The Fine Print: The following comments
are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )
|
Re: About PIM
by Paul Eggleton on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @11:43
|
Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on improving the integration between the components within Kontact where needed? Surely this would be a lot less work than trying to roll all of the components into one huge monolithic application.
Other than the configuration dialogs, where would you like to see more integration between the components?
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Cypher on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @13:48
|
To be honest... I don't really know. Everytime I tried to launch Kontact, I got the KOrganizer and the... what was it again... the RSS aggregator... icons in the dock. Then I tried to configure the KMail part to get my GMail account through IMAP, and never found the option to root into a subdirectory (which is [Gmail] in the case of GMail)... Then gave up... Too many icons in the dock + blurry config + no easy GCalendar integration, I decided that Thunderbird + Lightning + GCalendar plugin was better suited to my needs, even if it doesn't integrate that well into my KDE.
So I must say that I can't really be of great help. I was just suggesting a usability goal, based on the fact that I personally got lost because it didn't feel... erm... united enough. I would just say that a single tray icon, and stripped down unified config dialog with advanced options being just one click away would be great. Easy to use at first try, easy to tweak afterwards.
My 2 cents...
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Benjamin Schleinzer on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @18:12
|
If the icons annoy you ( they did annoy me as well) each application has an option to remove the icon from the tray. Voila you are left with no icon or the icon of kmail/korganizer/... or whatever icon you find most helpfull. This is actually a great way to customize the way the application presents itself to you. You need of course to go through the config dialogs for these applications but these are very well organized and you will find your way through if you are willing to spend a few minutes.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Cypher on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @21:38
|
Well... I need an all-in-one icon actually, because those icons are useful, but there are too many of them. No need to duplicate, only one for everything would be great.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by jos poortvliet on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @23:54
|
I fully agree on the icon thing, I must say... Just one for all of contact, not several.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Anon on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @00:51
|
Complete disagreement, here - I want to see the number of unread RSS posts I have and the number of unread e-mails I have both at once, and you can't fit all of this info into one system tray icon.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Chani on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @22:16
|
which is why the system tray just... well.. sucks. it's an old concept and it's not working any more.
what we *really* need in this case is a kontact plasmoid. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before one shows up; akonadi should make stuff like that extra-easy :)
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Cypher on Thursday 21/Feb/2008, @01:00
|
The difference between plasma and the systray is that the systray is always visible and docked into a panel with other "always on top" things. I don't want to access the plasma dashboard in order to click the icon. It should just be one click away, with no need to use the keyboard (I know, that's the current trend : use the keyboard more... just look at the new kmenu replacements. But I am lazy, and I don't like hitting my keyboard while I could just use my mouse. I spend most of my time just using a mouse, with my left hand holding a pen and taking notes. And that's the way I like it, I don't want to be forced to use both of my hands... Erm... sorry for the digression :) )
I guess that the systray is not dead and plasma is not the perfect solution to every problem (even if it is an amazing piece of work).
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Anon on Thursday 21/Feb/2008, @01:16
|
"The difference between plasma and the systray is that the systray is always visible and docked into a panel with other "always on top" things"
Er ... you do know that the systray is actually a Plasmoid, don't you? There is absolutely no difference between a Plasmoid and something that can be "always visible and docked into a panel with other 'always on top' things".
"I don't want to access the plasma dashboard in order to click the icon."
You won't have to - just dock it in a Panel where you can always see it.
"It should just be one click away, with no need to use the keyboard"
See above :)
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Cypher on Thursday 21/Feb/2008, @03:03
|
Yes, right, I forgot about plasmoids in panels, my mistake :)
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by JRT on Thursday 21/Feb/2008, @09:59
|
This is getting OT since this page is about 3.5, but:
Widgets (KDE-4) could be much more useful if they could be assigned a hot spot at the edge of the screen that would move them to the top as with hidden panels in KDE-3.5.x
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: About PIM
by Thomas McGuire on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @11:50
|
Yes, an (optional) unified Kontact system tray icon is definitely needed.
We already have a unified progress indicator, that shows it can be done (and also shows HOW it can be done).
Hint: This would be a great junior job.
The bug report for this is at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75446 .
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
|
Google and KDE
by T. J. Brumfield on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @19:24
|
I was thinking long and hard today along similar lines. KDE should form a strategic partnership with Google in much the same way Mozilla did.
As far as the API goes, you only get so many uses for your API key, so KDE couldn't just take the API and use it without paying for it, or striking a deal. They'd go over API usage with all the people who use KDE.
However, imagine Google contributing code to NEPOMUK and improving Strigi.
Imagine fully integrating Google services like GCalendar, GTalk and Gmail into your desktop.
Imagine easily integrating Google Docs to share documents.
Imagine being able to search an index with your account, and have it know that what you're looking for is on another computer you've used recently.
KDE 4 is now cross-platform. With plasmoids, open APIs, and the beginning of the Semantic Desktop, you could fully integrate your desktop experience with an online community, and simultaneously integrate online services into your desktop.
The partnership would profit both parties, and the end users would get much better features.
You could take it even further. It could create in-roads for KDE usage in the Enterprise environment through the strength of the Google brand. I can tell you first hand that integrating Sharepoint is very costly. Imagine an OSS alternative that allows the entire enterprise to communicate via email, calendar, IM, share documents, collaborate, search, etc. intuitively, and directly through your desktop apps.
We need to brainstorm this, and someone needs to approach Google about this.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE
by Kevin Kofler on Tuesday 19/Feb/2008, @22:35
|
Please, no!
Please don't let them corrupt our Free Software by integrating their proprietary web applications, or even their proprietary desktop software (Google Desktop Search, Google Earth, Google Sky, ...) we already have viable Free alternatives (Strigi, Marble, KStars, ...) for in KDE!
(I'm saying "our" rather than "your" because I happen to be a KDE developer (I'm the one to thank if you ever use Kompare in KDE 4, I got it from non-building to shippable in KDE 4.0.0).)
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE
by jos poortvliet on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @00:01
|
you got a point, but so does he. Working with Google has advantages and disadvantages - we can use money, resources and goodwill, but we don't want to be tied into them, offer google as only option. Luckily, it doesn't have to be that way - see the Magnatune integration in Amarok - it's now pluginbased - in part thanks to Magnatune contributions! Some companies really *get* FOSS, are genuine and willing to properly contribute to and work with us. Google has been doing well, so I think we could/should work a bit more - but not commit to ONLY google.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE
by Kevin Kofler on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @00:44
|
Indeed, Magnatune paying an Amarok developer and even letting him implement support for competing music stores is very nice of them. Cooperations like this (with no lock-in involved) are beneficial to KDE.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE - Proprietary Taint
by T. J. Brumfield on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @05:33
|
Google partners with Mozilla, offers money and code. They don't taint Mozilla with anything proprietary. They offer code and money to MySQL. They don't taint MySQL with anything proprietary.
I suggested integrating open API's and such into the desktop. I suggested having Google aid Strigi and Nepomuk.
Where exactly did I suggest we remove open code with proprietary code? And when did the GPL suddenly allow such a thing?
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Kompare
by Erik on Friday 22/Feb/2008, @15:47
|
> I'm the one to thank if you ever use Kompare in KDE 4, I got it from non-building to shippable in KDE 4.0.0
Thank you for giving Kompare some attention. It semmd to be abandoned for so long! Like I was the only person left using it. And I use it a lot, mostly to review my own changes before committing to SVN (svn diff|kompare -&) and of course configuration file changes on Gentoo (set pager="kompare -" in /etc/etc-update.conf). Did you just port it or did you also fix some of the old bugs? 2 of the most annoying are that it does not understand directory structures (output of "diff -r", see [http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=139233]) and that pressing "Next file" jumps to a random file, not the next in the file list.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Kompare
by Kevin Kofler on Sunday 02/Mar/2008, @17:13
|
I fixed some bugs (e.g. the character set issues), but I haven't looked at those yet.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE
by Ian Monroe on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @00:18
|
Our technology by and large directly competes with Google. Trolltech/Nokia compete with the GPhone, KOffice is a competing Office suite, Strigi does the same thing as Google Desktop etc.
Google does help us out (KDE 4 release event, tons of students for Google Summer of Code) I think mostly because creating a non-Microsoft software ecosystem is ultimately in their interest. And because we're cool. :)
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
Re: Google and KDE
by T. J. Brumfield on Wednesday 20/Feb/2008, @06:22
|
Trolltech/Nokia does offering a competing product against Android, but that doesn't mean that Google would never partner with KDE. Google doesn't offer an offline Office suite, so there is zero competition there. Google does support ODF, just like KOffice, and Google would suddenly provide a means to easily share your documents online, and to allow collaboration. And I didn't think Google offered Desktop Search on Linux or Mac.
Who knows? With a partnership, Strigi could effectively become the new Google Desktop search, except it would be FOSS, and it would strengthen the KDE brand.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in corporate America, FOSS is a dirty word, where as Google is highly respected. Such partnerships would increase visibility not only to individual desktop users, but also to enterprise environments.
If Google had something against Strigi, KDE, KOffice, etc. would they spend money out of pocket sponsoring Summer of Code projects for them?
As you already stated, they like to promote a non-Microsoft software environment, and they seem to respect KDE. In much the same way they assist MySQL and Mozilla, I think Google could help KDE.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
|
Re: About PIM
by Kevin on Wednesday 27/Feb/2008, @08:22
|
I do worry about Google, simply because it has become so large and expansive. That said, I do use Google's calendar (since it is the only way I can keep my workstation, laptop and Blackberry in sync) and GMail (which has a very annoying "feature" where you can only download mail once via POP).
The GCal/kitchensync plug-in is broken (dies if you have recurring appointments, and who among us doesn't have weekly/monthly meeting scheduled as such) so it is a pain to sync w/ KDE Calendar (which is much more functional, at least this week).
I do think, however, that collaboration with Google _and_ Yahoo! is in everyone's interest.
Also, having a Blackberry sync mechanism for KDE PIM should be a super high priority. I suspect there are a lot more Blackberry users out there with similar problems.
|
[
Reply To This | View ]
|
The Fine Print: The previous
comments are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )
|
|
![[KDE Dot News]](http://www.kde.org/dot/Images/kdedotnews.gif)
