In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: The Plasma "extenders" project is merged into kdebase, with initial integration into the kuiserver applet. Continued work on the systray-refactor, and more work on the "Weather" Plasmoid. A whole load of bugfixes for Kicker 3.5.10. A new "Magic Lamp" minimize effect, and a rework of the "Grid" effect in kwin-composite. Support for extracting artwork from iPod's, tag editing and removing files from MTP devices, and scriptable services (including a "web control" script), and lots of other developments in Amarok 2.0. An automatic image fetching script/plugin added to Parley. Basic XLIFF support in Lokalize. Support for regular expressions in KSysGuard graphing. Improved support for password protected archives in Ark. Support for saving file fonts embedded into a PDF file in Okular. A new, enhanced Strigi service (using KDE technologies) for interfacing with NEPOMUK. KJots and KTimeTracker can now be deactivated (while KMail, KOrganizer and KAddressbook cannot) in Kontact. Beginnings of "master pages" support in KWord. Rocs, a graph algorithm tool, added to playground/edu. "Google Gadgets for Plasma" moved to kdereview, "Timer" Plasmoid moved to kdeplasma-addons. Read the rest of the Digest here.
Comments
I agree with parent - the alt-tab switcher did get worse. I like the coverswitch one more than anything, but the box switch lost something. It used to show the titles of the windows horizontally, a huge improvement over what MS did and does. The thumbnails dont replace this as they're too small. It would rock if you could have the vertical layout with thumbnails, best of both worlds.
Hmm, didn't get notice about reply - you probably also don't get it.
Nevermind: this is near perfect replacement of old alt+tab:
http://www.undefinedfire.com/kde/new-present-windows-layouts/
> Trolltech/Nokia pushes KDE to mobile devices, where the priority of a *NIX-like
> desktop behavior is irrelevant.
i've read this theory for a while now, and it's really not particularly true. Nokia is certainly encouraging work in the mobile space, but Trolltech never really did and at least my interest predates the current state of things. *shrug*
> people who had a view on the whole in the past nowadays work on different places within KDE
there are still people with a view on the whole who work directly on KDE
> New generations have different interests and different views on quality management,
> maybe even different definitions on that.
that's quite true.
> KDE can not reliably supply the service that Microsoft and Apple can offer
well, we have a different scope (both in terms of products and user support); that said, i think we've done pretty well going from nothing less than 12 years ago to where we are now. i don't think either Microsoft or Apple are exactly delivering some mythically great service, either (yes, not even Apple: MobileMe and phones that don't work reliably being two recent examples). *shrug*
> I do accept that there are many unpolished things in KDE, though I am very unhappy with this.
yes, and there always has been. thankfully there is more and more completeness, even though sometimes it means we have to dig deeper into the stack to create tools that didn't exist.
> It had been better in the past.
there are some regressions being suffered right now, but in many areas things are much better now than they ever have been. the latter dwarfs the former at this point, and the former is getting smaller by the day.
i don't ever remember having as nice a manager for hotplug devices, as nice an image viewer, as good a konsole, as friendly a file manager, a desktop globe, games as pretty and fun to play, a run dialog as useful or more.
there are still a few things i miss, but those seem to be on their way. and a lot of new and very useful things are also headed down the pipe still, so ... maybe it's a matter of personal persepctive on things, but i'm rather happy with the direction of things, and i find going back to earlier versions of kde a bit awkward now ... just like i used to with every successive release of kde2 and kde3.
> most of them are nice to look at, but without any use,
and yet several of them are very useful.
desktop grid is a great way to get a fast overview of all the virtual desktops and move things between them ; coverflow switch lets me see the contents of at least three windows, i use it often to just "peek" at other windows before returning to the original; the zoom is great for examining teeny pages on the web or graphics (great for accessbility as wel); the mouse marker is a godsend when i can't find my mouse cursor (on a projector screen, in sunlight, or other low contrast situations); ... i could go on.
> i've read this theory for a while now, and it's really not particularly
> true. Nokia is certainly encouraging work in the mobile space, but Trolltech
> never really did and at least my interest predates the current state of
> things. *shrug*
Well we as paying Qt developers have just had the unfortunate task to fill out a survey comissioned by them which spoke differently. There all the answers possible were pushing into the direction of abandoning the desktop application due to a fractioned market and moving to a more glorious future in the mobile market.
i personally haven't seen that survey, but that's still a rather separate topic from the Nokia<->KDE relationship.
I think the discussion is a matter of perspective. There are different kinds of people with different needs and different kind of working styles.
People can be infotainment users, students, professional programmers, multimedia workers or KDE application developers. Each of those categories have different requirements for KDE. Working style is an independent dimension where some prefer few (and often just one) desktops with a lot of small windows, while others have twelve desktops with two top-bottom Konsoles lined up next to each other.
If we look at the discussions about the KDE4 series the different perspective come into play. The infamous Kicker auto-hide functionality for example: The many-small-windows crowd like to have the panel displayed permanently while it is an absolute show-stopper for the top-bottom-konsole people. Another example is the whole plasma thing: The top-bottom-konsole group couldn't care less while it is a revelation for the others.
So one group sees KDE4 as a great leap forward in technology and invention while another group sees it as step backwards. And they're both right.
As I see it the KDE4 developers have failed to recognize that there are other people than themselves with different needs and different workhabits. Please note that I'm not saying that the KDE programmers are obligated to satisfy those people. I'm saying the the KDE programmers fail to recognize the existence of those people and the validity and seriousness of their complaints.
I infer that from how the auto-hide feature have been omitted from KDE4, then delayed to 4.2 and still not even in the repository. This is a hands-down showstopper to many people but even after so much complaining it has got nowhere. It beyond me why some people didn't say "Hey, this is a very important feature for a lot of people, lets prioritize it" and have those extra users to evangelize KDE4. It would have been tactically much much smarter than the "Its not important" or the "Your problem doesn't exist" attitude accompanied with a really flashy demo of the latest plasma whiz-bang thing as salt in the wound. In many peoples mind this becomes: "KDE3 worked nicely, then this plasma-thing came around and screwed it up". And they're actually right as seen from their perspective.
As you may guess, I'm a top-bottom-konsole guy. I'm still using KDE3 and will continue to do so until the showstoppers have been fixed. What worries me though is that the current breed of KDE developers do not seem to pay much attention to the needs of people like me as witnessed by the auto-hide thing. Which is basically ok because thats how the open-source model work, but there is also an obligation between the generations of programmers to not to break the work of their forebearers. This is how it works for almost all open-source projects: What if an Apache 4.0 didn't support PHP ? "It will be implemented in 4.1". "Oh, wait some other features are more important so we push it to 4.2". "If it is in the repository ? No, but here is a demonstration of speech synthesized error messages in 3D Dolby stereo. Flashy right ?"
Someone, some years ago, took the time and effort to make the auto-hide feature work. You (or someone else) broke his work.
Ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Yes, you're frustrated that you can't move to KDE4 yet and all the great things that brings. You want your showstoppers fixed. You want the features you see people complaining about being missing to be prioritized. We can see that.
That doesn't mean you can throw around remarks about breaking the work of previous maintainers (It was probably Aaron who implemented autohide anyway...). Other features have been made higher priority. If they weren't people really would thing plasma is all about clocks. I know you recognize that progress too, which is good.
-- the current breed of KDE developers do not seem to pay much attention to the needs of people like me
-- I'm saying the the KDE programmers fail to recognize the existence of those people
-- the "Its not important" or the "Your problem doesn't exist" attitude accompanied with a really flashy demo of the latest plasma whiz-bang thing as salt in the wound.
This stuff will only serve to demotivate the people who will work on getting KDE4 to the point that you can use it. Of course KDE developers are considerate of users with various needs.
The discussion is a matter of perspective indeed. You perceive that you're being over looked, but you're not. You might think that you're being helpful bringing up an issue that you see, but you've got the wrong place. Writing stuff like the above is unhelpful and really misrepresents the the attitude of any KDE devs I've encountered.
Thanks,
Steve.
> that there are other people than themselves with different needs and different workhabits
it's quite the opposite: we've realized that there are lots of people who aren't like us and who have different needs and different workhabits and are making kde more useful for them instead of just keeping it all to ourselves.
the fact that "people who don't work like me" outnumber me by probably a few million to 1 is a big part of the motivator for this.
> I'm still using KDE3 and will continue to do so until the showstoppers have been fixed.
that's perfectly fine, of course. i'd just make one small adjustment to your rather self-centric statement: you will continue to do so until things that are showstoppers *for you* have been fixed.
remember how you talked about other people with other priorities and workflows? it goes both ways.
> Someone, some years ago, took the time and effort to make the auto-hide feature work.
iirc it was Matthias Ettrich who wrote the original autohide code in kicker; either him or Matthias Elter. there was a big comment in the code saying (paraphrased) "be very careful if you touch this, there's lots of magic here that is easily broken!"
i know about that comment because i maintained that code afterwards for *years*. that included fixing bugs, improving performance and adding features to that code.
> You (or someone else) broke his work.
i think you're lacking a proper history of the code base when you make such statements.
here's another one: systray icon hiding. i implemented that in kicker. it's likely coming back in 4.2. so in 4.0 and 4.1 i broke someone else's work! oh wait, that someone else's work was mine.
so step back and think about *why* i might be doing that. it's not because i like regressions; in fact, it's because i never want to have to rewrite this stuff ever again (where "ever" means ~10 years). sadly, kicker's design was not well suited for what we needed it to become nor well suited to code re-use. these are things we are consciously addressing. it means some short term pain, but that pain is getting less and less by the week because we do care about it and we are fixing things.
eventually there will be none left, feature parity and then some will have been reached and people like yourself will migrate to kde4 joining the rest of the user base.
which is to say, i don't see what you're going on about in the least.
I like the interesting and polite responses you give - you obviously have a thick skin. Thanks!
if we reply to your comments, we get bashed for not getting features done when you want them.
if we ignore you and try to get code written (and oh god is there ever a lot to be written), we get bashed for failing to recognise your existence.
*sigh*
I know you mean well, but... seriously, what do you expect here? we're not miracle workers. we can't write every feature all at once. developers can't be reassigned like litte cogs, either. most of us aren't even paid for this. I'm going back to school in september, and it's going to take effort for me to make time for hacking on plasma; you're not making me want to make that effort. and I'm not even expecting to have time for fun plasmoids or "eye-candy" myself until next year or later... there are some useful little plasmoids in my head I'd really like to have, but I haven't written them because I'm trying to do stuff that's useful to a wider audience, like keyboard accessibility and making the ZUI work.
I think that when dealing with the FOSS world what you need to keep in mind is: "Don't attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by lack of resources."
Rome nor KDE were built in a day. patience.
--
Simon
Aren't you guys aware that you can just turn off composite if it doesn't suit your needs and the use KDE 4.1 more or less like you used KDE 3.5.X?
It's like the guys complaining that you can't run KDE 4.1 on some NVidia cards and thus you have to stick with KDE 3.5. Well, turn composite off, since you won't have one with KDE 3.5.X anyway, and enjoy KDE 4.1 other improvements instead of complaining.
I find it extremely distasteful that so much work and improvements are discarded just because some small feature is missing here and there, as if it was not possible to endure that for some time, until it's implemented.
And please stop all this "it was better before" crap. I remember the KDE 3.0 and 3.1 days and it was not exactly rosy. KDE 4.1 already has tons more features and crashes a lot less than 3.1 did for me.
You guys just act as spoiled children.
I think the whole point is that you can _not_ use KDE 4.1 like you can KDE 3.5. And no, I will not enumerate the regressions again, but look at the toolbar, panel/desktop, ark, konsole, kio, etc. entries at bugs.kde.org.
KDE 4.2 will be improved, sure, but I doubt that it will fix all the feature regressions. And unless Trolltech fixes the regressions from Qt 3, KDE 4.x will never be the same experience as KDE 3.x.
By the way, I am using shadows (compositing) with KDE 3.x since years. It may be an openSUSE addition, but it works, at least for transparent windows and shadows.
KDE 4.1 is thousands steps forward, but one step back, and if there are people who are affected by this little step, why are they told they are wrong?
> KDE 4.1 is thousands steps forward, but one step back, and if there are
> people who are affected by this little step, why are they told they are wrong?
You're not being told you are wrong. You're being told to wait until the regressions are fixed. If you like KDE 3.5 why not stay with it in the mean time?
You're a little "bizarre", to say the least. First, you sya that plasmoid are useless because they are always covered by other windows. Then, you complain about the lack of a feature like "every virtual desktop with its own background". Wait but... isn't the background, just like plasmoids, covered all the time by other windows? So, why do you want different backgrounds (or a background at all)?
Be coherent, please, you won't look like a complete fool as you're doing right now.
That has to do with the immediate way of recognizing the current desktop screen - most of the time there is a small area of the background not obscured by windows. If you are working with several in parallel for different tasks then having such an immediate recognition is imperative. Taking this feature away (because it doesn't fit into the 3D sluggishness that desktops now encumbers) is diminishing functionality.
And switching ALL plasmoids to the front really is a sorry excuse for not having them properly managed in a window list alongside the "proper" windows. So everything that get's implemented as a plasmoid is something that needs reimplementing for a productive environment where the user is able to control the layering (by bringing windows to the front)!
So in fact I'd rather have a traditional desktop with all the small tools which I can place and manage in a traditional way instead of having two layers which have disjunct managing interfaces! The latter in fact for me is a pure usability nightmare. Try to explain one new interface to a newbie and you have a hard time, try to explain to him that he needs to master two is calling for trouble.
you're not required to use plasmoids...plus if you stick plasmoids on the panel they stay there AND are visible all the time *gasp*
> because it doesn't fit into the 3D sluggishness that desktops now encumbers
other things were prioritized in front of it because it doesn't fit with modrn window managers, yes. but it can still be implemented.
> So everything that get's implemented as a plasmoid is something that needs reimplementing
that's incorrect.
there's already plasmoidviewer that puts any plasma widgt into a window of its own. so any widget can already be used as a stand-alone application with no extra work.
eventually we'll be integrating this directly into plasma so you can detach random widgets into their own windows. this feature is wanted but not yet schduled.
(btw, i already noted this in a comment above ... )
> Try to explain one new interface to a newbie and you have a hard time
oh boy. the "think of the children, er, newbies!" argument ... i suppose you've done some user testing then, or is this hypothisizing on your part?
> oh boy. the "think of the children, er, newbies!" argument ... i suppose
> you've done some user testing then, or is this hypothisizing on your part?
I have been there as I support quite a few friends and relatives on linux desktops. I showed them the eye candy (because they were longing for something looking good with vista looming around the corner) but they outright didn't understand the disparity between plasmoid and normal window. So yes that problem is existing and it has stifled the acceptance of KDE 4.1 for quite a few installations, because they weren't able to use it after some hours of playing around with it - so I reverted to KDE 3.5 on their systems. Those people aren't stupid but they are simply in need of a desktop environment which doesn't get into the way of their daily work.
It seems you are so in love with that design, could it be that it is your brain child, which you will defend until your last breath? Because that's all that I see here in numerous threads. Every time someone comes along and criticises the plasma/plasmoid combo you are there on the virtual frontline and you are trying to defend it against all arguments no matter how...
Sorry but it really looks to me like ill will.
Desktop widgets don't work on any system like "normal" windows, whether it is MacOS, Windows XP, Gnome or Vista. It's just that Plasma offers more freedom about what you can do with widgets and that seems for some reason to piss you off.
If you want, you can deal with Plasma exactly the same way you deal with widgets and applets on other systems : install them only as buttons on the taskbar or on a secondary bar. To avoid confusing newbies, just don't talk about anything else you can do with Plasma. And surprise!, they have no issue at all compared to using other desktops.
After some time, they'll learn by themselves that you can do other things with Plasma. Or not, but that doesn't matter, they can still use KDE as a desktop.
I tend to believe that your own prejudices and misunderstanding are the main reasons for your failure to make people appreicate KDE 4.1. I did not have such an issue myself, and I think that's mainly because I don't have a negative approach to it in the first place.
The code is open. Just check it out from SVN, take it to your closest programmer shop. Pay them to fix the features you want. Send the patch back to Aaron and the rest of the plasma team. Presto, problem solved!
Easy, isn't it?
"sorry, this is just getting on my nerves a bit now.."
Well you're certainly getting on our nerves with comments like this. Why don't you just go away, and stop using KDE software? You've nothing useful to say.
I couldn't agree with you more on the fact you need to apologise. The rest. Oh well, we all have bad days.
Personally, I'm grateful for all the eye candy, even if I don't use it. Because someone has taken the time to write it, and who knows, maybe their contribution will lead to them becoming active in other areas of KDE or linux.
I am grateful that every day I can turn on my computer and use it for what it is intended, without having to worry about all the nasties that affect other operating systems. Thank you to everyone who contributes to that.
we are approaching the end of summer. What is webkitpart statue ? Is it usable ? Does it support flash plugin ?
it works but it's not comfortable yet.
"open in new window" doesn't work, "open in new tab" doesn't exist, the scroll bar has repaint issues, plugins (e.g. flash) still don't work but Urs just started working on getting them to work using WebKit from mainline (the current dev version).
so it's not quite there yet, but miles ahead of where it was. and if Urs and Michael continue hacking on it, we'll hopefully have a fully functioning battlestation webkit kpart in the near future.
ha, ha! i just discovered that middle clicking works to open in a new tab now, so that's already a bit better.
the scroll bar repaint issues are fixed with qt 4.4.1 as well, so that's another one down.
and i just noticed the little resize handle on text edits: it lets me make the box i'm typing this in as big or small as i want just by clicking and dragging .. no more am i limited by the default size on the page! woo!
the webkit part does need more hands (what project doesn't, i suppose?) and it's the kind of thing that is pretty perfect for the coupl-hours-here-and-there hacker.
resize handle on textedits?!
Awesome! :D
Hi,
Does someoen know which distribution will ship KDE3.5.10? Debain is already in freeze with KDE3.5.9 and afaik all other major distributions uses already KDE4.
So what distribution should i pick if i want to have the latest and greates KDE3?
Going with KDE4 is not an option jet. Not because auf missing features but because of to much "bugs". E.g. the icons in the tray from time to time still have white background. It's the small bugs which held me away form KDE4. Im fine with the situation that programs have to be ported and features have to be developed but what is already there should at least work smooth.
But that's just a side note. The really important question is which distribution will pick up KDE3.5.10?
Thanks!
> the icons in the tray from time to time still have white background.
yes, the systray is problematic. unfortunately we're dealing with a crap specification that was designed with the way desktop UIs were done 8+ years ago and we're having to bridge that to what we have today. not pretty.
the good news is that there's a new systray widget in development (Jason Stubbs is the primary developer working on it) that will be replacing the current one in 4.2 (it's currently about to hit kdereview for review, after which it will move to kdebase). it does two significant things: it handles the current systray icons better and allows us to provide support for non-fd.o-spec icons side by side with them.
it does some other less significant but also useful things like systray icon hiding.
Maybe Slackware?
They have 4.1 in testing, but will probably ship KDE 3 as default.
And of course KDEmod on ArchLinux... :)
openSUSE
openSUSE provides both KDE 3.5 and KDE 4 in their latest release. Their KDE desktops are very polished and they always provide bugfix releases.
+1. i've been using debian for over 4 year on the desktop, but it failed on me aspire one. opensuse worked out of the box
Hello!
Please, sorry for posting this here, but as i have no answer, i don't know what to do.
On 2008-08-02, i opened this bug/request:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168070
Should i open a bug/request for each app involved? or leave it as is now?
Thanks!
---------------------------------
Hello,
I'm actually playing with KDE 4.1 before the big change from 3.5.9. One of the things that i've changed is the way i use apps. Once the app is properly configurated, and placed the icons that i need, the menu bar is no needed in my day to day work. So, i hide it with Ctrl+M. In my 1280x800 display, all vertical space is wellcome :-) and, why not? at least for me, is visually better :-)
This, can be done in many apps, like konqueror, kget, dolphin, okular, kopete, gwenvieew, etc... But in other apps, the menubar can't be hide, nor option in menubar, nor Ctrl+M.
A not complete list of apps that can't be hide the menubar: akregator, kwrite, kmail, system monitor, juk, dragon player....
I think that KDE should provide this option to all apps, to get a concordant DE.
I don't know if this request must be created for each apps involved, or this can be sent to all devs in the way "all KDE apps must have this option, make sure yours have it". Any information needed or just comments, say them. Thanks for reading it.
Hope this helps to make KDE better.
Bye
Dienadel
------------------------------
It may happen that your wish report will be reviewed in a few years for the first time, if it is useful somebody recognizes it earlier. You should spent some voting points on it in order to show the importancy of your whish.
You should at least try to answer his question else you are nothing but a troll
Your post is blatant trolling.
To the op, I think filing it as a wish (like you did) against KDE in general is the best idea. The best solution would probably be something along the lines of adding that as a feature to KXmlGuiWindow (or possibly KMainWindow) that all applications can get pretty much for free (I think most use KXmlGuiWindow now?). Its been a while since I used bugs.kde.org (and I haven't used the newer version) so I might be slightly off on things (especially the implementation details :P).
Bugsquad doesn't pay attention to votes when triaging.
Hi,
The eyecandy effects need 2 more things to be really nice and to be on par with compiz:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163892:
In short, a physics based animator would make the animations feel more natural, and not so choppy, there has been a patch as it looks:
http://lists.kde.org/?t=120649479100005&r=1&w=2
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155694
Wakeups... :-)
I do not get why a compositor has to use a static timer. Imagine there is no window open, or some windows are open whose content does not change, why trigger 60 wakeups per second?
Can the compositor not react just when kwin, or the application repaints something?
My 2 cents.
Most effects already use an EaseInOutCurve. So they are not linear. It's just that this curve seems not to be perfect for the short animations of about 200 ms. If I knew the physics I would implement a better curve ;-)