SuperKaramba is a tool, a so-called widget engine, that allows the creation of functionality enhancement modules (desktop widgets) on the

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

. The desktop widgets are usually embedded directly into the background and do not disturb the normal view of the desktop. The use of SuperKaramba is not limited to KDE, but certain libraries from KDE are required. SuperKaramba had been included in KDE since version 3.5. SuperKaramba is similar to

gDesklets gDesklets is a GNOME program which provides the architecture for small applets (desktop widgets) to be placed on top of the user's desktop. It is comparable to other desktop widget programs. The applets placed on the desktop are meant to be qui ...

for

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

. The name derives from Portuguese and Spanish ''super caramba'', meaning approximately "super wow" or "super cool" (''caramba'' itself being a

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

for ''carallo''). Together,

Kicker Kicker or The Kicker may refer to: Sports * Placekicker, a position in American and Canadian football * ''Kicker'' (sports magazine), in Germany * Kicker, the German colloquial term for an association football player * Kicker, the word used i ...

KDesktop KDesktop is the component of the K Desktop Environment 3 and earlier, which provides a virtual background window to draw icons or other graphics on. In conjunction with Kicker and SuperKaramba, it constitutes the graphical shell. In KDE Software ...

and SuperKaramba build the

graphical shell In computing, a shell is a computer program that exposes an operating system's services to a human user or other programs. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending ...

of the

K Desktop Environment 3 K Desktop Environment 3 is the third series of releases of the K Desktop Environment (after that called ''KDE Software Compilation''). There are six major releases in this series. After the release of KDE 4, version 3.5 was forked into the Trinit ...

. In

KDE Software Compilation 4 KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation (short: KDE SC), first released in January 2008 and the last release being 4.14.3 released in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop En ...

, and SuperKaramba were replaced by

KDE Plasma 4 KDE Plasma 4 was the fourth generation of the KDE workspace environments. It consisted of three workspaces, each targeting a certain platform: ''Plasma Desktop'' for traditional desktop PCs and Notebook (computer), notebooks, ''Plasma Netbook'' fo ...

. The

s KDE Plasma 4 and

KDE Plasma 5 KDE Plasma 5 is the fifth and current generation of the graphical workspaces environment created by KDE primarily for Linux systems. KDE Plasma 5 is the successor of KDE Plasma 4 and was first released on 15 July 2014. It includes a new default ...

being widget engines of their own, SuperKaramba is no longer necessary and e.g. "Kicker" was re-implemented as such a desktop widget.

How it works

Authors use text files to create themes that define their widget. They then have the option of adding a

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

script to make the widget interactive.

Possible uses

* Interactive

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

forecasts * Control and announcement of MP3 playing with

XMMS X Multimedia System (XMMS) is an audio player for Unix-like systems released under a free software license. History XMMS was originally written as ''X11Amp'' by Peter and Mikael Alm in November 1997. The player was made to resemble Winamp, which ...

or Amarok *

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

and notes * Original

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...

s * System monitor for CPU, network, non-removable disks * Notification of new messages in mailboxes *

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

tickers and

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

aggregators * Animated menu bars * Custom toolbars * Search tools

History

Karamba was originally written by Hans Karlsson as a school project in March 2003. It gained a lot of popularity when it was uploaded to KDE-Look and people began writing themes for it. Karamba only functioned on

text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operating ...

s that were written with pseudo-

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

format. It became so popular so quickly that Hans had to hand over the project to others who had time to expand upon what he had begun. By the end of April 2003, Adam Geitgey took over maintenance of the project. He added python scripting support to karamba, which is where it took on a new name, SuperKaramba. Adam kept the project alive, added new features and applied patches from other developers until around April 2005. At that point, a group of developers who wanted to move SuperKaramba even further pushed to get it included in a KDE major release. SuperKaramba was integrated into KDE 3.5KDE Developer's Corner - KDE 3.5 Feature Plan
as part of the kdeutils package, and some of the ideas that it presents have become part of

KDE 4 KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation (short: KDE SC), first released in January 2008 and the last release being 4.14.3 released in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop En ...

’s desktop and panel interface called

Plasma Plasma or plasm may refer to: Science * Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter * Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral * Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics Biology * Blood pla ...

, which also has support for the SuperKaramba widgets.

Notes and references

External links

Sourceforge Project HomepageKaramba Themes at kde-look.orgSuperKaramba Tutorial
{{Widget engine KDE software Software that uses Qt Unix windowing system-related software Widget engines