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Reduction of features
by Vedran Furač on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @11:55
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Now that KDE 4.0 is here I can ask why you are removing features form it? I know that plasma (is there an option to remove desktop toolbox from the top right corner...) and kwin effects (...and put present windows trigger there?) are not complete and ready yet, but what about other stuff which is present in KDE3?
For example, in file dialog there are no more owner, group and permissions columns or "folder first", "separate folders" and "case sensitive" options, WHY?
Apps are not exceptions. Look at gwenview, it's all nice, but it has only 30% features of the older version which I use currently.
...
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Re: Reduction of features
by Evan "JabberWokky" E. on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @12:28
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Because KDE4 and KDE3 are different, not progressions of the same software. To run a KDE3 app, you need the KDE3 libraries and they run fine. That applies if you're running them under KDE3, Gnome or KDE4. Or anything else other than KDE3. If you like KDE3, stay with it: as a distinct environment with many users, it isn't going anywhere. That said, quite a bit of developers will move on to KDE4.
This is open source, and software packages are maintained by their level of use. Old Linux kernels are actively patched by their developer and userbase. Yes, the majority of developers and users tend to run the lastest thing, but KDE3 is not going to go away. If you prefer it, stick with it... many other people -- both users and maintenance developers -- will as well. It's okay. This is not a commercial venture where last year's model suddenly becomes unavailable. You (and some others) labor under a misconception that because KDE4 exists, KDE3 is going to go away.
You aren't the only one: aseigo even addressed the same thing in his blog recently ( http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-bluntly.html ). Open source just works differently than the cycle you seem to expect and that exists in the commercial world.
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Re: Reduction of features
by Bobby on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @12:34
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Remember that you are using a release candidate and not a final version. Wait until KDE 4.0 is launched then you can complain. Concerning plasma, it's said many times that plasma is still under heavy development and that KDE 4.0 is only the first of a series. Still I am sure that more polisching will be done before the release.
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Re: Reduction of features
by kavol on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @07:09
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> Wait until KDE 4.0 is launched then you can complain.
well, isn't that a bit late if he wants to change something in KDE 4.0? :-)
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Re: Reduction of features
by T. J. Brumfield on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @09:39
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Since it has been tagged, it is precisely too late.
There will be zero changes to KDE 4.0 at this point, though I'm sure there will be plenty of changes to KDE 4.x
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Re: Reduction of features
by MamiyaOtaru on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @20:00
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Haha I love that. Someone who complains about something in a beta is often told to wait for the final release. If he does so though, it's too late to do anything about it. Brilliant!
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Re: Reduction of features
by Morty on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @13:19
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>I can ask why you are removing features form it?
>Apps are not exceptions. Look at gwenview
In most cases the answer is simple, the features are not ported yet. Some features may even requre a revirite, depending on the changes done to the application. Its simply a time ting.
As for applications, look at Okular. It has more features than its KDE3 predecessor, KPdf. The same is true for several other applications too, so there are lot of exceptions.
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Re: Reduction of features
by jos poortvliet on Tuesday 08/Jan/2008, @02:41
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Both gwennview and Konsole have been rewritten, that's why features are missing. their authors know and want to add those back, but that'll just take a while.
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Re: Reduction of features
by Aaron J. Seigo on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @16:52
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each of the examples you give are all for the same reason: they are new bits of code. the file dialog views are new (based on the m/v stuff in qt4, shared with konq & dolphin to boot); this new view will certainly increase in feature capacity over time.
gwenview was also very much a rewrite. the kde3 ui was tossed out to take a new run at how to present the same kinds of functionality but with a much nicer approach.
the down side to doing this is that you lose some features with the old code.
you'll find that apps/components that didn't need to do this usually have *more* features than they did in kde3. okular is a good example of that (it was kpdf; renamed because it's more than pdf's now). then there are the completely new apps, like marble.
so we're not removing features at all. a lot of features have actually been added, and where there are feature regressions due to rewritten or refactored code those will catch up (and likely surpass) their kde3 counterparts with time.
it would have been awesome if we could have magically kept every feature of every app and component, but these were prices we paid for being able to go further in the future.
oh, as for talking about kwin effects not being there yet, those are also brand new in kde. see, more features! ;)
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Re: Reduction of features
by Michael on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @17:23
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So. I just did a LOT of reading. I read your posts, your blog, etc etc. It all now becomes finally(!) much clearer to me how to make sense of this all. Thanks for patiently explaining all this to me and all the KDE end-users. Not very common really in open source software to get such detailed answers.
The conclusions I've drawn for KDE end-users right now:
1) If you happily use KDE 3.5 right now as an end-user for day-to-day work and wouldnt like to miss out on features and customizability, stay right now with KDE 3.5. It isnt even a "bad" thing to do, but expected by the developers and perfectly OK. It's not a commercial product, where everyone expects you to drop the old stuff no matter what and shell out all your money for the new and shiny version.
2) If you are interested in taking a glimpse at the future of the KDE desktop, install KDE 4.0.0 in parallel or use KDE 3.5 with new apps or KDE 4.0 with old apps.
3) KDE 4.0.0 has lots of under-the-hood changes right now that make it much easier for developers to implement new features. So we can expect a gradual shift and each user can decide individually when KDE 4.x.y is good enough to switch. Again, this is not due to KDE 4.0.0 somehow not being ready right now, but the expected "behavior" of an Open Source product in contrast to a commercial product.
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Re: Reduction of features
by Nikolaj Hald Nielsen on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @04:57
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Nice. That is actually, in my opinion, a very clear and concise summary of how the end user should look at KDE 4.0.0.
This is the foundation, usable for some, lacking for others. Migration will happen slowly, as each user or distribution decides that it has reached sufficient maturity. :-)
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Re: Reduction of features
by Martin Fitzpatrick on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @13:51
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Put this in the release notes : )
I've been in two minds about this release being 'premature' from first trying the RCs, but this just sold it to me: Releasing is totally the right thing to do.
Thanks Michael
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Re: Reduction of features
by Peter Penz on Sunday 06/Jan/2008, @22:40
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> For example, in file dialog there are no more owner, group and
> permissions columns or "folder first", "separate folders" and
> "case sensitive" options, WHY?
I ported the file-dialog from KDE 3 to KDE 4 and the reasons for having this features not available in KDE 4.0 are just because we've been running out of time. As Aaron explained already especially the file-view related parts in KDE 4 had to be rewritten nearly from scratch due to Interview from Qt4. We'll add such kind of missing features again in the 4.x releases :-)
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Re: Reduction of features
by MamiyaOtaru on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @01:18
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This is the point where I get frustrated with KDE's monolithic releases ;) I'd love to see such stuff come in without necessarily having to wait for 4.1 (and without having to run SVN). The monolithic thing just seems to slow things down sometimes. I wasn't happy at all when Kopete went into KDE, as that meant new features would only come out with KDE releases.
Obviously it works well (for all but the illogically impatient perhaps) so I'm not advocating change. I guess it's my way of saying I'm glad to hear changes are coming and I look forward to them!
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Re: Reduction of features
by D Kite on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @07:46
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Set yourself up a build environment where you can use the latest from svn code. Set yourself up a proper and robust backup method for your data.
Then run the latest and greatest. During the kde 3 development cycle I found it very satisfying to experience the maturation as it happened. And I found it surprisingly stable.
Some inside baseball: don't update during the two weeks preceeding a code freeze. It will break.
Derek
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Re: Reduction of features
by anonymous coward on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @12:05
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This approach usually does not work. If your preferred app resides in a KDE mayor package, you can't cherry-pick it but have to pull the hole package, which maybe only builds against the unstable trunk kdelibs, but not against any stable version. That means that you have only two reasonable options:
(1) Live on the bleeding edge and use the trunk for all your KDE apps.
(2) Wait until the next release.
A more modular approach (i.e. git repositories for each app) would allow an app to proceed at its own pace and state its own preconditions.
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Re: Reduction of features
by Morty on Monday 07/Jan/2008, @13:45
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This approach does usually work, even if you have to get the whole major package you don't have to compile more than the application you want. Much the same way distributions split it in to individual packages for each application. The KDE packages are very modular.
As stated the only problem you can have are when the application require functionality not present in the current stable kdelibs, but the ability to only pick the application you want makes this less likely. In the past this has even been done officially by application maintainers, for instance Kopete has been released both as part of the kde and as separate releases.
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