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

by Dennis Hostetler (not verified)

I'd really like to be able to have KMail render HTML mail with only text formatting. No images, javascript, cookies etc. Qualcomm's Eudora has an internal HTML renderer that does this and I really miss it. With it you can read HTML mail without the security/privacy problems associated with accessing resources external to the machine.

by Michael O'Henly (not verified)

Please, please, please...do this:

Make it possible to edit bookmards "in place" at the time they're added to Konqueror. Perhaps the "Add bookmark" command pop up an edit box so that you can fiddle with the label. Too often a page is named something incomprehensible or too long to be useful. When you add a bookmark, you then have to fire up "Edit bookmarks", find the damn thing, and then edit its name. It would be s-o-o-o nice not to have to do this. ;-)

(Yes, I have submitted this as a wishlist item...)

I'd like to see a consistent copy and paste mechanism in all of the KDE applications, including terminal applications and Netscape. Integration of this mechangism into gnome as well as KDE would be nice.

by klaus berbach (not verified)

Maybe a "Metascript" for installing KDE from sources. Like choosing which software should be installed (base system apart) and wether alsa (native) alsa (oss) or oss should be used, wether cups or lpd should be used. And, of course, where KDE should be installed and a field for optional CFLAGS.
Could be similar to the curses based kernelconfig or "make config" from the i4l package.

Even if there is no "Meta Script", would be nice to choose for the single packages. Most ppl don´t need 3 Editors or all the games, but would like some of them.

Would just make life a bit easier (especially taking the releasecycles of KDE into account) for people who prefer to compile themselves.

Even if compiling has the reputation of being only for somewhat advanced users, and it is no real problem to change into that corresponding dir for "make install", such a "source installer" would speed things up a bit and would be distribution independend anyway.

by Andrew Yochum (not verified)

1. IMAP Support in KMail
2. Efficient support for large mailboxes (5,000+ messages) in KMail w/ and w/o IMAP.

by Desktop-specifi... (not verified)

One of the reasons I keep switching back between WindowMaker and KDE as my preferred desktop, is that WindowMaker has icons that are specific to a desktop. Switch to desktop one, and you have Terminals - switch to desktop 2, and you have various editors, desktop 3: various internet apps, etc.

by Werner Joss (not verified)

IMO, one of the most important features still missing in KDE is the lack of a comprehensive
installer, which 1st analyses the system to install to, 2nd asks some questions what the user wants (packages, w/o java support...) and then decides how to proceed - included
a brief description of what to do when something
that is reqiured to install the desired components is missing.
watching the kde-user mailing list, one can clearly see that most questions posted are around this issue.
KDE itself is already very good, stable, with many, many features - keep on the excellent work !

by Waily Yang (not verified)

As Quanta (a very great html editor) have a configurable toolbar with add shell script support.
For Konqueror itself, it will be better to have configurable toolbar action ...

For example, when we view a Japanese page, we may want to translate it to English, then we
can go Mozilla's translate function ....

However if we have a tool in our computer (Under Unix, it like to be a shell script) , we can pipe
the input from current document and get the output after that action .... (Quanta does this) ..

Another example is, if we have many xml files, we can look it directly, but will only have default
view of that xml. But if we can write a XLST, and write a shell script (by perl or php or anything!)
We can use different XLST to transfer that xml file and have a very powerful viewer ...

More over, if some one have a transcoder for ms'd doc, we can adapt that program and even able
to read a doc file ......

And we may establish a collection web site for other
contribution of these scripts or even take them as a
plug-in ..... Then all new feature will no-longer hard
code by core KDE developer but all KDE programmers
or even a normal User .....

Thanks for you and all of your
great works on KDE and

Konqueror !!!!!

--
Waily Yang
http://Waily.warp.com.tw
Software Engineer in DigitalSesame, Taiwan

by Michael Will (not verified)

Speed in startup and shutdown. I have only tried kde 2.1.0 so far, but its time to get you to work after logging in and especially to have you ready to leave the terminal after selecting "logout" are just very long compared to simple fvwm2 type enviroments.
In fact after selecting logout, it just puts the grayed screen back to normal as if I had selected cancel, and I can continue to work for at least a minute before it then suddenly does shut everything down and logs me off. That means I cannot just click on logoff and leave, I have to wait until it is safe to leave.
And when I quickly want to read my email I tend to go to the ascii console now because KDE just takes too long. (I use 1 minute on the console and 5 minutes on KDE)

Maybe some resources could be loaded delayed and less sequentialized.

Maybe there could be a "quick unsafe logoff" option that does just "kill -1 -1" for nonroot users. I created an icon on my desktop to do just that and it helps. (I never lost anything, and I do only use it if I do not want any background processes of mine running after logoff.)

by Harald Nikolisin (not verified)

Which people do mostly work with Linux? IMO thats professionals, programmers and advanced people. Such people doesn't need any gimmick, which ruins the stability of the basic functions of file-managment.

An example, on day Linux crashed and I have to reboot. After that, Konquerer doesn't start anymore. The solution was deleting some files in the .kde2/share/apps/konquerer directory. Also the update from KDE 2.01 to 2.1 was an horror-trip. After that KDE always flooded the system with IO/Slaves error-messages and refuse working.

What we need is stability, stability, stability of the basic functions..
Only then I could say to customers: look at this beautiful Application running on a stable unix/linux desktop!

But above all, I do not forget what KDE did for the community... thanks!

by Thomas Philips (not verified)

May I frame the question somewhat differently:

The costs of using an operating system/operating environment can be broken down into two parts.

1.Fixed costs (or acquisition costs).
2.Variable costs (or the cost of maintaining the product).

People commonly focus on the fixed costs (which have been reduced to 0 by the Linux/KDE/... revolution) but ignore variable costs, which can be surprisingly high (a few years ago, the variable cost of a PC was estimated to be about $6,000/annum). Variable costs get driven up in a number of ways - stability, upgradability, ease of use, the need for new users to be trained, the availability of help, the ease with which computers can be added, removed or configured on a network all contribute.

One way to think about Apple's value proposition is in terms of relatively high fixed costs for relatively low variable costs.

Today, fixed costs keep dropping while variable costs keep increasing.

It is time for KDE to attack the variable cost question - what features would simplify the lives of administrators and users and minimize the cost of running KDE in an office environment?

Konq features I'd like to see:

In addition to bookmarks it would be great if there was a "stack" that I could throw links onto for later perusal. Once a stacked link is selected, it is removed from the stack. Thus I can stack up interesting links without having to stop reading or mucking up my more permanent bookmarks.

Secondly, as I am on a slow connection, it would be a nice feature to "queue" a link for download. The links in the queue are downloaded n at a time, where n is dynamically determined by connection load or configurable to some maximum value.

by Mark Webb (not verified)

1. speed in startup/shutdown
2. kmail to support POP3 over SSL.
3. konquerer to have a home button that points to a URL, not ~home. maybe it can do this now, not sure??
4. Kdevelop to be able to import multiple files at a time and update the makefiles for all the files being imorted.
5. an installer. similar to red-carpet.

Improved Speed, Reduced Memory Consumption and better integrated FreeBSD support.

by Paul Templeton (not verified)

I would like to see standardisation of back end services such a a single place to store and access fonts.

by Karl Fischer (not verified)

Hi,
I would like a callback utility with KDE2.2
I don't know whether you could configure kppp for callback.

Keep on doing the great work!!! I'll use KDE till the day I die.

Karl

by Havard Bjastad (not verified)

What KDE really needs is an easy installer/updater, like GNOME has with Ximian's Red Carpet. After using Red Carpet, going through the installation procedure of KDE is a nightmare.

This whole thing about configuration has made me think... Some thinks that its a KDE issue to make them, and yet others think its a Distro issue. I think this whole deal goes both ways. First KDE needs to make the "frame" for configuration of eg apache, monitor, lilo and so forth. Then the Distros need to make a module that mathc their specific file-structure (and other things):

X-Linux:
{
NAME=XMOD
VERSION=3.3.6
CFG=/etc/XF86Config
DRIVER=SomeScriptThatCanFindTheRightLineAndChangeIt
}

Y-Linux:
{
NAME=XMOD
VERSION=4.0.2
CFG=/etc/X11/XF86Config-4
DRIVER=SomeScriptThatCanFindTheRightLineAndChangeIt
}

This will (in my mind) make two things happen: A: its easyer to write a module with some info/scripting than it is to write a conf-util, thus they will rely on KDE (and not GTK) for conf'ing. B: since a coherent system is now awailable to all Distros they will rapidly c that its a good thing to make the distros more similar, since this will allow them to use eachother's mods for configuration.

Thats just my two cent... but i think its a cool thought ;-)

/kidcat

This whole thing about configuration has made me think... Some thinks that its a KDE issue to make them, and yet others think its a Distro issue. I think this whole deal goes both ways. First KDE needs to make the "frame" for configuration of eg apache, monitor, lilo and so forth. Then the Distros need to make a module that mathc their specific file-structure (and other things):

X-Linux:
{
NAME=XMOD
VERSION=3.3.6
CFG=/etc/XF86Config
DRIVER=SomeScriptThatCanFindTheRightLineAndChangeIt
}

Y-Linux:
{
NAME=XMOD
VERSION=4.0.2
CFG=/etc/X11/XF86Config-4
DRIVER=SomeScriptThatCanFindTheRightLineAndChangeIt
}

This will (in my mind) make two things happen: A: its easyer to write a module with some info/scripting than it is to write a conf-util, thus they will rely on KDE (and not GTK) for conf'ing. B: since a coherent system is now awailable to all Distros they will rapidly c that its a good thing to make the distros more similar, since this will allow them to use eachother's mods for configuration.

Thats just my two cent... but i think its a cool thought ;-)

/kidcat

Better international support. I use cyrillic and KDE behaves strange when typing cyrillic letters (but may be this is a problem of X or QT?). Also better koffice; Curently there is no office package for Linux/Unix that can work with cyrillic without monts of hacking, installing fonts etc.

by Greebo_Brat (not verified)

Speed and system integration ( consistant and easy hardware / desktop configuration ).

GNOME and KDE have gotten slower =/ almost to the point where windows is getting faster on the same hardware. Ok I'm comparing KDE 2.11 to Windows NT on a 96MB P 266MMX ( the best I could get out of my employers =) but still, KDE 2.11 is beginnning to feel like a heavily loaded windows NT system ( as to say slow ).

Some other integration ( such as easy to make links to programs on the desktop and the menu ) would make things easier as well.

Some kind of structure that could be shared with GNOME as well could be a good move ( such as KDE and GNOME working together to provide automatic mirroring of menu / desktop configs so the distro doesnt have to do that ).

by lince (not verified)

For users that are depending on compilation and slower machines <= 500 Mhz, the KDE is a real real pain to compile.

I want to suggest the birth of KDELight. The light desktop, packed in a single tarball up to 9 MB, containing the basic components like window manager, internet dialer, and file manager. Exclude mail client, browser, and other stuff.

by 1c3d0g (not verified)

Well...your prayers have been answered. There's a new distro called PocketLinux which has a KDE Light desktop. Check it out below:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pocket

by jason (not verified)

Yea , How the heck do you get the KDE light desktop to even start up in pocket linux...???

I've tried and tried but i get nothing...!

Is it supposed to start up automaticaly...?

by Hairy (not verified)

try typing in "startx" ?