KDE 3.3 Release Cycle Starts with KDE 3.3 Alpha 1 "Kindergarten"

That's one small step for KDE, one giant leap for Free Software - the KDE 3.3 Alpha 1 has been released to the FTP servers this morning. There won't be any binary packages for this release, everyone using Kindergarten is asked to compile it with --enable-debug, so that we can get valuable feedback. There is a new unstable version of Konstruct also available to install it. Other than that, feel free to play around with things, check if your bugs are still there or if there are places where you can help. Check the KDE 3.3 feature plan for things to look for.

Kindergarten is hopefully only the first step as we're heading for the aKademy.

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Comments

by Joe (not verified)

Someone smart out there. Must be only the guys who have J's in there.

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

> What are you, 12?

I would tend to agree with the comment. Drop shadows are not an indication of how advanced the window manager is.

However, this appears to be the way that Windows users think.

I would say that this feature is useless, but it appears to be what users want.

--
JRT

by Ed Moyse (not verified)

Well, they're definitely not "useful" in any real sense, but having been forced to use a Powerbook for a week, I must say that all the graphical touches in OSX make it a real pleasure to use. They're not exactly "useful" but since I spend hours staring at computer screens, I appreciated having it look so attractive.

by Trejkaz Xaoza (not verified)

In the case of OSX, the shadows make it really good to use because they don't lag behind dragging the window like they do with the kwin hack. :-(

by Martin G (not verified)

Drop shadows are nice, I agree, and it is eye candy that people will judge, but they need to be implemented at the right level. Drop shadows and transparency should be handled by the X server - rendering window contents in an off-screen buffer then later passing through a compositing manager. FDO's experimental Xserver does exactly that, and the next generation of Windows will do similar.

I personally believe that this is outside the remit of KWin, and the KWin shadow patches should not be committed into any official KDE releases.

by lars (not verified)

yes!!
i want dropshadows in my kindergarten too!
even when were grown up it makes an nice eyecandy!
maybe there could be the option to toggle it off,
because not all hw configs will support it.

cheers to the devs!
lars

by Christopher Sawtell (not verified)

While the drop shadows are far from being actually necessary they do add a nice touch of aesthetic finesse to the drop down menus. I would like to suggest a black single pixel line on the 'North' and 'West' sides to provide visual offsetting of the menu from the background. Is that technically possible?

by C. Bielke (not verified)

I really love the shadow effect, and shadows ARE usefull. They allows much smaller window borders!

But the kwin-shadow-patch 0.6.3.a is far away from being ready to use. If you use focus follow mouse without auto raise you will have lots of artefacts. So I switched shadows off :-(

But once it is ready to use, it would be really usefull.

by Sasoon Pundev (not verified)

Every time I use konq in tree view it crashesh on copy/paste operations.

That shouldn't be happening. What are you doing and is there a bug filed for it somewhere?

Funny thing about software and bugs... for some reason people tend to think that their subjective experience is representative of everyone's. It just isn't the case. Really obvious and dumb bugs like this rarely ship and are usually the result of other complex interactions... packaging errors (among the biggest), binary conflicts on RPM systems, configuration problems and such. I'm running CVS and have seen some crashes but it usually works and it's CVS so you expect the occasional crash. Bug reports are really the place to get things solved, not web talkbacks.

by Bart Declercq (not verified)

I used to have a similar problem that followed me for several versions. Turned out that deleting the config files in ~/.kde solved the problem.

Try to log in as a different user on your system and see if you have the same issue there. If you don't, then you know the bug is triggered by something in the configfiles of konqueror.

by reddazz (not verified)

Is the new theme manager going to be included by default?

by Anonymous (not verified)

It was moved from kdenonbeta to kdebase just yesterday.

by reddazz (not verified)

I see, it's a really cool application and I like the fact that you have one place to change the eyecandy.

by Lukas Tinkl (not verified)

Glad to hear people actually like it and find it easy to use :)

by Davide Ferrari (not verified)

Maybe I'm dumb but...I still have the old and splitted KCM modules for theming KDE..how can I get new KCM?

by Anonymous (not verified)
by Lukas Tinkl (not verified)

Yes, it was just moved from kdenonbeta.

by Norman (not verified)

Will Konqueror 3.3 have a spatial mode like GNOME's Nautilus 2.6 has? I love the new file manager and it would be great if KDE had it. I checked the preferences in 3.2 and I can't get it to work like Nautilus 2.6. So will it be implemented?

by David (not verified)

Probably not. The way Spatial mode is implemented has a very, very long way to go before it can be widely accepted.

The way the world manages files today is through tree views of folders and the two-pane explorer approach. This is not going to change anytime soon.

by azazel (not verified)

I would like it if it remembered directory settings more reliably. For example, I wanted my images directory to have previews on and large icons. But normally I have previews off and small icons. So when I enter the images directory, I want the view settings to change, then when I leave, I want them to go back.

I know it does have directory property saving, but I couldn't get it to work properly.

by Tukla Ratte (not verified)

In my experience, when Konqueror is in per-directory settings mode, it will switch views correctly when it enters a directory containing a .directory file. Unfortunately, it will keep that view mode if you then open a directory that doesn't have a .directory file. There doesn't seem to be a global "use these view settings when there is no .directory file" setting.

by Dave (not verified)

I find that spatial file management doesn't work too well in UNIX environments. It could be just the way I organise things, but in my experience directory structures are too deep on UNIX - you end up with a lot of clutter on your desktop from opening windows to get to your files.

I used MacOS 7/8/9 for years and the spatial management system worked very well because the filesystem tended to be quite flat.

Dave

by Norman (not verified)

Will Konqueror 3.3 have a spatial mode like GNOME's Nautilus 2.6 has? I love the new file manager and it would be great if KDE had it. I checked the preferences in 3.2 and I can't get it to work like Nautilus 2.6. So will it be implemented?

by D. Le Sage (not verified)

I second that. I would love to see a spatial Konqueror, simply for the speed and simplicity that this entails. By all means, though, keep the configurability and an option to access the advanced mode. KDE is all aobut felxibility and we should not force users to work one way or the other but plese give the options for both with the simplest method the default for novice users.

by Joe (not verified)

Yes, please. We need to crap Konqueror up as quickly as possible. I've heard about this spatial mode, Mommy, so KDE must need it. Nevermind that 99% of the world hates it...

If this abomination comes to pass, please make it OFF BY DEFAULT.

"Enabling suck-ass mode...beep boop"

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

Honestly, building a spatial file manager should be a 2-week project.

Latching it onto konqueror would be evil. But hacking a standalone spatial file manager? That's damn simple.

I may even write one this weekend if my date cancels.

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

First part of a PyQt-based spatial file manager is published as a sort of tutorial here: http://lateral.pycs.net/stories/29.html

Don't expect much, since it amounts to about 6 hours of coding ;-)

by rsk (not verified)

OMG I was laughing so hard reading your response...

by HelloWorld82 (not verified)

Why do you laught ? I think he has reason.
The only things that needs to be implemented are :

*"open each file in a new window, insted in the same window"
I can imagine that it's possible to do that in 5 -10 C++ lines

*Then : Save the window's position and preference then closing that window again
So, you save this in an .windows file in you kde ... or in the directory that you opened. This can be coded quiet fast (Oh, and : please, agree for that on a common standart between kde and gnome! If under gnome you looked at directory X with the "see as thunbail" modus, automaticaly gnome should also load this profile than looking at this file!!)

*Change the UI in konqueror so that there are less icons, and you don't see all toolbars. Add shortcuts to go up a directory, or one directory down. Here there is nothing to code, everything is right here.

So, Why laught then someone says he can implement it in a weekend ?

Daniel

by D. Le Sage (not verified)

My,what an intelligent and eloquent contribution to make to a discussion. Your rhetoric is both insulting and fails to provide any new thoughts into the discussion. I felt embarassed to read your mindless drivel, Joe. Grow up.

To add some substance to this debate:

Fact 1: Konqueror is becoming bloated. Do we really need features like FSView? Clutter is making it convoluted. I agree with you that systems should not be "dumbed down" but there is a clear distinction between making something less convoluted and making something less complex. If Konqueror can do the same job with less clutter onscreen, than by all means remove unnecessary bloat.
Fact 2: Konqueror does not adhere to the Unix tradition of doing one job and doing it well. It is trying to be both a web browser and a file browser. There is a vast difference between viewing files and HTML pages.
Fact 3: Konqueror is slower than Nautilus.
Fact 4: I did indicate that it should be kept flexible. The ideal would be to have spatial mode as the default. If users wnat advanced features, they can easily switch the system to this mode.
Fact 5: Needless to say, more than 1% of the world do like the new Nautilus.

Regards,

David

by Brad Hards (not verified)

What exactly do you mean by "spatial"? I know what the term means (difference in position, as opposed to difference in time), but what functionality / behaviour is proposed that isn't currently available in Konqueror? I don't mean in terms of a specific implementation (ie "go look at Nautilus" is an answer to a different question), but in terms of what it would mean for Konqi or some other application.

In terms of "Facts", I dispute 1, 2 (and 5, as written, but you probably didn't mean that 1% of the world or world population have tried Nautilus and liked it). Bloat is a subjective assessment, and Konqi the shell hasn't changed much.

KDE is not part of the unix tradition, really. It does have good separation between tools though - KHTML (the renderer) isn't part of Konqueror. Konqueror just uses it, as do other KDE tools. There is a good description of what a KPart is on http://developer.kde.org, which might help clarify the difference.

by Oleg Mitsura (not verified)

Sorry to break your argument, but on all my debian boxes that I have and installed for friends konqueror works 3-5x faster than nautilus, try to open a directory containing 100k files, even 10k files, you'll see what I'm talking about. (Thats just file browsing).

And still konqueror beats nautilus in pretty much everything else.

I don't have anything again GNOME, but they seem to be going nowhere fast.

by kundor (not verified)

You have a few misconceptions. ;-)
The things like FSView, web browsing, and file browsing, are not all being done by the same program -- they're all being done by their own programs, which are "piped into" konqueror. In that way, it adheres very well to the unix tradition: programs do only one small task and are combined to achieve the end result. So yes, web browsers and file browsers do different things; that's why different programs are doing those things.

I also greatly wish for spatial mode to be achievable in konqueror's settings -- all that it would take would be an option to "remember placement of windows and files," because the rest is already there. It wouldn't even have to be on by default.

by fake guy (not verified)

Oh my god! No! Don't even try to do it! Leave Konqueror as it is! If you like Nautilus, use Nautilus!

by ac (not verified)

Gnome trolls infiltrating the dot?

If that strange "spatial mode" should ever be added to konqueror, leave it off
by default at least.

by Davide Ferrari (not verified)

If you love Nautilus, then USE Nautilus and do not post silly questions on dot.kde.org

by smt (not verified)

Come on now, that is overly harsh.. some people like spatial mode more than browsing (I do), and also want a file manager that is integrated with their desktop environment (e.g, not nautilus)

by Davide Ferrari (not verified)

First of all, AFAIK you *can* have spatial mode, if spatial mode is what I suppose it should be (open new window for every directory opened).

Second, and this is a more general topic, KDE from times to times choose a "developing direction". If your tastes are different from this direction, than change your tastes or change the product you use. We are in the F/OSS world, we can *choose*. But do not flame praising for a feature "like that other software".

by Birdy (not verified)

Use the middle mouse button when clicking on a directory - that's all you need to get (simple) spatial mode for konqueror. (Tabbed browsing must be off).

ciao

by kundor (not verified)

that is NOT spatial mode! that's the bad side-effect of spatial mode without the point! If you open a folder, rearrange the icons to your liking and place the window somewhere, close it and open it again, it reverts to the original placement. Spatial mode allows you to arrange your files as you wish, for your efficient usage, and keeps them that way.

by Mildred (not verified)

With a spatial filemanager, you should even be able to put an icon in a corner of the window, and the icon should stay there eyou close the widow/folder ... ad appear at the same place whe you ope it again.

by Allan Sandfeld (not verified)

Get a developer drunk enough at aKademy, tempt him with cheap hookers and you might get just get there.

(I had a dream yesterday, in which I submitted a story to slashdot.org with the headline: OMG! I made konqueror spatial! with a link to my new homepage Konqi in Spaaaaceee.)

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

Oh, well, I just wrote it. Kindof.

It's not konqueror, but it is spatial. Will post the first half of it as a tutorial (kinda) at lateral.pycs.net tomorrow.

by Allan S. (not verified)

Neat. I didnt think I would take much coding.

But does it do remote-URLs?
That was why I thought of Konqueror. Ofcourse the only usefull parts of that, could be accieved by making bookmarks remember window size and location info.

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

Well, right now, it has a three-line loop to read a folder. If I make it use kdelibs (right now it's qt only), how much work do you think it would take to make it read a list from a remote URL? ;-)

by Richard Moore (not verified)

Sorry, but /cheap/ hookers just won't cut it for this. We want high-class ones (well, maybe you could knock people down to medium class). ;-)

by Wolfgang (not verified)

Everyone discussing here should at least read this before starting to argue

http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html

by EdCrypt (not verified)

Simplicity in kde? no, it do not match...