In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: "Pencils down" marks the end of the Summer of Code for 2007. Python highlighting support, with work on a new, handwritten lexer in KDevelop. A data engine and associated Plasma applet for KGet. Start of the Plasma-based Wikipedia and Service Info applets for Amarok 2. Wikipedia integration, and other improvements in the Step physics simulation package. A console added to KAlgebra. New graphical themes for KGoldRunner. XMP metadata support in Digikam. More progress in the unobtrusive search dialog for Kate. Usability work across many applications. No mixer functionality in Phonon for KDE 4.0. The start of development on KChart 2.
Dot Categories:
Comments
that makes three things, not the two you imply with both ;-)
hehe
Pretty cool stuff, I must say...
Oh my god, it happens again. The KDE file manager becomes a big mess. Why does a file manager for common people need 2327423 view modes? Why can't the nerds who like split view just install Krusade? Why does Dolphin need columns view? To please those 5 people who use it in Mac OS X and have to use Linux on another PC?
Look at Thunar. That's file manager for non-nerds.
I don't think Dolphin was ever meant to be a file manager for people that don't know how to use a file manager.
I thought it was meant to be a file manager that was _only_ a file manager, and therefore very good at being a file manager.
Also, I think people vastly under estimate the abilities of 'non nerds'.
First we complain about Dolphin lacking features and being a Nautilus-clone (no offense). Now we complain that it's too complex.
I too was skeptical first, but now I really like Dolphin. Might even use it as my default in KDE4 (sorry Konqueror).
+1
I hope only that it's possible to de-activate Dolphin and re-activate Konqueror as file manager.
If that should not be the fall, I think I will first try to work as long as possible with KDE3 and then I will give a chance to Gnome.
> Why does Dolphin need columns view?
The columns view is useful when you have deep hierarchies to browse through. For example, I usually use the standard icon view in Dolphin, with files grouped by type. When browsing my local KDE source tree however I use the columns view. Dolphin remembers the view mode for each directory automatically, so usually it will be at the right view when I go into a directory, without me needing to change the view.
I see trolling about Dolphin quite frequently on the dot, but I get the impression that this is from users who have not actually used the KDE 4 version of Dolphin. My personal experience (as a 'power user') is that it works pretty well in practise and the attention to getting the UI right really shows in comparison to Konqueror.
Well, I was skeptic about Dolphin when it was first announced that it would replace Konqueror as the default file manager especially when comparing Dolphin3 and Konqueror3 but during the recent months my opinion about Dolphin4 turned pretty much by 180 degree (especially due to trying out the SVN version) and now I'm really looking forward to it. And that many improvements find their way into Konqueror via the Dolphin part is just the icing on the cake.
Great job!
How does optional viewing modes ruin the file manager for you?
You want a basic default view? You got it.
Other people want choice, and you think everyone should be limited solely to what you want?
Yeah, that's right, I also can hardly understand why so many people say, feature XY won't be used by normal users, so it won't be implemented into Dolphin. A file manager should work exactly the way I want. Sure, the default config shouldn't confuse beginners, but it should be flexible, why not make a plugin-infrastructure like in firefox?
I have about 50 plugins for Firefox and use every one of them (although only 10 of them are really important).
So, if I want to use tabs in file management, why are there so many people claiming, that it's of no use? For me it is (in contrast to the split feature). If I drag a file to a tab and its content is immediately shown, I can drop the file there or even drop it in a folder of that tab. So I don't need so many different file managers open all the time, because THAT is really annoying (especially when doing alt+tab or the cool compiz scale feature and there are so many windows of the same app).
That is what konqueror is. So go and use it (just like I will). And if you want even MORE, then there is Krusader.
The point of Dolphin is this:
- years and years, people complained konqi was too complex.
- the developers tried to remedy that
- but it didn't work. Being so powerful inevitably meant SOME UI bloat. Things could be improved, but only to a certain point.
So, Dolphin was written to provide a basic fileMANAGER. Not browser (so no embedded views and such). Not with all the stuff, plugins and extensions and tabs Konqueror has. Just basic, usable, efficient.
OK?
So, what you describe has been possible in KDE for 6 years. Drag'n'drop a text file in the empty tab bar in konqi, and it opens it embedded. Worked for years. But that's simply not what Dolphin is meant to be. So back off, use Konqi, dump firefox (slow, bloated and inefficient anyway, how dare you criticize KDE technology while using such inferior crap?) and be happy.
Firefox isn't all that bad, but I agree I wish it was better. Theres a lot of things, like the downthemall extention, that konqi is badly missing. Anyway, how do you dare expect people to use kde stuff exclusively, when there is lots of good software out there? Free software!
But thats beside the point. If you look at konqi, there is a button for the babel fish extention even if file browsing mode. Its useful, but it should be buried behind service menus and such. Its clutter when its on the toolbars. But thats no reason to get rid of it! The same story with tabs.
I like Konqueror and even after Kubuntu changed default file manager to Dolphin I'm still using Konqueror. It's just better. Especially the tabs. I do not need these left and right sides. As noted above there's Krusader already for split view.
Regarding the status bar that shows how much space is free (e.g. 215.5 GiB free), is there an option to make it simply 215.5 GB free? I thought GB was the standard abbreivation for gigabytes, but even if the other one is standard usage it would be nice to have either option. Apart from that, I think Dolphin looks fantastic!
> is there an option to make it simply 215.5 GB free?
No, but the change would be trivial to make. I think GiB is the more 'correct' if you are being pedantic about it, but yes, KB/MB/GB are more standard.
GiB is actually sort-of a standard. There is a difference between GiB and GB. A GiB is 2^20 bytes, while a GB is 10^6 bytes. In the world of computers, with the exception of hard drive manufacturers, we are used to using the 2^n way of working, hence the GiB. This difference is one of the reasons your 500GB harddrive doesn't look like 500G(i)B in your OS. I think using GiB is the best way to go.
It is SO not "sort of" a standard. It's more correct, but not used much. End of story.
Don't be lame.
Yeah. GiBi is more accurate than GB.
Look here for reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
Not that it matters much to most people but when you try a (http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/orbiter_errorupd_093099.htm) mars landing it is kind of important to pay attention to units and prefixes.
I like pushing the proper standard on people. Force them to use the right terminology, so they actually learn. If/when you add GB/MB/kB/TB, please make sure it fits the standard:
Ti,Gi,Mi,Ki -> powers of 2^10
T, G, M, k -> powers of 10^3
It'll save those of us in the know a lot of confusion in the long run.
Up until very recently GB (in the realm of computers) meant what GiB means now. Probably if hard drive manufacturers hadn't insisted on trying to bend the existing de-facto computer standard GB would still mean GB.
> Up until very recently GB (in the realm of computers) meant what GiB means now.
> Probably if hard drive manufacturers hadn't insisted on trying to bend the
> existing de-facto computer standard GB would still mean GB.
Except that this wasn't only the HDD maker: in the telecom industry a kilobauds is 1000b/s not 1024b/s.
Overloading kilo and giga was a bad idea, so let's get rid of bad ideas, sure it's painful in the short term, but in the long term, it'll be better.
AFAIK
1 gigabyte=1 GB=10^9 bytes
1 gibibyte=1 GiB=2^30 bytes
Is there any change to use Kate with an ncurses interface? Or is there any other editor for those of use who don't want to use VI.
When I start kate from the commandline just to edit a config file it takes too much time to start up and you always get these X error messages (don't know how to suppress them).
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
Major opcode: 147
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
Major opcode: 147
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
I would really like to have a fast editor with syntax highlighting that compares to the good old times with TurboC like IDEs and has the functionality of Kate. Kate is fine but when I want to edit the commandline I need a simple editor in "text mode".
Sure, MC also has a built in editor.
What's wrong in pico / nano?
link?
Nano is in the repository of every distribution I've used, it's installed by default in Debian and Debian-based distributions. Settings are in /etc/nanorc (don't forget to uncomment syntax highlighting).
yast2 -i nano
oder
apt-get update && apt-get install nano
oder
urpmi nano
oder
emerge nano
ich denke das wars (hoffe hab mich nicht geirrt ^^)
projekthomepages: http://www.nano-editor.org/
http://picogui.org/
mfg, Bernhard
apt-get install pico
I guess it's an Xserver config problem,
for a fast fix try:
1) Backup your configuration: open a terminal and write:
sudo cp -a /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
2) Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf : open a terminal and write:
kdesu kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf
3) Comment out problematic entries. Replace:
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
compare them to kwrite/kate? Anyway, Ive been using MCedit for a long time, it's pretty nice and basic. Now I'm a vi user...
That is Kubuntus fault, due to the nonexisting Wacom tablet device in xorg.conf
These errors are because your X.org file has tablet support, but you don't have a tablet. Remove those sections from xorg.conf and the errors disappear.
Simple answer: no, there is not. Kate is very much build agains all the (GUI) goodness that Qt and KDE have to offer. You can't expect the developers to split that all off again, especially since there are many, many excellent console-based text editors already (pico, nano, vi, emacs, etc...)
Also, for suppressing error messages, you can run a program like this: program >/dev/null 2>&1
I recently whipped up a script to do that called "stfu" (attached).
I guess you're using Kubuntu Feisty? That's a well know problem with X being set up to have a wacom tablet when you don't, if you search the Ubuntu forums you'll find advice on how to edit xorg.conf to fix it.
John.
You probably don't need to install nano because it's probably already on board... try "which nano" in a shell to find out. I use this alias in my .bashrc file and I would suggest it's the fastest and simplest console based editor available... both to type and start, and also to save and quit...
# alias e
alias e='nano -w -t -x -c -R '
so you type "e filename" to edit something (can't be any simpler than that) and then control-x to save and quit (I would struggle to suggest anything quicker and simpler than that too). "nano --help" for more command line suggestions and obviously "man nano" for an extended explanation of most commands. And here is an example of using a more complex nano based alias to provide a very simple shell based notes system which is handy for pasting special commands or any notes you may need later on...
# alias note
alias note='echo -e "-- $(date) --\n\n\n\n$(< ~/notes)" > ~/notes && e +3 ~/notes'
It creates a file called "notes" in your home directory so you can do something like "head ~/notes" to see the last couple of entries. I first created these 2 aliases nearly 10 years ago (pre-nano with pico) and still use them nearly every day.
Try FTE if you don't like vi etc. My advice is learn vi, though --- I avoided it for years, but it only took me a few days to learn and prefer it for all my editing, once I really tried. Now, if only the KDE-based vim was in debian :/
I was exited in seeing the replacement of kicker this week as it was said the work began last week.
It seems to be much more work than a simple plasmoid, thought, gess we need to wait for a few weeks more.
Oh, and unfortunately, seeing the start of kchart make me feel a bit less atracted by KOffice, as I recently discovered Latex/Kile. Then I hope Kile could be integrated into KO as a WISIWIW text editor, side by side with the WISIWIG KWord for the other kind of people ;)
Oh, and digikam seems evolving quickly, it was not so long ago that the XMP support was started if I am not mistaken by the poll on the digikam blog. And that I waited for long :
Marcel Wiesweg committed changes in /trunk/extragear/graphics/digikam/libs/database:
Add a preliminary implementation of a CollectionManager that supports multiple album roots and uses Solid for detecting if a particular path is available or not.
With that, I'dd hope it's possible to share albums on an (s)ftp/fish/smb/nfs share somewere, and more interesting, on flickr or picassa spaces.
a good week. congrats to everyone working on the BDE (best desktop ever)
"With that, I'dd hope it's possible to share albums on an (s)ftp/fish/smb/nfs share somewere"
actually, first thing that came to my mind was an ability to do that with cd/dvd media...
now THAT would be pretty cool, if possible to do.
Solid provides a UUID for storage volumes. If this can be used to uniquely identify CD/DVDs, we can support that. But things will evolve step by step.
What do you mean by WISIWIW?
If you like Latex, but would like a more WYSIWYG or WYMIWYG type interface, take a look at lyx. It is based on Latex, but offers a more graphical representation of your document.
Well, one of the things I love with LaTeX is the quality of the doc produced.
But second to that is the WISIWIW thing :)
So LyX doesn't apeal to me.
What I wanted to say is that beeing able to import Kcharts, or Kivios doc would be nice. Alow to work with Kspread to do 'text' tables ( I mean, without the latex $...$) but enjoying the formulas calculation.
This is what I do:
Use KWord for WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Useful for quickly drafting documents with fairly complex formatting. eg. resumes (should be an accent on the 'e'), simple flyers, etc.
Use LyX for WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean). Useful for fairly short papers with consistent formatting. It's easier to depart from standard LaTeX formatting, like when you need to quickly set margins, or ensure that figure frames are drawn after the position you created them, etc. It also provides a nice visual for editing. (used for small school papers, etc.)
Use Kile mainly for markup reference, but also for long papers, or ones with a template set up. It's not as good for stuff with a fast approaching deadline, but gives more control, and adds less stuff to the document markup.
I absolutly LOVE entering math equations in LyX, because it has visualisation as you enter it. If I was working in Kile, I'd open up LyX, just to do the math and copy it over.
What's great is that they're all KDE based technologies. Kile and LyX are also the best LaTeX based editors I've tried.
---
As for KChart, I've been disappointed with it in the past, because it didn't have XY-scatter. I ended up using gnumeric, which had a very goodchart formatting tool as well. KChart is one of the projects I'd like to get involved in once I get more time and experience for programming.
PS. Searching for Latex in google actually came up with the LaTeX home page as the first result.
I forgot to mention that my understanding is the Kicker replacement is taking longer, because it's a container, not a plasmoid.
Plasmoids (clock, weather, etc.) go into the containers (desktop, panel, media centre), and change their appearance accordingly. I would think it takes more work to set up a container than most plasmoids.
KChart 2.0 will have scatter graphs.
And it's a very good time to start helping out with KChart right now, since we're just starting to get into gear. You should start by checking out the koffice module (trunk/koffice) and read the file koffice/kchart/DESIGN. That should give you an overview. Then you can take a look at the very detailed TODO file and find something to work on.
Unfortunately LyX does not use KDE technologies, just Qt.
I would like to suggest an idea for KDE 'start menu'.
After I saw kroller, I think it can be a good start point for a 'start menu' replacement. If you press the KDE 'start menu' all the entries are icons and text, so why not to start another kroller bar with this icons when the KDE button is pressed ?
I'm using Opensuse 10.2, the 'start menu' display "Favorites", "History", "Computer", "Applications", "Leave". The idea is to use an application like kroller with this entries and when one of the icons is clicked another bar, upper the initial, will display the icons for this selection, for example if I click "Favorites" the new bar will display "Firefox", "Amarok", "Konsole", "Konqueror" and "OpenOffice".
Well it's just an idea.
kopete used to be one of the kde killer apps. where is it now? i see nearly no news on it's developement. sure, even in it's current state it's ok, but for many windows users a good msn implementation is one of THE killer features. currently webcam support is more than buggy, and audio doesnt work at all.
I'm not complaining, i'm sure the developers are coding on kopete (things like telepathy integration etc), but there are no news on it. somebody knows more?
The only thing I know is that it won't be ready for KDE 4.0 but only for 4.1 - and you're right, it feels a bit abandoned :(
kopete devs should have joined gaim a long time ago. a qt interface for gaim and *one* open-source messenger to rule them all would be great. but it seems the oss camp loves doing the same work 10 times instead of once... o.O