KDE 4.0.3 Released With Extragear Applications

The third bugfix release of the KDE 4.0 series is available. KDE 4.0 is mainly targeted at users who live on the bleeding edge. As a dot-oh release it might have its rough edges. The KDE Community releases a service update for this series once a month to make those bleeding edge users' lives easier. The changelog for KDE 4.0.3 is, although not complete, quite impressive. Especially KHTML and with it the Konqueror webbrowser have seen great improvements in both, stability and performance.

Since KDE 4.0, some Extragear applications form part of the release. Extragear applications can choose to follow their own release cycle, which is what for example Amarok and K3b do. There is also the option to have extragear applications released with KDE. Applications such as RSIBreak (a program to save your health), KGrab (an advanced screenshot-taking tool), KPovModeler (a 3D modelling application). Tom Albers, responsible for the release of the Extragear package says, "The new item in this release is kio_gopher. It's really great that this protocol is still not dead and we now have support for it in KDE4. New technology meets ancient protocol ;-)".

The KDE Team also uses this release to highlight some gems of the KDE package. This time, a closer look is being taken at the KDE Educational software. The KDE Edu project has also recently done some work on their website, which is surely worth a visit. We hope you enjoy this release and notice our commitment to making progress in stability and usability of the KDE 4.0 series while development of KDE 4.1 is going on at more than full speed.

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Comments

by lol you are so funny (not verified)

iPod Touch? LOL, iPod Touch sucks at rendering websites, far behind the destop versions of Safari, and behind Konqueror on Linux by far too. Oh, and you did mention Google Android and Nokia S60 Browser right? Maybe you yourself should go download the Android SDK and S60 SDK (or buy a N95) to try them out, they are also far behind KHTML, and they are dead meat compared to Opera Mobile on the mobile platform. And Safari on Windows is worse than Konqueror on Linux. The only area that WebKit truly excels is OS X, I'll give you that, but on any other platform, it's worse than KHTML on Linux. Granted the Windows version of Konqueror in KDE4 is also not so shiny, that's why on Linux we stay with KHTML, and on OS X we stay with WebKit. WebKit on Linux simply sucks, so there's no point for Konqueror to use WebKit.

by Grósz Dániel (not verified)

"webkit is today, much (much, much, much in case you do not see it) better than khtml"

WebKit is essentially better only in displaying defective web sites.

A lot of code went into both WebKit and KHTML since the fork and now AFAIK KHTML devs are merging more WebKit code into KHTML than WebKit devs into WebKit. So to not lose developements, WebKit advantages should be merged into KHTML. If KHTML devs do this and/or try to catch up with WebKit with their own development, there is nothing bad with it.

"I'll start a browser from zero using webkit/qt/kdelibs"

Nothing stops you from doing it. But I think there is a QtWebKit kpart already woth some flaws. Even if its development is stalled (I don't know what is about it), you'd better fix that code.

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

>WebKit is essentially better only in displaying defective web sites.

OK, right.
That means only 95% of thwe web ;)

by lol you are so funny (not verified)

maybe 95% of "thwe web" that you made up in your imagination :D

I'm using Konqueror 3.59 and there's not a problem with 99% of the website I visit, and when there's some fucked up website that Konqueror can't handle, Safari can't handle it neither.

If you want Konqueror to handle those fucked up website, you should argue for Konqueror to use Gecko, not WebKit, both KHTML and WebKit are miles behind Gecko in handling fucked up websites, which should not be handled anyway :rolleyes:

by g4b (not verified)

this is a general problem, but industry giants begin to enroll engines for ajax which are webkit compatible. like gmail or others.

so, yes, khtml does fall behind webkit here. but i would rather say, only kjs vs. webkit's js is sometimes the real issue.

we can be as fanatic as we want to be, khtml is great and so on and so on, but, there would be no harm in making webkit available in konqui, which is a user-friendly choice of the developers towards the user.

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

About using the kpart...
Look at dolphin case.
It simply is rocking konqueror (as file manager) away. There are a lot of users used to konquy that hate it, but in my experience, most new users or more desktop oriented ones just love it.

I think it's better to just create something not-bloated sometimes. or we will become microsoft.

Aaron was right about droping kicker (ok, I hate myself now) and i MUST ask him for forgive or punishment for complaining about it :-)
It was a bit late in development for 4.0 (actually I think it will only really catch in 4.2), but it simply rocks the development of desktop from now and forward. He had the guts the face our fury and he will cleary be the winner (exept for the very incomplete 4.0 part, but that is already water over the bridge... at least I hope). Why not do the same for konqueror/khtml/webkit?

I'm only have to get a qt 4.4 package for ubuntu now and start doing my minimal browser. I think I'll call if Doninha!

by Thorstein (not verified)

The more the computer evolves into a widely spread appliance like a TV the more users are naturally those using their computer mostly for browsing, mail and a few office documents. Those, lets call them 'simple-users', probably will be comfortable with dolphin. Thats ok.

But on the other side there are also a lot of users in need of a file manager. It may be unimaginable for you - but those are actually depending on that features only Konqueror (KDE 3 for now) has.

So, a statement like "It simply is rocking konqueror (as file manager) away." is as absurd and ridiculous as it ever could be.
There wouldn't be much of a problem. But why those 'simple-users' are so eager to see the advanced programs dropped - i wont ever get this.
These programs had made the success of KDE, and without them the whole KDEnvironment will lose. Cause - honestly - who cares a lot more than a * about the 10ths finder/nautilus or a widget-engine?

by Grósz Dániel (not verified)

"It simply is rocking konqueror (as file manager) away."

- It doesn't - there are many features in Konqueror that are not and are not planned to be in Dolphin. For some users those features are much more important than the extra features of Dolphin.
- It has those extra features only because developers decided to write them for Dolphin. Which of them couldn't have been written for Konqueror?

"I think it's better to just create something not-bloated sometimes. or we will become microsoft."

Please make it more specific about what problems of being bloated are similar in KDE and Windows. And that what do you mean by the statement that Konqueror is bloated. It can not do a lot of things: it can load files using kio and kparts to display them. Kparts are only loaded if you use them: if you only browse html pages, only KHTML will be loaded and Konqueror together with KHTML is nothing different from a web browser. It just has more possibilities, which you do or do not use.

by Thorstein (not verified)

A couple of years ago, most of your arguments (let alone here how subjective those are) had applied to Gecko too. (even to a greater extent in some cases (de facto standard, spreading))

But do you really think abandon KHTML in favor of Gecko would have been
the right decision? The tide of events clearly exposed that this had been a substantial mistake. (funnily enough, than probably there wouldn't be a WebKit at all)

> If KHTML development is fast, webkit development is twice faster :-P
like Gecko's development? Even that may true for a while - in the long term it is a big advantage for (but not only) KDE to have a rendering engine/browser of it's own.

> better than khtm (a thousand times sorry, but.. it's true)
btw. what led you to generalize your opinions? That in fact seems like an ego related problem

by Yves (not verified)

> Well, if KDE 4.1 do not come with a webkit kpart, I'll start a browser from zero using webkit/qt/kdelibs!!

You could as well help to improve the so-far excellent demobrowser Qt comes with:
http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2008/04/demo-browser-update.html

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

Copying and pasting that stupid rumor over and over won't make it any truer. The KHTML and Konqueror developers have denied this rumor many times, why do you still believe it?

I use KDE 4.0.3 on my desktop machine. I'm pleased with this version. I'm impressed with the speed of the KDE4 development processes.

One missing thing for me is spell checking. It's simply not works. Just try it in kate for example.

Ok, there are other things too, however I know this is the beginning of the KDE4 journey.

I hope I can switch to KDE4.1 on my notebook when will be finished. Meanwhile I will stick with KDE3.5.9. Keep up the good work!

by hacker (not verified)

4.0.3 certainly has less bugs. Kudos to all.

One thing still annoys me tho. This is the ability to change to a new tab on just scrolling on it (or the LACK of it). This is really convenient and i can only compare it to just using the scroll wheel to scroll down a web page without having to hunt down the scroll bars. Ironically, gnome has this for AGES. The strange thing tho is that some KDE apps HAVE this feature. For example, konsole can change between its tabs. Also, Amarok 2 (in the edit track details box), does this beautifully. Is this a plasma thing or what? Could the code for this tab changing on scrolling be extracted from amarok2 (thanks guys), and taken to something like kdelibs so that all KDE apps can enjoy this. Again, good work.

by Grósz Dániel (not verified)

Which application are you speaking about?

by hacker (not verified)

All KDE apps. Just try the help-about dialog present in every (most) KDE apps. Try to scroll to a different tab (e.g. to authors or translators). This doesnt work and the sad thind is that this happens in ALL tabs regardless where they are, in dialog boxes eg. Is there something like qtabpanel or sth that would encompass all this changing tabs logic. The strange thig that amarok (partly) does it (in the edit track info dialog). Does amarok use a custom set of widgets not present in kde or qt? Is there any communication that goes on between the amarok devs and those of kde/qt?

finally, is there an issue tracker I can log this feature (should be a bug)?

by m_abs (not verified)

You want http://bugs.kde.org for reporting that feature request.