Tour of GNOME Online Desktop
by Havoc Pennington
Here’s a tour of the pre-alpha demo release of GNOME Online Desktop included in Fedora 8. Learn more about what it does and how you can get involved in the project.
What is it?
GNOME Online Desktop is an alternate “mode” or flavor of the GNOME desktop. We’re experimenting with a few different things here.
1. The overall concept of tightly integrating the web into the desktop, as described at live.gnome.org/OnlineDesktop/Vision.
2. Specific user interface ideas, such as a desktop sidebar called BigBoard.
3. A set of platform components that support web integration–these can be used with any application or UI, including the more traditional GNOME desktop flavor.
The platform components are hard to see in the screenshots, of course. But this tour shows off some of the user interface ideas.
Trying it out
Install the packages “online-desktop,” “mugshot,” and “bigboard.” This should mean there’s a session for Online Desktop available from the login screen (gdm). An easy way to try things out is to add the User Switch applet to your panel and create a new user account. Then use the User Switch applet to switch to your new user, and choose the Online Desktop session on the login screen.
Once you log in, you’ll have to create an account on online.gnome.org and sign in to that account. When your browser is logged in to online.gnome.org, the rest of the desktop will use the browser cookie to authenticate as well.
If at any point the sidebar seems seriously confused, don’t be afraid to press Alt+F2 and run bigboard --replace to restart it.
Overview
This screenshot shows a typical desktop just after login. Moving counterclockwise:
- Sidebar with search box, file list, applications, people, calendar, photos
- Applet with a show/hide sidebar button, and mini-launcher icons to start apps without opening the sidebar
- Mugshot Stacker application in the tray
- Firefox, with the new Fedora start page
More detail follows.
“Self” Area (top of sidebar)
At the top of the sidebar, you’ll see your own photo (avatar) and name. The idea is to show who’s logged in, which is handy if you use user switching. Clicking on this area opens a little menu with options to open the control center, log out, etc.
The small Flickr, Picasa, and LinkedIn icons underneath my picture are quick links to go to my page on those sites.
Search
The search box on the sidebar shows results from each of the widgets on the sidebar. In this shot, you can see file results from the Files widget, application results from Applications, people from People, and so forth.
The search box can be used to run applications, open someone’s profile page, or open a file.
Files
The Files widget shows your local recent files in the same way the regular GNOME panel does, but it merges in any documents you’re working on using a web service. Right now, it only supports Google Documents. I use Google Documents for most of my word processing, but I also have PDFs and similar files on my local system. The Files widget combines all these documents into one searchable list.
If you click “More” on the Files widget, a detailed window opens to search through your recent files.
Application Launching, Discovery, and Installation
Application launching and simple desktop-oriented “package management” are integrated into a single design.
If you want to launch one of your commonly-used apps, just click.
If this is your first time logging in–perhaps because you’re using a USB key or live CD distribution–the apps you usually use might not be installed. But since this is the online desktop, it knows which apps you usually use anyway. Say, for example, you forgot to install Nibbles:
Just click, and it will install the missing program.
If you want to search through all apps (including those not yet installed), open the app browser.
You can also browse online.gnome.org/applications.
You might notice that the app browser makes suggestions. For example, it tells you about the new Gourmet Recipe Manager in this screenshot. This is not an application you have installed; it’s an application from the online.gnome.org/applications database that other people have been using.
In the future, we’d like to extend online.gnome.org/applications to support star ratings, user comments, and so forth. For now it ranks apps purely based on how often they’re used.
(Technical details: If you enable application tracking, the online desktop looks at the currently-focused window to decide what you’re using. It will count each application only once per day. It does not send any information about your windows or window titles to the server. It identifies the app on the client side and sends the name of the package you used to the server to be counted.)
People
The People widget should become a lot more elaborate over time. It’s very simple right now, just a quick way to go to someone’s homepages on the sites they use (photo sites, blogs, etc.)
The idea is that this will become a “supercharged” IM buddy list showing presence on multiple IM networks, activity on multiple sites, what music people have playing, and so forth. Much of the infrastructure and information is already on the server (and shows up in the Mugshot Stacker application), but the People widget user interface hasn’t been completed. Showing everyone’s current music track is one of my favorite features.
If you click More on the People widget, there’s a people browser window that opens up. This lets you see everyone you know, rather than the few people who fit on the sidebar.
One future direction would be to integrate the People widget with file management and other sharing-your-stuff scenarios, so you can drag a file onto someone’s picture to offer it to them, or open a remote desktop session to help them debug a problem.
Calendar
The calendar widget is pretty self-explanatory. Right now it only supports Google Calendar, but the idea would be to support whatever people use.
One problem with web-based calendars is that they can’t use the desktop APIs to give you a notification when events are coming up, so the online desktop includes a notifier that watches your Google Calendar events.
A great thing about a web-based calendar program is that you can access it from any computer and even your cell phone.
There’s no widget for email yet, but Bryan Clark has design mockups at live.gnome.org showing the concept.
In the meantime, we have already implemented mail notification bubbles for Google Mail.
Minimized Sidebar Mode
It can be annoying to keep a sidebar open all the time, especially if you don’t have a widescreen monitor.
The applet in the bottom-left corner of the screen supports using the sidebar in “Minimized” mode. You can enable this mode from Sidebar Preferences by clicking on your picture at the top of the sidebar. In Minimized mode, the sidebar is normally hidden but pops out when you press the Windows key or when you click the panel applet.
The panel applet also includes the same application launchers shown in the Applications widget on the sidebar. This lets you quickly launch apps without opening the sidebar.
Preferences Sync – Behind the Scenes
There’s a small daemon called online-prefs-sync-daemon, which uses whitelists kept in /usr/share/online-prefs-sync/ to store certain gconf settings on the online.gnome.org server. These settings should be instantly applied across any computers running the online desktop. So changing something like your desktop background would change it on all systems.
Lots of fine-tuning remains to make this work perfectly, but if you change your desktop background, you should see it in action already.
Learn More or Get Involved
We’re hacking on this at live.gnome.org/OnlineDesktop and on the mailing list.
For background, see the vision page and slides from the GUADEC presentation.
Luis Villa is working on a slide about how we can preserve free software values in a world where “cloud hosted” software is a reality. In the meantime, here’s a blog entry he wrote with relevant links.
At least two commercial products, Zonbu and gOS, have appeared recently, showing how the Online Desktop might be offered to consumers. These companies are using one-off software, though, since the mainstream distributions and desktops don’t have a solution in this area yet.
Because Online Desktop can keep your preferences and documents online, it’s ideal for a live CD, and we’d love to have someone keeping a recent snapshot available in live CD form.
We aren’t defining this project narrowly. Our goal is “the perfect window to the Internet: integrated with all your favorite online apps, secure and virus-free, simple to set up, and zero maintenance thereafter.” That leaves quite a bit of work to do.
About the author
Havoc Pennington is a long-time Red Hat, GTK+, and Linux desktop developer who is currently working on the GNOME Online Desktop project.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
I’ve been using Online-Desktop for about a week now. I love it! I think it’s a fantastic concept.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:19 am
It’s looking good can’t wait till it improves a little more. It really is a great concept.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Didn’t Windows 98SE first start with this “online desktop” thing?
I’m pretty sure it was called “Active Desktop”.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Do you first have to be running ordinary Gnome to use online-desktop, mugshot and bigboard to access online desktop? Or can I try this from my KDE setup?
It seems a lot of people are experimenting with Web OS integration. Take a look at gOS, for example: http://www.thinkgos.com/.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:49 am
“Active Desktop” wasn’t really active except at crushing.. this is “Online”.. there’s a difference, I’m sure of it.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:54 am
“Active Desktop” was a thing where you could set a web page as your desktop background.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:12 am
too noisy of a desktop…
November 14th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
this seems to be a great feature for a lan based configuration (think collaborative software desktop). it seems a great way to link resources, collaborate, allow for a shared desktop experience within a more secure environment. i see this in the corporate space as well as the home desktop. this is a great way to work together if made more accessible to the corporate user (meetings, specifications, dog food software test, instant message, status updates through web based applications/databases, etc.). tight evolution integration would be great. if open office documents can be tightly linked together in this way, document reviews would be easier. the collaborate then publish paradigm.
this would require the online desktop server to be inside a corporate firewall. that would be a great productizing opportunity for distribution manufacturers.
keep thinking like this! we need innovation like this to prove to the world that the gnu/linux desktop is a platform for great new ideas.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
This cyan window borders and buttons are HIDEOUS! I think I’ve never saw anything so ugly in desktop UI since microsoft’s windows 3.11!
November 14th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
The window borders are just a theme, nothing to do with online desktop specifically. Use a different theme.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I think it is a really good concept and the fact that you create a online.gnome.org account is really great. But from the screen shot it looks like a great hook into google (cal / docs) and flickr which are non-free services. Could i not link it to EDS / Hula (if it still exists) and when away from my computer could log into my home EDS / Hula ?
Freedom should extend beyond the desktop.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Would be good to have a scrolling “notifications” area in the sidebar in place of annoying Windows-style popups that interrupt your work. A notification should flash a couple of times when it first appears and then join earlier notifications in a list (with perhaps some logic to suppress an older notification that is no longer valid; eg., “Network up” notification should suppress an earlier “Network down” notification). Also,you could have other notifications such as friends signing into IM, etc. appear in the same list. Any plans for such a widget?
November 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
@Grant: Apparently you can configure any other custom services that work on open protocols.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Great idea, haven’t used it personally, but it does look a little fonky at the time, but i realize its still early and I predict that it will purdy itself up and within the next few years practically every OS/desktop will have this as at least an option.
I mean seriously, Steve Jobbs is probly nutting himself with the idea of iWebtop (only $15/month!)
November 14th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
even apple knows design pioneer,i see this in the corporate space as well as the home desktop.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:56 am
I’d still much rather have thick client apps with better online integration. Web app GUIs are teh suck, and at least you can still use thick clients when you’re travelling or just lose your internet connection. Not everyone is online all the time, especially in the countries with poorer infrastructures where GNOME is making the most inroads.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:59 am
I’m not a huge fan of losing the top Gnome bar. Where do I set the system settings? Where’s my quick access to local folders and drives.
I say, add the bar into regular Gnome and I think I’d be sold.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:20 am
The Gnome online desktop concept seems a little fuzzy… All the apps on a liveCD and resources from the net? Not sure about the real benefit, or maybe I’ve missed something!? Recently, a new project called “Ulteo” (http://www.ulteo.com) has catched my attention, and it seems to me the real alternative: get an “always up to date” system with applications, get it online, offline, with as many apps as possible, and for free…
November 17th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
This is mighty awwsum & I’m switching to Fedora tomorrow to be able to try this out for casual use!
This is what I’ve been waiting for ever since the web appeared! And none of the competitors offer anything even close although Microsoft definitely has a similar vision with Live.com & possible integration in whatever comes after Vista.
Single vendor OS + core apps might have worked but expectations from the web are too diverse for single vendor web services and I believe MS will be forced to provide integration for Google & co or if not, something like a Mozilla (or GNOME) -based shell.exe replacement will appear!
November 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am
What is the purpose of the Gnome online account?
November 19th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Current functions of online.gnome.org include: storing desktop settings, sending your current music track to your friends (if enabled), storing your most-used and pinned applications for the apps stock, globally tracking application popularity (for people who turned it on), the database of app icons/names/package-names, storing your name and photo, keeping a “meta address book” spanning email/social-networks/IM-services.
More importantly, it’s an open source service that can be extended, so keeps the online desktop from relying only on features that proprietary services already offer. The above list shows how this was already important and let us do a lot of things we could not have done otherwise.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
We recently talked to Havoc and Colin Walters about the Online Desktop which helped clear up some of the issues I had with the idea.
You can listen to our discussion at:
http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/88
November 20th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
This is really cool. I’m hooked on google services, docs, email, calendar, etc. for the portability and usability, good to see more products moving this way.
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 am
It is a cool thing, specially as a complete new idea. Havoc, I looked at the screen shots you have here but this is not what I am seeing at my Desktop. I don’t have any widgets, and don’t know from where to add them, is there a HOWTO to this?
regards 2 all.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
To add widgets you click your name/photo at the top and then Sidebar Preferences.
If everything is blank and it says Nobody, then it isn’t connecting for some reason, maybe you are not logged in to online.gnome.org in Firefox or Epiphany, or maybe it all needs to be kicked (“bigboard –replace”)
There are also a lot of fixes in svn since the F8 packages, there will probably be some new RPMs in a bit, or you can try from JHBuild see http://live.gnome.org/OnlineDesktop/Jhbuild
November 24th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Hi Havoc,
No its connected but its not working. Maybe I shall wait till it becomes stable and more reliable.
Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Installed fedora 8 in virtualbox to try this out. For the moment I find the results rather dissapointing. The practical use I see is near zero. Google docs does not work. The calendar applet is nice but not worth installing a separate “desktop”. “people” is more or less irrelevant unless online-socialising is your favorite hobby and you have lots of virtual “friends” at mugshot.org. After all, all the real functionality is in the browser (google docs online editing, gmail, etc. pp.), the sidebar really feels more like a simple gadget. (quite like google desktop on Windows, which, however, is more advanced).
We’ll see where this goes, however, for now, the term “online desktop” remains a promise, not a reality.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Another user on my system? Registration to online.gnome.org? I am sorry, but I fail to see the point of this.
The explanation given for this is not sufficient. Why not something like Gimmie (I am talking about the concept, not the actual application, which isn’t very good yet).
Don’t get me wrong, I believe it is a good start, but the non-technical requirements will certainly discourage a lot of users. I know I’d love to have this with a simple ‘yum/apt-get install online-desktop’ and a click on my menu.
(Yes, I am no programmer or developer, just a linux enthusiast and gnome user, so please forgive me if I don’t get all the technical implications of Havoc’s answer.)
February 29th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
This looks very nice, but I’m wondering if people will be able to run private versions of the online.gnome.org server. This sounds like an excellent way to setup a thick client network if it is.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:39 am
I think its a great project. Goes stright forwardly to open up intresting concepts, methods and ‘areas of development’. Guys: Powers GOD! (Nice name, i know). Gnome called “Gnu-Network-Object-Model-Environment” and in this case(of concepts, core-engine …) there is no other way into gnome-future without (a) GOD.
“There can only be one god.” (sik: GOD!)
August 28th, 2008 at 8:12 am
[...] Tour of GNOME Online Desktop [...]
August 29th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Ну конечно хорошую информацию трудно добыть. (А сделать с ней что-нибудь – ещё труднее)
December 28th, 2008 at 6:24 am
[...] Well, the Open Source world already has technology similar to what the Wired article is heralding as “disruptive technology” on Microsoft’s campus. The GNOME project has the “Online Desktop” which could use a little bit of polish. [...]
January 21st, 2009 at 12:36 am
Desktop Linux is the future. Everybody, including me is waiting for this future. Linux, like Unix is a great Operating System and like the servers, will do great on the desktop, just you wait and see! So bring it on!
January 21st, 2009 at 12:39 am
Unix and Linux on the desktop is the future.
January 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
GNOME Online Desktop is the future. Just concenstrate on standards and everything wiil come out winning and right.
I love GNOME on AIX and like its future in the computer world very much!
January 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Gnome is already a standard with major computer firms like IBM. Soon all computing firms will make it a standard. The reason? Its that good!
January 25th, 2009 at 1:43 am
I have been using Linux on the Desktop for years and I love it. In terms of ease of use, there is no difference between
Linux and Windows. Enjoy Linux on the Desktop.
January 25th, 2009 at 3:15 am
Linux on the desktop is the future because it is so good.
It is on my desktop and I love it.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
[...] with the Internet. You can read about the vision here. There is an article in Red Hat Magazine touring the Online [...]