KDE Commit-Digest for 24th June 2007

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Introductions of a Dictionary, Photoframe, and Facebook Plasmoids, and a Weather and Solid DataEngine in Plasma. Usability improvements and optimisations in KListView, used for icon views in Konqueror and Dolphin. The start of a shared, common location for vocabulary files across KDE-Edu applications, with initial implementation in Kanagram. Support for application-specific caches in the Icon Cache implementation, and further progress in the KOrganizer Theming and KRDC Summer of Code projects. Better support for ALSA in KMix. Umbrello gets support for SQL code generation. The start of enhanced animation support in KPresenter. Scripting interaction with Yahoo! web services to provide weather and stock quote information in KSpread. Advancements in the KTorrent port to KDE 4. The creation of the PopUpDropper, a context-sensitive drag-and-drop widget in Amarok. Import of kollagame, a game development IDE. Systemsettings is moved to kdereview as a possible replacement for KControl in KDE 4.

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Comments

by Louis (not verified)

Last week, when it was announced that KDict was going away, I mentioned that it may be cool to make it into a Plasmoid. Little did I know that somebody with some coding skill (and new to KDE!) had the same idea, and within days that widget was born. Awesome. Good job, guys.

by cirehawk (not verified)

I had almost the exact same thought. Seems kdict funtionality will be there with this plasmoid. I must say that with each passing week I am starting to get more and more excited about KDE4 and Plasma (as well as Solid, Phonon, etc.) I'm not a programmer, but it seems that it will be fairly simple for Plasmoids to be written. I can't wait to see how it will be extenteded to applications and to the desktop as a whole. If what I understand about the zooming capability is correct, then I envision objects (i.e. file cabinet) that when clicked will zoom out (or is it in?) to open a whole new desktop. If that is the case, this can be very interesting indeed.

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

I had the same feeling after I read that digest and the comments so I decided it would be perfect for me to start contributing to KDE with. The sad thing is, I won't be able to work on it for 4 weeks starting on Wednesday since I will be going on vacation, but I believe other Plasma hackers will continue adding small improvements. But I will have a large amount of free time the end of July and all of August to continue working on it.

P.S. Please post any suggestions/improvements you have for the dictionary plasmoid.

by fast_rizwaan (not verified)

1. Unicode support (for bilingual dictionaries)
2. Custom Dictionary list (edit database set as in kdict) for lookup in specific (user preferred) dictionaries.
3. lookup clipboard/selection ablility (kdict -c will do the same) to look-up the "selected" word anywhere. (with a shortcut or a button/quicklauncher)

by Chani (not verified)

what, it's not getting magical happy unicode support from qt already?

if someone doesn't implement this list of stuff I'll add it to my list of things I wish I'd get done someday. ;) although there is KTranslator for looking up selected words in kde3 :)

by Beat Wolf (not verified)

not a suggestion for the dictionary pone, but if you could make a translation plasmaoid, that would be great! :-) (just for single words, that would be enough)

by Benoit Jacob (not verified)

Very nice work, Thomas!

My suggestion: use a different icon. I never liked the lenses/binoculars as a methaphor for search. Why not simply use a dictionary icon? That should be easy to draw (maybe ask the oxygen guys to make one if they haven't already) and much more evocative!

by Marc (not verified)

It's just a visual suggestion : could you round the corners of the dictionnary area :)

Thanks for your great work !

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

Do you mean round the corners of the actual lineedit?

by Louis (not verified)

I think he means the results window. I, too, thought that it would look better if the inner window had rounded corners to match the outer decoration. Is it even possible?

by fast_rizwaan (not verified)

4. Double clicking on a word inside the plasmoid should define the word as if we typed it.. Please :)

by Thorsten Schnebeck (not verified)

No double clicks in KDE please! Its especially not good for older users.

Bye

Thorsten

by Henrik Pauli (not verified)

Let’s just agree that it should respect the clicking preference of the user. I like my click for select, double click for action. You like your way.

by superstoned (not verified)

Indeed. I've tried to get used to singleclick, forcing myself to use it for weeks. But really, I can't live with it. I even use triple-click very often... Singleclick just means you lose a lot of control, and I don't like that.

by Vlad Blanton (not verified)

if this is implemented, it should use single click because it is effectively acting like a web link. All web links are single click.

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

You mean to have all words behave like links do now?

by Leo S (not verified)

Please don't do this. One of the big dictionary sites does this, and it drives me up the wall, because it makes it impossible to select a word by double clicking on it, which it is the default in every other text display. Redefining the double click to mean "look up word" instead of "select word" without any user notification is really annoying. Just as annoying as the old KDE wiki that liked to go into edit more on double clicks.

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

I will still leave the related words provided by dict.org as blue links.

by Leo S (not verified)

Yes, for sure. I think the grandparent was suggesting that all words can be looked up in the dictionary by double clicking on them, not just links.

by Leo S (not verified)

Yes, for sure. I think the grandparent was suggesting that all words can be looked up in the dictionary by double clicking on them, not just links.

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

I'll just ask the usability guys which is better.

by superstoned (not verified)

smart choice ;-)

They might have ideas. Like a mouse-over effect showing a small 'lookup word' button...

by Lans (not verified)

Great work, it looks very useful. To code plasmoids seems indeed to be a very good way to start contributing to KDE, I think I'll see if I can make something after my vacation (heh, also 4 weeks, starting om Thursday).

Some suggestions:

- A clear button
- Agree with Benoit Jacob, another icon; I also suggest a dictionary
- There are some visual things (to rounded corners in my opinion, for example), but I think it's too early to complain about.

by Lans (not verified)

Edit: Oh yes, please don't show the about info if the user type "about" - imagine the confusion if you actually look for the work. ;)
(I would suggest something like kdict:about or something similar)

by Thomas Georgiou (not verified)

Right now we are thinking of showing the current about with the normal definition or only showing that about with /about.

by Thomas Coopman (not verified)

I think something like this would be great
fr:bonjour
fr:en bonjour

So you can very easy and fast choose a language.
For this it needs different languages and translation of course.
And so you don't have to type it always, make a default behaviour.

by Martin Stubenschrott (not verified)

This idea is awesome!

by Chani (not verified)

yes, yes it is.

by Fhucho (not verified)

This is a nice dictionary applet for mac os: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dictionarywidget.png

I think it may be inspiring for you.

by Patcito (not verified)

It would be cool to have a plasmoid tutorial on how to write one.
I searched in techbase and plasma.kde.org but couldn't find anything.
From what I know, it's only possible to write them in C++ and Javascript, right? I'm waiting for the ruby biding to come cause that's my preferred language though I wouldn't mind trying in C++.

For now, the best location to look for seems to be http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/applets/ right?

By the way, where can I find the code for the dictionary, facebook and weather applets?

thanx a lot

by Oscar (not verified)
by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

tutorials will be appearing at some point after akademy unless someone else beats me to it ... the api just isn't ready for such documentation imo.

by DITC (not verified)

Maybe it didn't look through the last commit-digest issues thoroughly but I didn't spot any commits for Konqueror in a long time. Did I miss something?

by Emil Sedgh (not verified)

I asked about this from Danny.He said that Konqueror is just a shell around KDE Technologies.It hasnt much codebase.
But (I think) you will see much difference between Konqueror 3 and 4, Because those Technologies are changed a lot in KDE4, like the new KListView.

by DITC (not verified)

This is for the file management part, right? And what's happening with the browser part?

by Emil Sedgh (not verified)

WebKit part, KHTML Improvements, Userscripts...

by reihal (not verified)

What DITC and I want know is, what is happening to the
"Konqueror is just a shell around KDE Technologies" part.

If you put the webkit kpart i Dolphin you'll have a Dolphinor,
in Kate a Kateror etc.
But what about the specific web browser shell Konqueror?

by DITC (not verified)

You are totally right. I haven't read in months about any major development in the web browser part of Konqueror. Is the browser field left to Firefox?

by Anon (not verified)

Frankly, I suspect that starting a dedicated, khtml/ webkit-based KDE browser would be more beneficial than working on Konqueror - the burdens of being a general-purpose KPart viewer optimised for Web Browsing *and* File Management simply make it really hard to work on and improve. I remember dfaure on IRC discussing how to implement Undo Close Tab - an oft-requested feature that should be almost trivial, really - and how the need to take file management into account complicated things excessively.

A "Dolphin for the Web" would be the best move, imho - leave Konqueror to the power users.

by Vide (not verified)

Are you mad? telling these things to reihal? his kde-ultra-über-power-user ego could suffer a heart-attack if ther're going to kill Konqueror as the default web browser as they did with file-management ;D

by Anon (not verified)

I'm working on the assumption that pushing Konqueror further from the mainstream will increase his e-penis bragging rights ;)

by reihal (not verified)

I got it all out.
The Konqueror debate, I mean.

by reihal (not verified)

Yeah, I'm dead now. Hope you're satisfied.

by Emil Sedgh (not verified)

Whats wrong with Konqueror as Web Browser?
Konqueror is the most powerfull KApplication, its the flag of KDE, its one of the tools that do not exist on other platforms.Its what makes KDE so powerfull...so shiny and so so unique.
and yep, its a shell over KIO/Slaves, Kparts and other Technologies.if they improve, Konqueror improves.
Konqueror is improving while KDE is getting improved.its what you should understand...
it even has Plugins structure, if you are missing Firefox Extensions, that because people are not creating plugins for Konqueror, but itself, supports it.
sorry for bad English.

by Anon (not verified)

"Whats wrong with Konqueror as Web Browser?"

What's wrong with it is that it is also a full-featured file manager. Why can I not set a separate home URL for its file manager and web browser mode? If I'm using it as a file manager, pressing "Home" should take me to ~, not Google, and vice versa.

If I'm using it as a web browser, why would mistyping a URL cause a scan of my harddrive for what I typed using kio_locate, instead of searching google? Why do I see tons of menu items that are useful *only* in a file manager? Why, when I right click on an http URL, am I given the option to Commit to a SVN Repository?

"Konqueror is the most powerfull KApplication, its the flag of KDE, its one of the tools that do not exist on other platforms.Its what makes KDE so powerfull...so shiny and so so unique.
and yep, its a shell over KIO/Slaves, Kparts and other Technologies.if they improve, Konqueror improves."

Yes, I know all this - Konqueror is a great app for Power Users. As a web browser, however, it is very, very confusing and incredibly slow to progress. Whay is there no Undo Close Tab? Why no "Protect Tab"? The list of missing features one would expect to see in a modern browser shell goes on and on, and a large part of the lack of progress is due to the fact that spanning the worlds of file manager and web browser all at once is immensely difficult.

"Konqueror is improving while KDE is getting improved.its what you should understand..."

I understand completely - please stop talking to me as though I am an idiot who knows nothing of KDE :)

The KParts that it wraps are improving. The Konqueror shell itself remains a mess of lacking features and features that are wholly appropriate when I'm using an instance solely as a web browser or as as file manager.

"it even has Plugins structure, if you are missing Firefox Extensions, that because people are not creating plugins for Konqueror, but itself, supports it."

And why are they not? Two reasons, that I can think of:

- Extensions must be native code - there's no easy way to get them unless you compile from source or they are pre-packaged. Compare with Firefox where you can install one from a website at the click of a button.

- Nowhere near as many hooks as Firefox. If I want to intercept the html as it is downloaded and tweak the DOM tree before it is displayed, how can I do this? How can I change the tab navigation behaviour with a plugin? There are no hooks into the system!

The "API" that Konqueror offers to the would-be extension writer is simply too primitive to get anything interesting done.

"sorry for bad English."

Your English is perfectably understandable :)

by Vide (not verified)

Alhough I used to love Konqueror, I have to say that everything should be driven again to the Unix philosophy: one tool for one job.
It would be wonderful if someone step in to create a Konqueror NG, built from ground up to be *only* a web browser (with the old one left for the nostalgics).
I know I could sound a little harsh, and I owe all the respect they deserve to the original Konqui's developers, but we are in a tunnel now, IMO.
Dolphin was the Right Decision (TM), a Konqueror NG (don't want to lose the brand) would be another.

But I'm just a comment in the Dot.

by Erunno (not verified)

I'm not against a dedicated KDE browser in the vein of Dolphin but suggesting to wholy replace Konqueror is just daft. Konqueror is a great tool for people like me who like to have all documents related to a project (FTP shares, PDF files, websites, etc) open in one window as it seriously lessens the clutter on the taskbar and it's easier for me to scan the tab bar than to search n the taskbar for the window I'm looking for. Plus, I can arrange tabs in an order which suits my workflow.

I'd like to see that Konqueror is rewritten as a multi-purpose KParts viewer which dynamically changes it's interface depending which KPart is viewed in a tab.

so... you want konqueror rewritten to be like konqueror? why not keep the old one?

by MamiyaOtaru (not verified)

No, he'd like it rewritten to be like it is now *except that the interface changes depending on what's being viewed*. You know, that whole thing about how filebrowsing menu entries are shown even when you are browsing the web and vice-versa.

Sort of like how in Windows Explorer if you enter a web URL hey presto suddenly it's "internet explorer" with different menus and such, even though it's the same program.

I don't mind having Konqueror access files and the web, but I'd like it to look a bit different with different bookmarks and menu entries depending on which it is accessing.