The Maui Project
What’s the Maui project?
Well, before answering such question you should know, if you already don’t, that Maui is the name of the shell that comes by default with Nitrux OS. It consists of various components like the top bar, the dock, the panels, and the launcher, most of them based on Plasma plasmoids.
So far, until this date, Nitrux OS release comes with some pre-intalled software, among those apps you could find Babe aka VVAVE as the default music player.
The previous version of Babe made used of Qt QWidgets, which was intended to be used on desktops, but the new version of VVAVE makes use of Qt QQC2 (Qt Quick Controls 2) and the Kirigami framework, which allowed VVAVE to become a convergent app, that could run on desktop and mobile devices.
The transition of VVAVE marks the start of the Maui Project I’m about to introduce to you.
The spine behind the Maui Project is the Maui HIG, which aims to introduced a cohesive design across the set of apps and shell used on the Maui desktop.
The Maui HIG goal is to bring an expected, beautiful, clean and convergent UI and UX design that works well on mobile and desktop devices by making use of QQC2 and the KDE frameworks, such as Kirigami and Plasma
A first step has been made and that involves working on the default set of apps for Maui and, by extension, for the KDE community. Such set of apps follow the on-going work of the Maui HIG and will work under Linux GNU desktops, Android and Plasma Mobile.
Also, there is a work in progress on the default style for the Maui shell, which you can follow here:
Also there’s a wiki still under work describing the Maui HIG:
https://github.com/maui-project/qqc2-desktop-style-maui/wiki
The Maui Apps
What makes an app a Maui app?
Well, a Maui app is one that makes use of the Maui HIG to achieve a cohesive design, and by extension, is an app that runs on different devices (phones, phablets, tablets, laptops, etc..) and is cross-platform.
As I’ve stated the work on the Maui HIG is still on an early stage and it is being discussed and shared with the KDE community and the Kirigami and Plasma HIG teams, so if you want to join us and craft the Maui HIG let me know, you’re more than welcome.
There are already some apps that are actually working, that follow the current Maui HIG iteration and allows us to have a testing ground.
VVAVE
https://phabricator.kde.org/source/vvave/
Music player
The first of those apps is VVAVE, which is a music platform.
It works under Android, Plasma Mobile and, of course, on desktops.
It was the app that started the first iteration of the Maui HIG and such iteration have been applied to the other apps.
You can find out more about VVAVE on my previous blog post, and see it working on Plasma Mobile:
https://medium.com/@temisclopeolimac/its-vvave-c3f83da90380
Index
https://github.com/milohr/index
Index is the file manager.
Below you can see the initial mock-up following the Maui HIG and right after a video of it working implementation running under KDE Neon.
Pix
Image viewer and gallery
And this is so far the last app from the Maui project.
There are still more apps on the plans, such as a note taking app to write down to-do lists, tasks, notes etc.., a simple text editor and a video player.
Also there is an initial work on a convergent app launcher that would work both for desktop and Plasma Mobile, this is an early mock-up:
And this is so far the work that has been happening for the Maui project.
I hope it excites you the idea of having a nice GNU Linux distribution with a nice design running on your devices, be it your phone, laptop or desktop computer.
