The Ultimate Guide to Plasma Development

Introduction

App, Plasmoid, or both?

- app vs plasmoid

Software Stack

- QML / QtQuick: ui primitives, app logic, rendering, states
- imports
- Plasma libs
- underlying frameworks
- runtime environment
- kpackage

Requirements Analysis & Design=

Getting Started

Developing a Plasmoid

Creating the empty package

filesystem structure

metadata.desktop

- system integration (systray, alternatives, mimetypes, arguments, formfactors)

Choosing a Category

The following are acceptable known entries for plasmoids and applets. If your applet does not fall within one of the following categories, leave the category field empty (it will be automatically categorized under "Miscellaneous" for the time being) and contact the Plasma development team to have a suitable category added to the list (at which point you may then use that category).

Accessibility tools that help those with special needs or disabilities use their computer
Application Launchers application starters and file openers.
Astronomy anything to do with the night sky or other celestial bodies.
Date and Time clocks, calendars, scheduling, etc
Development Tools tools and utilities to aid software developers
Education teaching and educational aides
Environment and Weather add-ons that display information regarding the weather or other environmentally related data
Examples samples that are not meant for production systems
File System anything that operates on files or the file system as it's primary purpose, such as file watchers or directory listings. Simply using a file as storage does not qualify the add-on for this category.
Fun and Games for games and amusements
Graphics for add-ons where displaying images, photos or graphical eye candy is the primary purpose
Language add-ons whose primary purpose is language related, such as dictionaries and translators.
Mapping geography and geographic data add-ons
Multimedia music and video.
Online Services add-ons that provide an interface to online services such as social networking or blogging sites. If there is another more appropriate category for the add-on given the topic (e.g. mapping if the applet's purpose is to show maps), even if the data is retrieved from the Internet prefer that other category over this one.
System Information display and interaction with information about the computer such as network activity, hardware health, memory usage, etc
Utilities Useful tools like calculators
Windows and Tasks managers for application windows and/or tasks, such as taskbars

installation

- cmake
- plasmapkg2

Starting the Code

main.qml stuffz

- Layouts
- plasmoid object
- fullRepresentation vs. popup

Plasma API

+ links to API documentation!
- PlasmaCore
- PlasmaComponents
- PlasmaExtras
- kdeclarative's useful stuff: kcmOpen? more useful imports

- general guidelines: units, iconSizes,

Development Environment Setup

Tools

- editor
- commandline
- plasmapkg2
- plasmoidviewer
- plasmathemething
- cuttlefish
-

Display and Rendering

- theming
- image display
- dpi
- ColorScope
- Wayland vs. X11

Supporting Multiple Devices

- touch friendliness
- layout considerations
- formfactor support (X-KDE-FormFactors)
- touch-specific overrides

Workspace Integration

- system tray
- plasmoid status
- dbus autoload

Translations

- i18n() & friends
- making sure i18n is set up & how to x-test

Distribution

- plasmoid package
- appstream metadata
- kdeapps online installation
- distros
- upstreaming code