beyond its original goals. It is becoming a full desktop shell and its main feature (from a Desktop 2.0 standpoint) are Awn Applets. Awn Applets are mini programs that often connect the user to the web (for example, the Gmail, Digg, and Last.fm applets) and add on innovative ways of interacting with the desktop (for example, the Stacks applet).
• Gimmie- Gimmie is a unique desktop organizer for Linux. It’s designed to allow easy interaction with all the applications, contacts, documents and other things you use every day. (The above was taken from the Gimmie website.)
• Screenlets- Screenlets are small applications (written in Python) that can be described as “the virtual representation of things lying/standing around on your desk.” (E.g. Sticknotes, clocks, rulers, etc.) The goal of Screenlets is to simplify the creation of fully themeable mini-apps that each solve basic desktop-work-related needs and generally improve the usability and eye-candy of the modern Linux desktop.
• The Online Desktop- The goal of the GNOME Online Desktop is to adapt the desktop to become the perfect window for online applications like GMail, Photobucket, Facebook, EBay, and Wikipedia.
• Deskbar- Deskbar is a search bar for GNOME. It supports plugins (called handlers) that allow you to instantly search for anything including emails, local files on your computer, and webpages all with one click of the mouse.

The Problem

Due to Linux’s open nature, code should be easily reusable and developers should be able to work together and build on each others work. Unfortunately, that’s not at all what’s happening.

• The GNOME community is strongly against anything that can be thought of as “GNOME 3.0.” The GNOME philosophy is that slow gradual improvement is better than major change. In general, that’s fine. However, it has lead to a situation where there is no long term roadmap for a GNOME 3.0 and there are multiple GNOME Desktop 2.0 apps that are being developed independent of GNOME. There needs to be a common vision, goal, and plan.
• Most of the Desktop 2.0 apps that are being developed for GNOME share common goals and overlap in functionality. The communication between the different projects is virtually nonexistent.
• Many Awn Applets, Screenlets, Online Desktop “stocks”, and Deskbar search plugins do the exact same thing. There’s lots of duplicate code out there, and multiple developers are working on almost the exact same things without any collaboration. For example, there’s a Gmail Applet for Awn, a Gmail screenlet, a Gmail “stock” for the Online Desktop (I’m “guilty” of coding that one), and a Gmail search plugin for Deskbar. They all share common code and it’s extremely inefficient from a technical and practical point of view.

A Possible Solution

• There must be a universal applet format. Applets, Screenlets, and “Stocks” all do the exact same thing. Online Desktop Stocks support searche queries and many of them overlap with Deskbar plugins. (E.g. both of them have a plugin/stock to search for files.) There needs to be one applet format that can be loaded by or plugged into any of the aforementioned applications.
• It’s not enough to use the same format. There should also be a Global Applets/Services Server. The server should handle everything related to the applets (e.g. loading them, reading/writing preferences, etc.) except for actually drawing them on the screen. The drawing and positioning on the screen can be handled by apps like Awn and Screenlets.
• Applets should even be able to run without actually being drawn on the screen.
• Example: A Gmail applet should be able to run as a normal Screenlet, an Awn Applet, and a “Service.” If it is run as a “service”, it shouldn’t be displayed on the screen. (In that case, it would notify the user of new emails soley via DBUS and Gnome-Notifications.)
• The Deskbar should be able to query all currently running applets for information. For example, it should be able to connect to the already running Gmail service or applet and request all emails with the topic “This is a search.”

The logical place to begin coding a Applets Server would be Screenlets. It may make the most sense to split Screenlets (assuming the developers agree, of course) into a core server (like the one mentioned above) and a seperate application that actually draws the Applets/Screenlets on the screen. (I’ll write more about this in a later post, so sorry if it doesn’t make any sense now. The point of this post is to explain the why and not the how.)

Other Conclusions

The Online Desktop, Awn Applets, Screenlets, Gimmie, and Deskbar often overlap. There needs to be more reuse and sharing of code. Universal Applets is only a start.

This article focused only on the GNOME desktop. A comparison to how KDE does things would be interesting. In doing research for this post I ran into KDE Plasmoids. I haven’t tried them yet, but they seem to be a KDE equivalent