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  Embedding external parts into KDE
Desktop Environment Posted by Harri Porten on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @05:51
from the embed-the-world dept.
Up to now, the KPart component model was limited to embedding in-process parts. XParts is an extension written by Matthias Ettrich, Simon Hausmann and Lars Knoll to extend kparts and make it possible to embed out-of-process components. The approach chosen is toolkit independent, as can be seen by their choice to embed Mozilla. Read on for the full announcement and details.

KDE takes a massive leap by providing interoperability with major Unix/Linux software toolkits and applications -- including Mozilla.

Linux and Unix developers, can now easily make KDE components -- no matter what toolkits and software they decide to develop with. Recent Unix/Linux desktop applications are composed of small components that could be utilized in several applications or wherever needed. KDE is now the first desktop system to be able to effectively integrate and provide transparent interoperability with such software -- whether written in the KDE native component model (KParts), plain X Windows, or GTK.

As a first step, users can now choose to use either KDE's native sophisticated HTML widget or Mozilla's (which currently utilizes GTK) inside the KDE browser, Konqueror. This easily puts Konqueror in the lead when it comes to browsing the World Wide Web, since the user now gets to select which HTML renderer works best for him/her while still using Konqueror and having all the same advantages of the popular KDE user interface and technology.

This is only a first step. Other possibilities include providing transparent access to OpenOffice components within KOffice, and embedding other Bonobo components, such as the various Nautilus components, inside, say, Konqueror... The goal is to provide the most powerful desktop for users by allowing them to pick and choose whatever software they like while still in the familiar and comfortable KDE environment. KDE is close to closing the schism within the Linux desktop environments by being the first project to allow users to utilize all the software written for different user interfaces within the KDE environment with unparalleled integration.

Also, people writing standalone applications that do not utilize any desktop technology can easily integrate with our environment in ways previously impossible.

The KDE project would like to thank Lars Knoll, Simon Hausmann, and Matthias Ettrich for their coding genius in making this happen.

Links:

Overview including screenshots and installation instructions

Whitepaper

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Over 40 comments listed. Printing out index only.
Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by krazyC on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @07:26
it's funny how kde gets accused of copying windows, when bonobo is pretty much an interface by interface copy of OLE. it shows great vision that kde was able to move away from CORBA when it didn't work into this beauty of a component system. if that's not enough, kparts/dcop has already shown itself capable of evolving while already providing a strong base functionality. now that's what i call innovation.
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by Tonttu Torvinen on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @07:33
Sounds really great. There has been some similar projects going on (providing simplier interface to Mozilla), but it seems that this makes those efforts less meaningful.

However, I just have to use this space to say this. As I'm personally running an old P200 64Mb machine, I would appreciate a lot more improvements to the speed and memory usage of KDE (and X) - rather than having all the time great new additions and configuration options. Of course optimization isn't so fun as creating something new, but it would be great if someone from the developement team could become a bit more ascetic and start removing unneeded stuff and cutting the memory and processor usage of KDE. Though Konqueror is much faster than any other browser in Linux, it is still a lot slower than any browser in Windows - including Netscape - and starting even some small games in KDE takes unbelievably long time.
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by ac on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @08:02
This is big news for the Linux desktops and the Linux community. Anyone want to submit this story to Slashdot?
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Embedded bugs
by Otter on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @08:38
..and you can be sure that the screenshot is showing Mozilla embedded in Konqueror because it contains three egregious Mozilla-specific rendering bugs!
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by Henrik on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @08:39
Wow! That's just amazing!

it seems to me KDE is accomplishing something almost of this magnitude every two weeks or so. I'm writing this with antialiased fonts in all my Qt apps, something that most people thought impossible in X a year ago (ok, keithp of X fame has a lot more to do with that than KDE, but patching Qt to use antialiased fonts didnt take long)

Lets see - what other amazing things has KDE released since/with 2.0:
* Konqueror/khtml - Probably the best and fastest linux browser of today. It renders almost everything correctly. Only IE and Netscape work with more.
* Konqueror - Kickass file browser.
* KParts/DCOP - As good as microsofts component technologies (whatever they're called this week)
* Themes - Widget themes are fast and look good.
* KOffice - Far from being finished, it's already very useable.

and now this.. all i can say is wow! (again) :)

How will the gnomes and the redmondites ever manage to keep up with the trolls? :)
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by Paul Hawthorne on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @09:03
This sounds great. Although I'm not a programmer, I can see how this opens a whole new world to KDE. I am impressed with design of KDE2, which seems to make it very easy to expand KDE far beyond it's built-in functionality. I have recently installed CUPS as my print system. I also installed QTCUPS, which provides a wonderful print dialog. However, I am not able to configure KDE2 to take advantage of the QTCUPS. I guess the printing system in KDE2 is hard-coded to the basic lpr system. Does this announcement mean that it should be easy for someone to integrate QTCUPS into the KDE printing system? Also, while I love all the new cool stuff happening with KDE2, I hope the developers add the ability to remember window size and screen position between sessions automatically in the next update. I know I can manually save window size (in konqueror), but not screen position. At any rate, thanks KDE team for all the wonderful work you are doing. Your continued innovations are giving the linux community less and less to criticize about KDE, and giving the other computing environments less to criticize about linux in general. KUDOS!! Paul.....
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Whitepaper?
by KuriousGeorge on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @10:33
The whitepaper (at http://trolls.troll.no/~lars/xparts/doc/xparts.html) has been slashdotted. Does anyone have a mirror?
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by Anonymous on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @10:50
Does this mean I can use KHTML in Nautilus?
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KParts + Fixes = XParts (aiming to be Bonobo)
by Cleber Rodrigues on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @11:39
As far as I know, KParts never gave much attention to other toolkits or architectures. Now this has been recognizes as a major goal. CONGRATULATIONS!!! I just don't like the way it's been presented. I mean, as if it was the pioneer technology for doing that... Or treating other toolkits with some inferiority! "...Mozilla's (which currently utilizes GTK)... It sounds as if it's a bad thing... BUT IS T??? Maybe the text should say clarify people that KParts (or XParts) NOW can do the same thing other component models such as Bonobo already do.
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We are KDE Of BORG
by Matthias Lange on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @12:22
That´s great!

The following scene comes to my mind:

[On the bridge of the starship Nautilus]

Crewman: Look, Captain, we´re being pursued!
Captain: Full Speed Ahead

"WE ARE KDE OF BORG! PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED"

Captain: Evasive Maneuvers, Fire Mozilla Grenades!
Crewman: Sir, the grenades simply attach to the
ship, no damage done.

Captain: Oh, we better give up then...

:-)
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by Jebediah Smith on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @13:56
It's impressive that not a single line of code was modified in Konqueror to do this. Something can certainly be said for the architecture of KDE2. However, I fail to see how this is in anyway revolutionary. It's been done dozens of times before in many different toolkits. The article, and comments above, and most ntoably the Slashdot article, suggest that XParts/KParts are now able to embed next to everything - Bonobo Components, OpenOffice, etc. This is simply not the case. Embedding the GtkMozEmbed component is a very special case. This component was designed as a GTK widget. QT can already use GTK Widgets. So the effect shown is different from Galeon, Nautilus, etc only in so far as it required no modification to the Konqueror code. This is all illustrated in the whitepaper linked to above. I do not mean to troll, I simply want to set many of the posters here straight.
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by rsv on Thursday 21/Dec/2000, @22:50

Does a right click on the KMozilla component in Konqueror bring up a menu? The last time I saw it, neither Galeon nor Nautilus could do it. If a standard menu does not come on a right click (with save as.. copy link etc), it is better to stick to KHTML
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IDEA! (embeding Gimp into Krayon)
by t0m_dR on Friday 22/Dec/2000, @01:37
Well, what about using this technology to embed Gimp into Krayon (the former KImageShop)!!. That way you'll have all the power that Gimp already has without the crappy UI!
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Re: Embedding external parts into KDE
by ChrisWiegand on Thursday 28/Dec/2000, @14:22
Something I keep thinking of is this: KParts seems to me (a Linux programmer and a VB programmer) to be much more like local-only ActiveX EXEs and ActiveX Controls. (To my knowledge KParts doesn't do networking). Bonobo/Corba, OTOH, is made for networking, and using it locally would have a performance hit vs. KParts (probably not much of one, but it's probably still there). Why not have both? I don't want my real-Cool-Grid widget running over a network, but putting business logic into a component on a shared server somewhere makes lots of sense to me...
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Embedding IE running in Wine in Konqi!!!
by TROLL PATROL on Wednesday 28/May/2003, @09:05
IE is like the fastest browser ever, and then embed in xparts in konquerer... totally fast... oh my god... Then embed VM ware in konqi in xparts and run mozilla in the konqi in the vmware in the konqi, totally the slowest thing ever lol.
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