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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)

installation

- cmake
- plasmapkg2

Starting the Code

main.qml stuffz

- Layouts
- plasmoid object
- fullRepresentation vs. popup

Plasma API

- PlasmaCore
- PlasmaComponents
- PlasmaExtras
- kdeclarative's useful stuff: kcmOpen? more useful imports

Advanced topics

- touch friendliness
- formfactor support
- image display
- translations
- distribution
- upstreaming code