Poll: What KDE Feature Do You Most Want?

Polls are an oft-requested feature of the dot. KDE.com has risen to the challenge with its latest user poll: "What Should Be the Highest Priority of KDE Developers Leading Up to KDE 2.2?". I just installed Linux Mandrake 7.2 (until my SuSE package arrives), and after upgrading to KDE 2.1.1, I feel that a KDE port of the configuration utilities could bring a huge amount of polish to this distribution. A KDE interface to Linuxconf might be a good start. Others would however prefer a KDE installer, and some simply think that KDE should be faster and/or less of a memory hog. Here's your chance to cast a vote and voice an opinion.

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Comments

I think it would be very nice for developpers to have an equivalent of libglade for Qt/KDE.
This would result in a very clear code to use an xml file (.rc ?) and to dinamically load the interface, especially when used with kdevelop.

by Stuart Herring (not verified)

This already exists, and has done for a while...(KDE >= 2.0)

I believe it's called xmlgui or something similar..

by KDEBoy (not verified)

Most emphatically .. a uniform config utility.

For example:
To configure the screen, you ALWAYS need to be able to change the screen resolution, colour depth and monitor capabilty (refresh rate etc.).

So why can we not have a config tool that is a frontend with ALL the potential options that can be chosen. The distribution comes along and selects which of these options can be changed with their own backend tools. This KDE config tool will then only be slightly different as each distribution configures it to suite themselves.
Each backend tool then uses the KDE config tool as an interface to the user. The KDE tool does not need to know how the backend works, nor does the backend tool need to know how the config program renders the info to the user.

This must be possible. This would be completely platform independent, as the config tool will not know how to change a single thing, each backend tool will supply the info to the config tool which will, in turn, give it to the user.

I don't understand why KDE doesn't work like this in EVERY single facet.

This is my dream way for KDE to work ...

KWord needs to open a file, it calls a separate "application" that opens an Open "dialog" box. KWord, has no code in it to open the dialog box, it only knows how to call it.
To save, print, spellcheck, addressbook, in other words, every single common-to-another-application task, must be done externally.

Why?

1. Every single application can then call a common "dialog" box which does the work of that particular function.
2. Troubleshooting will be easier because these smaller applications are common, smaller and singular (only one exists).
3. Applications become smaller in size.
4. Smaller pieces of the puzzle need to be upgraded as changes are made.
5. Apps will load faster as there is almost nothing to load. Every time you need something done, a new process is started which does the actual work.
6. These separate "apllications", whatever you want to call them, can then be loaded at boot time and be kept running, depending on your amount of RAM, or can be switched off in KDE. In other words, to open Konqueror would just be a case of opening a standard window in which the framework is defined to call other applications to do the actual work. Why must I start the KHTML rendering engine if all I want to do is browse my home directory?

This is my dream :)

If you have a deep understanding of how the KDE framework has been developed and you can shoot this idea down in flames, please do, but please tell me at the same time why this can't be done.

by sune (not verified)

Isn't this exactly how it works now?

Check out the developer info on kde2 and tell me if
this is not your dream come true :-)

by KDEBoy (not verified)

Your response begs the following question .. why does Konq. take approx. 5 seconds to load on my P11 400?

Under Win2k, IE loads in under 1 sec. the first time and is completely negligable the second time.

If it worked the way I wished, Konq. would load even faster then IE, because there would be nothing to load :)

Then when you load a URL, in the background the KHTML rendering engine could start, or, the render engine could be loaded at boot time and be instantly accessible.

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> why does Konq. take approx. 5 seconds to load on my P11 400?

Get an Athlon 1.33 G with a 266 FSB ;-)

> Under Win2k, IE loads in under 1 sec. the first time and is completely negligable the second time.

That is incorrect. IE is already loaded. It takes that one second to draw the window. Try clicking the gear on the konq toolbar and see how fast the new window opens?

The KDE team decided not to assume the overhead to load the browser automatically for the benefit of those with less system resources. I'm sure you could patch it otherwise.

Here's an idea... how many desktops do you have on W2K? Why not set up a browser desktop and just leave Konq open on it? Of my 12 desktops #3 is my default browser desktop. It takes me zero seconds to get a browser window.

by not me (not verified)

What you describe is indeed how KDE really works. In fact you are describing QT and the KDE libraries almost exactly! KHTML is a KPart and as such is loaded on demand. All of KDE is built on a component architecture in exactly this manner, it is one of the main features of KDE2. File open dialogs are centralized in the KDE libaries - Applications call functions in the KDE libraries that open up common dialogs for them (like the file open, save, color chooser, key config dialogs, etc). This is what gives KDE its distinctive but consistent look and feel.

"To save, print, spellcheck, addressbook, in other words, every single common-to-another-application task, must be done externally"

And they are! All the tasks you describe are already performed in the KDE libraries. This means that all KDE applications can access them and no KDE application needs to have code to perform these tasks.

Now, why is KDE not as fast as Windows? Various reasons. For one, Windows loads IE at startup, as some other people have already mentioned. This means that to compare Konqueror and IE you should start Konqueror first and then open up new windows. Unfortunately Konqueror still loses, but it is much closer than before (especially if you're using the latest CVS copy of Konqueror - many speed improvements).

Optimizing is something that is still being worked on. There are so many things to do, though, that the KDE developers can't possibly get to them all (just look at all the comments on this article!) Certainly, though, you will continue to see speed improvements in every aspect of KDE as time goes on. The CVS version of KDE has many speed improvements over 2.1.1). It is being worked on! Have faith in the KDE developers - they listen to you!

by KDEBoy (not verified)

Thank you for your comments.

I use a Riva TNT2 display card and last night I patched the kernel with the nvidia driver and loaded glx support. The net result was that Konq. now loads in almost HALF the time, and I am not even using 2.2alpha!

I was too quick to judge the speed issue in the first place.

All the very best to the Konq. and KDE team.

by AC (not verified)

I'm not too involved in KDE development, but AFAIK you exactly describe the way KDE is designed. I'd even say that the whole KDE philosophy is to be modular!

by underground (not verified)

I would like to see a CD burn programe integredet withe KDE

by Steve Hunt (not verified)

That would be cool. What would be really cool is a CD Burning program that isn't dependant on other programs. One where all the code is built into the program. This would help liberate the users from dependency errors, and other evil problems like that.

by Christian Lavoie (not verified)

Atop of the list: Speed. Optimizations.

Next: Prepare more tools for distro-customizations. First and foremost, code examples: Give example KControl applets for people to prepare kcontrol-apt, the kernels' make kcontrolconfig, kcontrol-updatealternatives (Debian admin warning ;), etc. Give code examples for content producer, for 'enterprise-portals'. Or say Big Company Inc. wants to install KDE on a few billions desktop (whatever) make it easy for the sysadmins to add BCI's own few applications in the default environment. Like a phone directory, an internal instant messager, a few domain-specific applications.

Next: Speed. Optimizations. (Yup.)

Next: Speed. Opti... (Imagine I said it a few more times)

Next: Start working on removing code duplication: For one, try to go from DCOP/MCOP to MCOP only. (AKA Speed, Optimization and Memory Footprint)

And the wishlist from hell: The merging of KDE sessions. Example: I'm running base KDE on debian.ylavoie.com (home comp) and then pop in the McGill labs at . I wanna access the KWord I left home open (or that I just opened using ssh, or whatever) and be able to remotely send it some messages from the desktop itself, maybe even clone the app and work on the document remotely. (While the original KWord still gets the changes)

Still from the wishlist from hell: Continue X separation. Get rid of KDE-ICE, get rid of anything that's remotely X-specific. There are many projects to replace X at various levels, let's make sure KDE runs on all of them.

And at last: Continue like you've been doing for years. The thing KDE needs most is brilliant minds. But thanx god, it already has those...

Yours Truly =)
Christian

I would appreciate most

a) decent IMAP support for Kmail

b) further improvement of konqui

c) speed increase, memory decrease

I have the impression that since the release of KDE2 most people concentrate a bit more (too much) on eye candy, look and feel instead of core functionality. I still miss KDE2 versions of KDE1 apps that reached a high level of usability, e.g. kisocd, krabber.

Stefan

> a) decent IMAP support for Kmail

This is in 2.2alpha.

> b) further improvement of konqui

This is also in 2.2alpha.

> c) speed increase, memory decrease

Probably some of this too.

I would like to see a Ul*raEd*t clone for KDE.

I would like a Multi-Edit clone. I can do it myself, but i'm not much of a cpp guy. (still waiting for Kylix opensource)

by Christoph Cullmann (not verified)

Try Kate (in kdebase cvs or KDE 2.2 later).
Not a clone but a editor which looks a bit like ultraedit and has some of the ultra**** features ;=)

by cezarg (not verified)

A CodeWright clone is what I'm dreaming of in Unix. Unless I have a good editor with Brief(tm) bindings I won't switch from Windows as my default dev platform.

stability über alles

by Eduardo Sanchez (not verified)

The problem with this poll is the embarrassing question: How is it possible to improve an already good thing? Yet, I would like to see the following:

1) Improve Konqi. Make it faster, leaner, and take out some bugs (for example, the annoying one that from time to time forbids me to write with accented, non-english characters in the editboxes).

2) Pay great attention to drag and drop, and copy and paste.

3) Improve font and charset handling for konsole. I cannot use it right now; it refuses to print my accented characters.

4) Could it be such a thing like a font installer?

5) Mouse independent operation for all programs. For example, right now, I do not know how to play Klondike in KPat using only the keyboard.

6) Make KDE run well in a machine with 32 MB of RAM.

7) I would like better control over the Advanced Editor. It is advanced, but it does not let me change their font, nor the endline (Win/*nix/Mac), etc. I grew tired of the really tiny and unreadable font it has by default.

8) Be careful with the binaries. I know you only provide the sources, but make sure, if possible, that the binary distributions comply with the directory structure and other features from the standard source distribution. I am using now KDE 2.1 under RH 6.2. I am stuck because RH chose to implement KDE in a different directory tree than the standard sources, and without RH-provided upgrades for 6.2 I am not able to upgrade to KDE 2.1.1, for example.

Well KDE people. I am impressed. You have made the best desktop environment EVER and now want to improve it. Thank you for making my computing more and more useful and reliable, and for giving to the community a state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line, desktop environment.

by Christian A Str... (not verified)

1) Improve Konqi. Make it faster, leaner, and take out some bugs (for example, the annoying one that from time to time forbids me to write with accented, non-english characters in the editboxes).

Probably your fixed font kicking in, select a font that has your local characters..

3) Improve font and charset handling for konsole. I cannot use it right now; it refuses to print my accented characters.

Same thing.. Find yourself some fonts that have your accented letters, that's the only reason you might not be able to see those...

4) Could it be such a thing like a font installer? KFontInst is on the way :) Be patient...

6) Make KDE run well in a machine with 32 MB of RAM.
Compile it for yourself.. My mothers machine has only 32MB ram, and kde (after being compiled from source) works perfectly there..

7) I would like better control over the Advanced Editor. It is advanced, but it does not let me change their font, nor the endline (Win/*nix/Mac), etc. I grew tired of the really tiny and unreadable font it has by default.

You should look around a bit more ;) Press the settings menu and search, it's there (hint: highligthing, and yes, it has been moved to the settings dialog in kde 2.2 cvs)

> 3) Improve font and charset handling for
> konsole. I cannot use it right now; it refuses
> to print my accented characters.

I had that probem too (with åäöüß). But for some reason I can write them now. I don't know exactly what caused the improvement (I upgrade lots of stuff all the time), but I guess it was the new kdelibs 2.1.2.

by Gob-smacked (not verified)

---Compile it for yourself.. My mothers machine has only 32MB ram, and kde (after being compiled from source) works perfectly there..---

I find this statement absolutely incredible. This completely negates every single speed/performance/memory footprint issue that every single person has posted so far. Are the distributions really doing that bad of a job with KDE?

I run Mandrake 8.0, and my system is always over 90% RAM usage with 128mb. Now you are trying to tell me that KDE works perfectly in 32mb of RAM? This is either a blatent lie, or the KDE developers must make a point of telling people to compile their own KDE to get it to work properly.
(On a side-note, the only thing I enjoy about LM8 after using it for 3 days solid, is that everything is up to date so that I don't have to do it myself. The distribution as a whole is not production quality, and I would not suggest it in a large-scale linux deployment.)

I understand that not many people are even willing to try compiling something from scratch as well as the time needed to compile KDE, as well as the download time, but then the package managers should make sure that the packages they are making are as good as they can possibly be.

I read somewhere in this thread that even on a 1.4GHz processor, KDE is not instantaneous. This is completely ridiculous.

I would rather buy myself one more 128mb DIMM and have the entire KDE load into RAM than have KDE respond the way it does now. That would be incredible.

by Christian A Str... (not verified)

1) Improve Konqi. Make it faster, leaner, and take out some bugs (for example, the annoying one that from time to time forbids me to write with accented, non-english characters in the editboxes).

Probably your fixed font kicking in, select a font that has your local characters..

3) Improve font and charset handling for konsole. I cannot use it right now; it refuses to print my accented characters.

Same thing.. Find yourself some fonts that have your accented letters, that's the only reason you might not be able to see those...

4) Could it be such a thing like a font installer? KFontInst is on the way :) Be patient...

6) Make KDE run well in a machine with 32 MB of RAM.
Compile it for yourself.. My mothers machine has only 32MB ram, and kde (after being compiled from source) works perfectly there..

7) I would like better control over the Advanced Editor. It is advanced, but it does not let me change their font, nor the endline (Win/*nix/Mac), etc. I grew tired of the really tiny and unreadable font it has by default.

You should look around a bit more ;) Press the settings menu and search, it's there (hint: highligthing, and yes, it has been moved to the settings dialog in kde 2.2 cvs)

by Christian A Str... (not verified)

1) Improve Konqi. Make it faster, leaner, and take out some bugs (for example, the annoying one that from time to time forbids me to write with accented, non-english characters in the editboxes).

Probably your fixed font kicking in, select a font that has your local characters..

3) Improve font and charset handling for konsole. I cannot use it right now; it refuses to print my accented characters.

Same thing.. Find yourself some fonts that have your accented letters, that's the only reason you might not be able to see those...

4) Could it be such a thing like a font installer? KFontInst is on the way :) Be patient...

6) Make KDE run well in a machine with 32 MB of RAM.
Compile it for yourself.. My mothers machine has only 32MB ram, and kde (after being compiled from source) works perfectly there..

7) I would like better control over the Advanced Editor. It is advanced, but it does not let me change their font, nor the endline (Win/*nix/Mac), etc. I grew tired of the really tiny and unreadable font it has by default.

You should look around a bit more ;) Press the settings menu and search, it's there (hint: highligthing, and yes, it has been moved to the settings dialog in kde 2.2 cvs)

by PMC (not verified)

Hi all !

I've been using KDE since 1.1.1 and now I'm taking active part in applications development. The applications I have chosen are the ones that I consider more useful in Windows and I feel they are missing in KDE (at least with the same level of functionality).

I consider these ones key applications:

1) A really fast image viewer and fully integrated with desktop (such as Windows' ACDSee)

2) An Outlook-like mail calendar collaboration tool.

3) A video player with support for latest codecs.

I know there are projects similar to these being developed now, but I think we should concentrate our strengths in imnproving them. They are pretty usable now, but we need to make them better than the ones in the other O$ (except for the latest Windows Media Player version ... ;-P )

Apart from that, KDE has evolved to a really mature desktop, pioneer in several new technologies, and from the point of view of the programmer (as I have seen) very easy to write applications to.

Please keep up the good work. I would like to thank all te developers, translators, artists and volunteers in this fantastic and challenging project. Thank you all!!

Regards

by Anonymous Coward (not verified)

You mean something like this?
http://apps.kde.com/na/2/info/id/287

by gis (not verified)

> 1) A really fast image viewer and fully integrated with desktop (such as Windows' ACDSee)

For the fast part, have a look at http://master.kde.org/~pfeiffer/kuickshow/ :)

1. Improve KOffice, including I/O filters (this is really essential if KDE wants to get anywhere near M$ Windoze on desktop).
2. Improve Konqueror in the way, that it can display all pages correctly, including those using JavaScript (certain buttons used within JavaScript don't work correctly).
3. Add IMAP support to KMail. Also, KMail does not handle my mailbox, the one I use with Pine, correctly. I about 400 emails in the inbox and KMail only shows 388 of them, some of them duplicated. The last email it shows is dated to 22th of November 2000, although there are many emails in the inbox I received after that. All this makes KMail unusable for me, so I have to stick with Pine :((.
4. KDE does not need configuration utility. Actually, what do you mean by configuration utility at all? What is KConfig then? If you mean configuration utility for the whole system, this would really be a waste of time. One, that is not able to configure Linux system by hand (I mean, edit configuration files using vi or emacs) should not be considered Linux system administrator, IMHO.

Regards,

Bojan.

> 3. Add IMAP support to KMail.

This is in 2.2alpha.

> 4. KDE does not need configuration utility.
> Actually, what do you mean by configuration
> utility at all? What is KConfig then? If you
> mean configuration utility for the whole
> system, this would really be a waste of time.
> One, that is not able to configure Linux
> system by hand (I mean, edit configuration
> files using vi or emacs) should not be
> considered Linux system administrator, IMHO.

I can see how system configuration in Kcontrol colud be useful. I would like to see a Kcontrol as the central konfiguration place, like the Control Panel in MS Windows. This is good for average users who don't have a Linux system administrator at home.

I know how to configure my kernel using xconfig, but I think it would be kool to do it from KDE!

by Hape Schaal (not verified)

Unfortunately the only possibility to vote for bugfixing (in particular "improving functionality") is to chose "stability".

Stability is IMHO already good. But there are many remaining bugs which prevent some KDE programs from being useful.

This is not meant as a bugreport - I know bugs.kde.org - anyhow here´s an example:

I would prefer Konsole before xterm, but there are a few important programs (joe, less over ssh) which don´t work well with Konsole - so I can´t use it.

Another example is kdvi. I always have to open new Documents with xdvi first since only xdvi creates missing fonts. Otherwise kdvi leaves out text. So to be sure I always have to use xdvi.

To use bugs as an argument is always critical: Perhaps it works for you?
But these are only examples to make clear that improving functionality by fixing bugs is IMHO more important than adding new features.

and don´t get me wrong: it´s great to get all these kde programs for free - but this is a wishlist, isn´t it? ;-)

Hape

Well,
in konsole you can try several options (schema's/modes ... keyboard)
also, the joe problem got fixed for me i don't know when. before it was fixed i used 'control-R' after starting up joe to fix it.
(btw, you can also try different export TERM=blabla settings)

English Grammar checker for Kword. And it would be nice if it also functioned as a stand alone package.

by eva (not verified)

To make KDE a full desktop system there surely must be a stable office package with resonable features (not necesseraly the same that M$ has...) and a lot of io filters (like latex input??).

Recently I worked with StarOffice to make a A0 poster for a presentation and while doing this a missed the following thing:
When I decided to change the font type and size, color, ... I always had to enter each text object, go through all the dialogs and change the attributes by hand. Very annoying work, if you have a lot of objects, which you usually have in posters or presentations.

So I thought it would be nice to be able to copy sets of attributes from one object to others. That made me aware of the fact, that I am quite often not very sure what attributes my objects really have, because they are hidden or several attributes can have the same effect. This is in contrast to latex where you always very well know, which environment you are in and which attributes your text/paragraph/picture/... has. (I really love latex!)

What I would like to suggest for koffice apps is an attribute editor and a hierarchy editor like the one in the QT designer. With the ability to copy and paste attributes

Thx,
eva

by Thomas Zander (not verified)

Hi, what you described here can be done simply with styles.

You create styles for each type of text, and changing the style changes the attributes of all text that uses that style.

So for instance you have a text with a piece of coding in between all the texts. This coding has to be in courier since it should be monospaced.

You go to the stylist (extra menu I think, changed recently in cvs) and create a new style, set all the settings you want for this style.

Then you select the paragraph you want this style to be used on and select the style you just created. (format->styles->your_style I think also changed recently in CVS)

Changing the style in the stylist later on will change all the texts that have that style in your whole document to reflect that change.

This is what we designed them for, perhaps you will find extra usage for them ;)

Speed, speed and once more speed. (Oh, and memory footprint).
IMHO KDE has enough features, and by adding new visual extras KDE is becoming very much like MS - improve system look, forgetting about speed and stability.

Boris

What I want ?

''Simple'' : Make KDE use LESS memory, LESS cpu-time !!!

Or, maybe, I prefer to have choice to disable some functionnalities ( Task Bar, Dock Panel, Icons on teh Desktop, and so much functionnalities, that I don't need everyday ) via a small utilitie which permit us to launch them as daemon, in order to make KDE more usable in a small configuration ...

And maybe, thinking to make KDE using more than 1 CPU ! ( paralellisate the code please ! )
Because, now, we see more and more powerful computer with multi-processors, and we have so uch powerful librares for this ! ( MPI, MOSIX, IPC ) ...

It's all ( I think, some of yours prefers to say : "" It's enough ! "" ;) )

PS: Great Job guys !

Speed, speed and once more speed. (Oh, and memory footprint).
IMHO KDE has enough features, and by adding new visual extras KDE is becoming very much like MS - improve system look, forgetting about speed and stability.

Boris

by Andreas Otto (not verified)

Hi,

some features i miss most :

KDE should use it's own package-system
the reason for this is:
1) be *independent* from different
Linux flafours
2) give the user an interface to the
local used package-system (rpm)
3) the internal dependencies are better
known by kde developers
4) create it's own auto-compilation
toolkit. today i download kdb 1.2.1
to compile it with SuSE7.1 nothing
works. I used (and compiled) it with
KDE 1 on Suse 6.* it was very good but
now i have nothing KDE2 but no kdbg.
Currently i download Insight5.0
It's an user-interface to gdb5.0 but
the download is 14 MB.

by Stuart Herring (not verified)

Why on earth would you want to create a situation where a user has to use one installer to install a KDE application, and another to install a non-KDE application?

What does that achieve except confusion?

by Andreas Otto (not verified)

Hi,

the confusion is made by the different Linux
flavours with inoperable package-system(s)

To use a KDE package system would be a way out
not in confusion.

KDE as the strongest single application environ
ment and has the power to do the job. They can
even use "rpm" which is bullet proof on Linux
but manage there own package database under
/opt/kde????

=> the goal for this is ...

be at most as possible independent of the
underlying Linux. You can call it

"Enemy Host Technology"

or never trust anything which you can't
control

mfg

aotto :)

by Johan (not verified)

I have not tested 2.1 yet, but one thing I missed in 2.0 was the possibility to mount a printer, or remote server directory by browsing among available.

Something like add printer, and map network drive in MS-Windows.

by Erik (not verified)

Have you tried CUPS? It was soo easy to add my printer! I could even see one of my neighbour's printer, her user name and job queue. I tried to print on it but I don't think the printing was completed. I couldn't check because I don't know which neighbour it was. There are 280 apartments in this building.

Printing on my own printer worked at least as well as with the old printing system I had, as far as I could tell from the test page.

I first tried version 1.1.6 but it messed up my printing system so I couldn't print. Then they released 1.1.7 and it worked!

by Johann Lermer (not verified)

KDE supports now several printing architectures directly, amongst them CUPS: You can create your printers directly with KConfig! But as for now, I'm still using Kups (have a look at Sourceforge) as it provides even better configurability of the printers.

by Michael Schulz (not verified)

The following things come to my mind:

- advance in Kvim, a Vim editor-part
- a port of gimp to kde/qt, including a rework of the userinterface
- first class javascripting
- a replacement of motif in java-awt

Regards
Micha.

"a port of gimp to kde/qt, including a rework of the userinterface"

You mean like Krayon? http://www.koffice.org/krayon/

Its not exactly a port, but it seems like if it matures, it could be all you want in an image manipulation program. Lots of thought has been going into the user interface. Disregard the screenshot on the website, I think it's from the ancient KDE 1 version!

"first class javascripting"

Every day Konqueror's Javascript improves. My 2.2alpha1 Konqueror runs several sites that don't work in 2.1.1. It is being actively worked on right now!

"advance in Kvim, a Vim editor-part"

Wow, tons of people want this! And the funny thing is, no one wants a KEmacs part! Do all KDE users like Vim or something?

Krayon is no GIMP, and will not be for a while. A Qt port of GIMP would be easy if it used GNOME canvas(which would be a bit of work), but after that your 90% done.

by Stuart Herring (not verified)

But what would be the point?

It would be a lot of effort to produce something that already exists...

It's not like you can't use the GIMP right now...

And Krayon will fit in with the look and feel philosophy of KDE more than the GIMP ever will.

Porting a GTK application the size of the Gimp to QT/KDE would be a huge task, and would probably end up taking longer to reach a similar level of functionality and stability to original GIMP than for Krayon to reach those levels.

And that's assuming that there's even anyone interesting in taking on such a task..

by sleepkreep (not verified)

I would love to see an advanced media player that acts and looks like windows media player 10. It should only use mplayer, not xine or xmms or any crap that doesn't work well with all distros. It should use mplayer as it is the only media player for linux that supports almost anything including all microsoft media formats right out of the box. However, it should not be a "front end" for mplayer. It should use mplayer code embeded in the application so it will work with any distro running kde without any compilation.

In my opinion, the most important "feature" for kde is speed. On my box (AMD K6/2 350) even the opening of a simple kwrite window takes about 3 seconds. Starting Konqueror (browser-mode) takes about 4-5 seconds. Even sluggy Netscape 4.7 starts up slightly faster.

Everytime I try to convince some members of the Windows - using communtiy of the many advantages of linux their first complaint is "oh it's so much slower than my windows". And indeed, on the same box und Windows the starting of Internet Explorer takes less than a second.

The startup of Kde (after logging in) takes about as long as the whole startup of Windows.

Another important feature I'd like to see added is a much improved support for DOM, CSS and Javascript in khtml, especially the possibility to manipulate the page (DOM) dynamically via Javascript after it has been loaded. This is usually called DHTML and is still very incomplete, at least in the KDE 2.1.1 - version I last tested. I believe this to be very important for the future of the internet, especially for the fight against non-standard, semi-open technologies like Flash etc.

Other cool features for khtml/Konqueror would be:
- support for TRUE alpha shading with png - graphics
- support for vector graphics on html pages (SVG)
- Python scripting additional to Javascript!!! Javascript is a really ugly language and I heard about a Python scripting ability to be implemented in Mozilla.