new netbook launcher for arm devices
ProFUSION partnered with Canonical to develop their 2D launcher
As part of a very prolific relationship with Canonical last year, ProFUSION was involved in adapting the Ubuntu user experience to less powerful devices, such as the current crop of smartbooks that is about to hit the international markets soon.
One of the main areas focused was the development of a launcher interface that had all the visual effects that users have come to expect in the last years while still being able to run on non-3d accelerated devices. If there was ever a match made in heaven, then using the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) for this endeavor would have to be it. The netbook-launcher-efl project, as it has been named, is already available and can be installed and tested right now on Ubuntu Lucid.
The level of theme-ability we achieved on this project is something we are quite proud of, and we’re looking forward to see what kind of experiments users are going to do with it. We believe in usability design, and Canonical did invest quite a bit of it in this project, but we also believe that the spirit of Free Software really shines when the community actively participates in the development of a project, either by using and giving feedback or more directly by changing and improving the software. That is why we think using the EFL was the perfect decision, because it allows for faster development, faster run times and faster feedback from designers. It allows for less code with more eye candy. And ultimately, it leads to a great user experience.
With the EFL being close to its first stable release in years, we think that projects like this will help it reach a broader user community.
Although right now the netbook-launcher-efl project is only packaged for Ubuntu, there is work under way to make it available for other distributions, and if you wish to help with this effort please get in touch with us.
NEWS