KDE Traffic #54 is Out

KDE Traffic #54 has been released. KOffice updates abound, as well as an update on the continuing saga of Ellis Whitehead. I wonder if penguins make good wives. Anyway, get it at the usual place.

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Comments

by a.c. (not verified)

KDE Traffic #54

KDE Traffic #54

hummmm. what happend to the HTML encoding?
oh well.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Thanks. HTML encoding is at the bottom of the todo list. :-)

by Alex (not verified)

IMO, the new Koffice startup is grreat except for the "create document" tab which looks entirely flawed and ugly.

The name description and icon to the right are good, but the way the document is sklected is very poor. here is how i suggest it:

|drop down combo box with options: cards and lables, envelopes, page layout, text orientation|

Under this are the templates icons each with a distinct icon like the current koffice so you can easily see what it is.

by André Somers (not verified)

Another thing: users are most likely to work on a recent document. Thus, it makes sence to have that tab as the first tab! Or, as an alternative: remember wich tab was used last, and make sure that tab is raised again the next time KOffice starts up.

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

Right, where recent documents are comprised of both saved documents and the templates used to create new documents.

I.e., if I open a doc and save it, it is added to the list. If I create a new doc based on a fax, the fax template should be added to the list. That way, somebody who creates new faxes (or memos, or reports or letters) all day will have their "most recently accessed document" - i.e., a new one - on the list.

Typing quicky and running out the door - hope this makes sense. I thought of it the other day when I was using KWord.

by tuxo (not verified)

I don't know why people want to change the current implementation of the Koffice startup selector. I like it much more than the newly proposed one shown in the screenshots. Maybe an option to desactiavate it for those who don't like startup selectors would be of interst, why not.

However, I think that much more important for koffice is to get better word/openoffice import/export capabilites. And maybe icons that fit in better with the standard Crystall icons.

by Jon (not verified)

I agree - a million times.. what was wrong with the old way? This seems a whole lot more bloated... a huge icon window for recent docs? Seems a whole lot simpler with a dropped down menu, first document being at the top. I dunno... I don't think the three options of, type of document, open document, or recent document, are all too different to have their own tabs. but again, just my two cent.. and lets get some more opinion on this.

by Jan (not verified)

1) Don't know if this is already implemented but:
Please save the size of this dialog and use it the next time.
The small open dialog is really awful.
2.) Create an option to disable the whole thing and always start with
a blank default page. Most times I just want to write something new down
and care about page size and all that later. I've searched all over
kword to disable that dialog but couldn't find anything. Or am I missing
something here?

by Tar (not verified)

#2 option would be required IMHO, if for nothing else then to mimic MS Word behavior with this, habbits burned in by MS die hard ;)

by kidcat (not verified)

>habbits burned in by MS die hard ;)
Yes they do.. and i think it is important that we inplement these little "freindly faces" regardles of whatever we personally like/dislike them. After all, the first round of the battle is to make users convert!

/kidcat

NB1: I dont want KDE to look like Win32!

NB2: I must admit that there are a few GUI features in Win32 that i actually like...

NB3: Beware! There is much noise of debuging and ratteling of heavy compilers under the horizont... it is the hordes of PINGUINS and DRAGONS marching under the RISING SUN!!!

by Tar (not verified)

Hmm... need to RTFA first ;)
I wonder what "Always start KWord with the selected template" does on http://linpacker.tuxfamily.org/newconcept1.jpg - that should solve #2, no?

by Paul Seamons (not verified)

Whole heartedly agree with item 2 - and it should be default - across all of the koffice applications. Having koffice use the dialogs as the first thing the user sees will generally confuse the user. If i want to open documents or get a template or look at my recent documents - I can go to the File menu - just like in every other application in the KDE desktop. If the dialogs are such a good idea - there should be a common framework for them available in all of KDE and everything used to create documents should use it. It it is not a good idea for some applications - it may be considered that it isn't a good idea for kword or kspread either. I'm fine having the feature there (in fact I don't have much choice without coding otherwise) - but I'd much prefer to have it turned off and have kword and kspread startup in the same manner as any other word processor/spreadsheet.

by AC (not verified)

Sorry for complaining, but is it useful to release a KDE Traffic for 3 medium-interesting news items? Either collect them until you have more to say, or submit them as separate dot entries...

by Russell Miller (not verified)

A complex question.

Strictly speaking, there are advantages and disadvantages to what you propose, as with anything in life, it is not as clear cut as that.

It all comes down to what my priorities are. Would I rather skip a week and save it all up, risking the threads becoming out of date, or would I rather put out something that's a little sparse, but timely? I think I prefer timely. If I go to a two week schedule, fine, then I may end up taking your suggestion anyway. But I'm not going to go skipping issues if there's any way at all I can avoid it, because this is a weekly issue, and it is very important to me that this issue be produced on a schedule for many reasons, including several I choose not to go into at this time.

Also consider that people are contributing to these issues - I am not the only author, though I am the "editor", fwiw. I don't want to hold their contributions back any longer than I have to.

As with any other medium, some issues will be more interesting than others. That is because the source material is not always interesting from one week to the next. That's the nature of the beast and just something you'll have to deal with.

Of course I could go making up posts. But that probably wouldn't be appreciated. Maybe I can write a post where Ellis Whitehead marries Ingo Klöcker...

--Russell

by Mario (not verified)

I agree with you, I prefer to keep my self up to date.

I also prefer to read small documents once a week than a big one every two weeks

by Jeff (not verified)

I agree w/ above.

Even the statement "no news at all this week" tells me something about whats going on (on not) on the lists these days.

I also like the comment of "active thread on ... " because I can then go read the lists and listen in if I'm interested.

Thanks a lot for the news... I really like the content & format.

by Russell Miller (not verified)

I try to do that. But you can also go to the archive link and it will take you directly to the thread.

--Russell

by Debian User (not verified)

Hello Russell,

thank you for the good work. I recommend to do it the way it's fun for you.

Then I want to share my impression too. It sometimes feels disappointing if it's so short, only relevant to one issue.

Yours, Kay

by Russell Miller (not verified)

I understand. Maybe I can come up with something fun when there's a slow week.

--Russell

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Plus, if one misses a week, it may become a habit.

Good job btw. I like it each week. Maybe the developers will talk more if they know it is covered? Or even subscribe to the lists?

Derek

by Russell Miller (not verified)

THANK YOU DEREK!!! >:-)

by Chakie (not verified)

Well, I don't mind the small updates. Reading something huge like Kernel Traffic can sometimes take a lot of time. The small but frequent KDE Traffics also help to keep the KDE discussions "alive". Rather many small discussions regularly than a few big ones infrequently.

by kidcat (not verified)

The day (week?) where the KDE project has "something hot for everyone" to post every week will indeed be a fine day! Unfortunately we need 25 (or how many) good programmers more to spend 10-20h a week/pr hacker for that to happen.

In the mean time it is still nice to see that the KDE-Machine (TM/R/C) is still running well-greased, and that work gets done even if it is of the more "trivial" kind.

So.. Untill the time comes where each and every issue of KDE-Trafic is awesomely-ultra-wiz-bang-cool i guess we just have to digest the "thin" ones too (btw.. i've never meet a weekly issue of anything that was always droolsome ;-)

/kidcat

by Anonymous (not verified)

"There's a thread that shows some promise" - what is its topic?

by Russell Miller (not verified)

A discussion on the implementation details of splitting kmail from its gui.

by Hein (not verified)

It is so sad that there is so little development on Krita. Perhaps we need a kind of GPL shareware model. I would pay 100$ for a valuable Photoshop or Paintshop alternative under Linux...

by oliv (not verified)

Don't need to pay!
There is either Gimp (Free, as un Free Speech) or Corel Photopaint 9 (free, as in free beer).
Of course you still can send the 100$ to Gimp developers.

by nobody (not verified)

But Gimp is NOT a KDE/QT Application and it's handling is far away from Photoshop.

by Patrick Julien (not verified)

Do you actually think that Gimp is free has in free beer to develop?!? Or for that matter Krita or the rest of KOffice. There is a need for funds in free software too. Developers need to eat, in fact they need to do more than just eat. Of course, I'm not saying you should sponsor Krita, but I find comments like "Don't need to pay!" disturbing. the "free" in free software is not about the actual price of the software... are you telling me that if the Gimp team would charge for their software you would not support them?

by dr.gonzo (not verified)

I have to agree with this 100%

Its so sad to see so many people take and take and take from 'free' programs, and never give anything back... The fact is no matter how perfect the world might be with everything being free (a la RMS's view), its not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, developing takes time and money...

I'm not able to contribute to projects with code, but I make damned sure that every year I make a few donations to the projects I use the most (gentoo and KDE).. if but a fraction of the users of 'free' programs did the same, we could easily subsidize fulltime development and make leaps and bounds in progress much more so than is happening now with the majority of developers having other fulltime jobs and working on the 'free' stuff in their spare time.

Stop being cheap, support the good guys!

by Patrick Julien (not verified)

I have to admit that I find something even more frustrating from my experiences developing Krita. A good portion of free software users see the community has a business, obviously for a single company to develop multiple word processors, image editors, etc. doesn't make any sense. However, the community is not a single entity, I did not decide to work on Krita so I could compete with Photoshop! I worked on it because I wanted to learn. Before Krita, I had never worked with Qt, KDE or anything in KOffice. I also wanted to learn on the core algorithms that make something like Krita work. Something that his already done with Gimp. I swear I'm going to scream if I get another mail about Kimp. I don't care! What is wrong with Gimp's GUI anyway? You can organize it's multiple panes so it looks like Photoshop's no problem. I'm willing to scratch an itch has much has the next guy, but I'm only willing to scratch on my person. If you have an itch, leave me out of it!

by tuxo (not verified)

Kimp, Kimp, Kimp! ;-P

Well, seriously, you can get used to handling gimp in the way you can get used to handle Photoshop. However, it is not entirely true that you can organize Gimp so as to look and feel like Photoshop. There are still a few problems with the interface of Gimp:
1) Even though it is possible to dock tools in the newest development version, these docking windows still float around individually. Therefore, a container window is missing that can handle these windows floating windows (e.g. when minimizing the app). Also, wallpaper pictures can be disturbing and interfere visually when manipulating pictures with gimp. A container window would allow to solve this problem as well.
2) The main toolbox has many buttons - too many per row, there should be only two or three per row in order to quickly access them (this is especially true when you activate toolbar docking, then the size (# buttons per row) of the main toolbar cannot be reduced enough). Furthermore, toolbar buttons are not grouped, see e.g. Sodipodi for a good example.

by Datschge (not verified)

There is http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71514 which is untouched for nearly one year already stating that Gimp's frontend will be (already is?) separated from its backend in version 1.4. Should be promising for those who like to draft a better UI and link it to the Gimp backend. =)

by Datschge (not verified)
by tuxo (not verified)

Interesting, a step into the right direction, I think. However, individual windows are still floating around in the container window and the desktop menu should not appear on each individual image manipulation window, but better be shared among all windows and thus be part of the container window.
But then again, it was just a quick hack I guess. Not bad at all!

by Eron Lloyd (not verified)

Hmm, I tend to like the simplicity of the current dialog...perhaps just a little polish instead? Having a preview pane would be handy, but otherwise this dialog seems a bit bulky (perhaps Keramik increases that perception).

by tuxo (not verified)

>Hmm, I tend to like the simplicity of the current dialog...perhaps just a >little polish instead
I agree with you, a bit more polish of the current startup dialog and document preview capability would be better thank a bulky dialog.

by Lovey (not verified)

How the fsck did a geek like him get a hottie like that? (j/k - I know it's mad h4x0r skillz that did it)

Congrats on the wedding, I wish I could add some words of advice here, but I'm not married.....yet.

by Russell Miller (not verified)

Heh. Neither am I, and I hope it stays that way.

Honestly, my opinion of marriage is so low that it took me several tries to come up with an article that wasn't offensive.

--Russell

by Ellis Whitehead (not verified)

*grin* Don't worry, your low opinion of marriage was already apparent from earlier. Seriously, though, your editorial comments often make me laugh. ;)

Keep up the good work. BTW, I'd prefer staying with the weekly Traffics over every other week. There's nothing wrong with them being short sometimes, and I personally tend to forget about news articles that don't come out either weekly or monthly...

Regards!
Ellis

by Russell Miller (not verified)

Re the editorial comments: yes, that is what I try to do. I try to make this fun for me and for the reader.

Re the comments: I am not trying to cause offense (something that I don't think I did here) but more I am a very outspoken person who has a very difficult time keeping his opinions to himself. That's why I post here. Because if I can express my opinions, etc., here, I won't feel as tempted to archive them in the kde-traffic, where they arguably *don't* belong.

I've always felt that I either make good friends or good enemies, but my type of personality doesn't really lend itself to ambivalence.

Re every week - at this point it looks as if the votes are for that. It's what I'd prefer to do, as well.

--Russell