Plasma

A Little History

In KDE1 the desktop was managed by KDE's file manager. In KDE2 it was split off from the file manager and became its own application though it remained essentially a file manager view. The desktop panels have always been their own application that supported small plugin applications called "applets". Extending the panel with applets could only be done using C++ and were fairly limited in their presentation.

As the years rolled by, it became more and more apparent that the desktop and the panels really needed to work better together. They need to conspire on details such as backgrounds and the placement of icons on the desktop.

At the same time, KDE users started wanting more eye candy on their desktop, resulting in things such as translucent panels and even entire applications dedicated to (often functional) desktop eye candy. Unfortunately, many of these additions suffered performance wise due to the architecture of the whole system.