In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Plasma applets can now be dragged from the desktop to the panel. More internet data sources for the Picture Frame and Comic Plasmoids. Configuration dialogs are added to many Plasmoids. The in-development "WorldClock" Plasmoid supercedes the KWorldClock standalone application. A new Plasma applet: Conway's Game of Life. KRunner becomes completely plugin-based. Support for editing GPS track lists in Digikam. More work on expanding theming capabilities across KDE games. A variety of enhancements in KOrganizer. Initial work on a web interface to control downloads in KGet. Work on paths and snap guides in Karbon. A HTML part plugin in the scripting application creator, Kommander. Mono (C#) KDE bindings reach a usable state. Python support in KDevelop4. A return to development work on Decibel. KMail gets a new maintainer, with already-noticeable improvements. KBluetooth and KRecipes begin to be ported to KDE 4. The game Kollision moves from playground/games to kdereview. A new game, KDiamond, is imported into KDE SVN. Read the rest of the Digest here.
Comments
My wish list:
- global key shortcuts for apps (opening dolphin with win+e) in kmenuedit
- fix double-click for desktop icons
- port quanta+ (I am a web developer after all)
- quick launch plasmoid
- way to move plasmoids of place in the panel
- add more alternative plasmoids into KDE like Network Graph and Coremoid
- better app launcher menu (the suse one.. I don't like)
Actually a very short list. I could add some improvements in oxygen, but this will soon be fixed in kde-look by people porting their styles and windows decorations soon ;)
- global key shortcuts - no kiddin', this has been in KDE since at least 5 years?!? There seem to be some bugs in there, but those should/could be reported at bugs.kde.org
- the plasma stuff - yeah, probably all planned but not done yet ;-)
- quanta needs more developers...
I've read quite some time ago (at least a year or so) that the KDE4 version of Quanta will be based on KDevelop. If that's still true, that means no Quanta before KDevelop 4.0
Yes, it is planned for KDE 4.1.
Too bad because it's one of the best tools (the same goes for kdevelop) that exitsts for KDE.
+++ to quicklaunch.
- fix double-click for desktop icons
already fixed. it works just fine here, so either you're waiting on an updated set of packages or.. i dunno. but this works.
- quick launch plasmoid
alt-f2 isn't quick enough? ;) i know what you mean though and there is already a wishlist for it on bugs.k.o. i'm sure it'll end up in at some point.
- way to move plasmoids of place in the panel
already there, just trickier for the user than it needs to be (will be improved)
- add more alternative plasmoids into KDE like Network Graph and Coremoid
talk to their authors to talk to us to get them moved into svn.
- better app launcher menu (the suse one.. I don't like)
there's the traditional menu one if you prefer that.
Is the new KBluetooth going to be Solid Based?
This is what was said on the solid planning, but honestly I still don't know if the current implementation of kbluetooth4 uses it or blueZ.
Hello all !
Thanks a lot for the great job with Kde4. It's amazing and i think than it's a revolution for the Desktop and free sofware. I think that in some months and with the usability increasing with the coming of 4.1 or 4.2 people will more easily switching from windows and i will encourage my friends to do that.
I'm a every day user of KDE 4.0 and for me the mosts annoyings things in working with it is the usability of Konqueror or Dolphin. Which are both promising too however.
Some very useful functionality are missing like cut and paste files (i can cut but can't paste ?!), don't have the "move to" action with the popup menu when i right click (and other missing actions like archive functionality) and more annoying when i do the right click the file is automatically open (is it a bug ?).
In a other way i was thinking of the best way to have a quick launch feature for favorites apps.
Is it possible to have an other panel, dedicated or not for quick launch action (after all it can be use for other functionnality), in the left of the Desktop (a vertical panel). This Panel will appear when the mouse come to the left board of the panel only when we need it to use it, so it is not invasive for the screen.
So we can have a lot of icons for launch apps whe can reach with just one click.
I think that it would be great to increase the "user experience".
Best regards
I think that it would be great to increase the "user experience".
I mind :
I think that THIS would be great to increase the "user experience".
Sorry for my poor english
> Some very useful functionality are missing like cut and paste
> files (i can cut but can't paste ?!),
I cannot reproduce this issue (tested with KDE 4.0.0, KDE 4.0.1 and trunk). Could you tell me which distribution packages you are using?
> don't have the "move to" action with the popup menu when
> i right click (and other missing actions like archive functionality)
We are aware about this and hopefully can enable this again in 4.1 (it is not straight forward to port this from KDE 3.x to KDE 4 and needs some time).
> and more annoying when i do the right click the file
> is automatically open (is it a bug ?).
This is also not reproducible, but we got several bug reports about this and it turned out being a distribution specific problem on Kubuntu. I don't know whether this has been fixed already by updated packages.
I'm on Kubuntu too, hardy release(kde 4.0.1).
Sorry for the bad report if it's a distribution specific problem :op
> Some very useful functionality are missing like cut and paste
> files (i can cut but can't paste ?!),
I'm on gentoo and have exactly the same problem. I can drag and drop but cannot cut/copy and then paste. If i click the right mouse button in the same window the paste option is greyed out, and in a different window the paste option is not even shown.
I also have problems with opening/saving new files files with sftp in at least kate & kwrite. If one navigates to the file and tries to open a messages displays saying the file does not exist, ut it's clearly removed the entire path to the file. Very frustrating
> Is it possible to have an other panel, dedicated or not for quick launch action
> (after all it can be use for other functionnality), in the left of the Desktop
> (a vertical panel).
you can already do this, but it is not exposed in the UI yet.
> This Panel will appear when the mouse come to the left board of the panel only
> when we need it to use it, so it is not invasive for the screen.
this is coming.
One of the KDE components that as yet remains little changed in KDE4 is KDM. I know that GNOME & Ubuntu have great things planned for GDM. For anyone who hasn't seen, their mockup for a new "face browser" looks amazing: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/GdmFaceBrowser
Will it be possible to implement something similar to this in KDM using good ol' Plasma? It would also be cool to have some widgets on your login screen e.g. a clock, liquid weather. Are any such plans in the works?
Also, I loved the Digest and I was especially interested in the KDiamond story (Plasma article was also great reading). Thanks everybody!
That face browser looks really nice. Too bad it uses opengl which, if I'm not mistaken, needs hardware 3d acceleration.
There's also bullet-proof-x stuff that would be nice to put in kdm
Hmm.. I don't agree. That looks flashy, but I really don't see the point. You can already click on a user icon in KDM (and I assume GDM as well) and then just type in the password, so that is nothing new. Then there is the filtering part, which is really not very useful. I would hazard a guess that most people have a maximum of about 5 users on the system, so filtering is useless there anyway.
If you're running a community machine you might have hundreds of logins, so once again it is useless (not to mention 90% of those won't have images so it won't look nearly as nice as in the mockups.
I'm not against making KDM look nicer and cleaning it up a bit, but I don't see the value in a login manager requiring opengl and having filtering and stuff. The login manager is there to log in quickly, not to sift through pictures of other people that have accounts on the machine.
not to mention, the usability goes way down when there is that many pictures displayed. give me a break. Like you mentioned, with most people not adding their picture there would be repeated graphics and less savvy users would just get confused.
KDM really does need to be extensable. In particular, for allowing a tv,radio, etc control. It would be useful to have the ability to meld it with mythtv. That allows a terminal to serve as more than just a login terminal.
If you want to use MythTV, why not just use MythTV?
beauty has value of it's own, but why should KDE imitate GNOME? there should be a beautiful login screen, but that doesn't mean it should lose functionality-wise or that users wouldn't have a choice.
@John Tapsell: From what I hear, bulletproof-x will find its way into kubuntu hardy or hardy+1, as it may be integrated into Xorg itself rather than *DM (Bryce Harrington's blog: http://www.bryceharrington.org/drupal/node/38). The only thing KDE would need is an equivalent to display-config-gtk, which in any case was ported from KDE's guidance tools. So the wait may soon be over!
@Leo S, mike: I guess maybe OpenGL could be overkill, especially if it bogs down the startup time. If there were tens/hundreds/thousands of users, then this screen would probably not fulfil its mission. But KDM development at the moment seems to have flatlined, so maybe if a developer with extra time was reading this (I wish) then it could inspire him/her to implement some innovations.
@yman: Indeed, KDE should not imitate Gnome for imitation's sake, but there's nothing wrong with getting some inspiration from friends.
KDM is obviously not as critically needy of workers as the rapidly developing Plasma or Kwin, but hopefully it will also get some lovin from a bright gearhead. Peace.
WHile I am not working on KDM, I started work on a *dm designer. Sadly, I got busy with life, and will have to restart it. But in the end, I would like to see kdm be easily extensible. Being able to use the terminal for more than just a login is useful.
who knows, it looks like I am picking up a perm job with a company that designs equipment based on linux. Perhaps, I will be able to find the time to re-do kdm at the same time (though do not count on it).
Good luck with the new job. Yes, time for hobbies is a bit difficult to get, isn't it.
"@yman:..."
exactly what I mean. don't copy others, learn from them.
It's my understanding that KDM will become a plasmoid also :-)
There is a mockup but I don't know what it will look like when it's converted to a plasmoid.
Shawn.
Sounds awesome :) Thanks for the info.
I think first and foremost KDM should remain secure and robust, so I'd dare to say that integrating it with libplasma or merging in flashy openGL effects for the sake of it would be insane ATM.
That said, I could do with some updates in order to reflect the new use cases. My pet whim is support for fingerprint readers. It's been reported for ages, but no one seems to tackle this bug/wish/whatever. GDM can handle fingerprint logon just fine.
Perhaps the devs don't see it as a must-have feature (since not all computers have embedded sensors). But, to put it on another light: it's not *just* fingerprint readers, but all of the upcoming biometric/smartcard/multi-token security features of which we'll be soon seing a surge, specially in corporate environments.
Also, it'd be nice to have KDM auto-unlock KWallet. Single Sign-on, anyone?
> Also, it'd be nice to have KDM auto-unlock KWallet. Single Sign-on, anyone?
If you are satisfied with protection through login, you can always use a password-less wallet.
>>Perhaps the devs don't see it as a must-have feature (since not all computers have embedded sensors). But, to put it on another light: it's not *just* fingerprint readers, but all of the upcoming biometric/smartcard/multi-token security features of which we'll be soon seing a surge, specially in corporate environments.
Well, I've been selling two-factor authentication solutions for almost a decade, mostly RSA's, and I'm still waiting for the surge in corporate environments that everyone has been talking about for years now. Was supposed to happen with the dot-com, then it was supposed to happen with SarBox, and now compliance is the alleged driver. The fish still aren't biting... ;)
Having said that, it would be nice to see KDM have some sort of hook or mechanism for strong-authentication, without having to resort to workarounds. Though I'm not sure there is a standard mechanism for this yet that would allow it to be a simple hook.
>>Also, it'd be nice to have KDM auto-unlock KWallet. Single Sign-on, anyone?
That's not SSO. The point of kwallet is to keep your data secure by requiring authentication even within your user environment, it's a separate mechanism from the PAM authentication that the login requires. If you're not concerned about that, then set your wallet with an empty password, and it will still be restricted to you only.
"That's not SSO. The point of kwallet is to keep your data secure by requiring authentication even within your user environment, it's a separate mechanism from the PAM authentication that the login requires. If you're not concerned about that, then set your wallet with an empty password, and it will still be restricted to you only."
No, then my data will be stored in clear text, and if my laptop get stolen, we have a problem. And while encripting all the home partition is overkill, having PAM authentication to work with kwallet it's not.
I hope that when Gnome will have it (maybe they already do, don't know) we'll really start to feel how useful this feature is.
one good solution is to use an encrypted home and login with pam_mount .. then it's fine to leave kwallet sans password since your passwords will still be encrypted on disk, as will your email, im logs, whatever.
> I think first and foremost KDM should remain secure and robust, so I'd dare to
> say that integrating it with libplasma
them's fightin' words ;) seriously though, if you have security or stability concerns with libplasma, please point them out. no, not some random plasmoid here or there, but libplasma itself.
with the scripting support we can increase the robustness of add ons and for kdm the real benefits would be things like being able to host and even share useful common components ... like an on screen keyboard that's part of the canvas, or system information that gets published in a corner somewhere.
Or a general part to take care of whatever someone would like to do with fingerprint recognition.
what's the point in a kde digest that is 6 days past the release of it, when another update should be available tomorrow. Perhaps if you cannot get it out in a more timely matter you should get some help. Seems pointless posting this so long after the commit.
As I am not a person always a'jour with the development of kde4 I find these commit-digests great. I don't really care if they are 6 days "late".
The Dot KDE comments section have become a haven of tantrum throwers and drama queens of late, but this is perhaps the most grating whinge I've seen for a long time.
"Perhaps if you cannot get it out in a more timely matter you should get some help."
No shit, sherlock! Unless you're volunteering, you're just stating the obvious and in a most disagreeable fashion.
"Seems pointless posting this so long after the commit."
Not at all - many people are very interested in the weekly progress of KDE - it lets them know what is going on in general, and gives them a forum for discussion of any developments. I doubt they much care if it's a whopping few days(!) late.
It's a chart of how things are progressing, not so up-to-the-minute life or death news service. People interested in the latter are free to subscribe to the raw info here:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-commits&r=1&w=2
I and many others prepare to wait for Danny's well-prepared edited highlights, even if they are a tiny amount out of date.
I so agree with you... I know how much work it is to do these digests (after having seen Danny prepare one at Akademy in Glasgow) and I really respect him for going through that every week. I couldn't care less if he doesn't make it on time. Especially considering how he adds more and more goodies like the introduction of new apps and stuff like that.
Hey, I'm just amazed at how timely and frequently these digests get published. There are things (called "life") that sometimes cause delays. And I, for one, do not regard it as pointless to publish it late, since I don't follow the development in any other way---it's still news to me, no matter when it comes out.
But perhaps Danny would be interested in your offer to help out, you could try offering more directly (& politely).
Thanks, Danny, for another great Digest!
Danny, never mind when the digest is a few days late. It is always a pleasure to read and very appreciated. Thanks Danny!
Yeah, seriously, its nice to hear about the progress of things. I didn't even notice that last weeks never came out, I thought we had gotten a great treat this week by having the digest on sunday. :-)
perhaps that will have upset you sufficiently that you'll never come back and post another pointless comment.
fantastic, another one bites the dust!
What is the poin of your comment?
I know by experience how much work the Digest is. Hours per week, probably an hour a day to go through the emails, and maybe 5 hours to prepare. I suspect Danny takes more time than that since the results are far better than anything I produced.
I also took it as a point of pride to have produced the Digest every week. Danny seems to have the same goal.
I think the appropriate comment is Thank-you. Encouragement and thanks really help. Comments like yours take work to ignore.
Derek
I know this isn't the right place, but as this problem is kde4 related let's see if someone can help me out :)
The problem I have is that I'm using a HP w17e widescreen LCD monitor with a Intel 950 card in my machine. For the resolution to work well (getting widescreen on the native 1400x900 resolution) I have to use krandr. This is no problem exept that KDM gets a lower resolution and when KDE session starts it goes to the better one.
The problem is that when I enable desktop effects alltogether with krandr, screen isn't updated right. I change options on the dialogs and the old options are shown, some icons and text do not appear, taskbar is always showing the same apps over time, etc.
This seems to happen in compiz+gnome also, so I was wondering if someone here knows about this problem and have a fix?
You know, I got this new PC just for running kde4 with desktop effects :(
Are you using the Intel-version of the driver for your card?
This one should autodetect your displayresolution and automagically use the right resolution.
Note that the old i810 does not do that.
Yes, I am using.
It does detect my resolution, but without using randr, I get a black border on the left (no widescreen) and virtual screen does not work, in lower resolutions it goes to fullscreen but isn't very nice, fonts get blured.
Using xrandr fixes all resolution problems, but adds this bug when using glx, parts of windows and programs simply are not updated.
I'm impressed by the across-the-board improvements. Just to (arbitrarily) pick one of many, backporting the 4.1 Plasma fixes to 4.0 is a generous donation of time from all. Thanks, developers/translators/bug reporters/artists/etc.!
The screenshot shown in the digest is already outdated, a current one is available at: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KDiamond?content=74922
Thanks for the great game! It looks wonderful!