KDE-CVS-Digest for May 30, 2003

This week, new tab widgets are in Konqueror, news on KAudioCreator, MDI support goes into KDE, and more functions and
templates are added to KSpread. Also, many bug fixes have been made to KMail, Konqueror, and KWin. Read it all in the latest KDE-CVS-Digest.

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Comments

by Avery (not verified)

I always look forward to the weekly cvs digest. As always great work (a little early this week too....)

by binner (not verified)

Of course the KTabWidget is new in kdelibs and only used in Konqueror now. And it doesn't require Qt 3.2 as whole HEAD shouldn't require it yet.

by anon (not verified)

are there any screenshots of the new tab widgets someplace?

by binner (not verified)

This screenshot shows how Konqueror/HEAD uses it. Missing is the mouse pointer between the tooltip and the close button shown on icon hover.

by tuxo (not verified)

What about new icons for opening/closing tabs? The current ones are not that beautiful in my opinion.

by Datschge (not verified)

How about drawing some alternative icons? It looks like many icon sets are still missing these (any many other) icons.

by anon (not verified)

thanks

xxx

by quarus (not verified)

Your CVS Digest is always interesting !

by Torpedo (not verified)

Anybody have screen shots of new konqueror tab widget?
Does this implementation use the color indication of the page status (loading, ...)? How can you open a link into a new tab while you keep viewing the current? (I can't wait for the 3.2 publication :-) )

Thanks a lot!

by binner (not verified)

For screenshot see above. The tab widget allows colored tabs and Konqueror uses it for page status indication. And KDE 3.1 already had Ctrl+left mouse button, an general option and right mouse button menu entry to open new tabs in background.

by Eron Lloyd (not verified)

Does it's API allow for the active tab to be bold, to distinguish it from the rest? That would be quite helpful.

Cheers,

Eron

by binner (not verified)

No. This sounds more like a style issue.

by lit (not verified)

the QStyle widget theme in current use can make active tabs bold. Whether this looks nice is really dependent on the style.

by Melchior FRANZ (not verified)

FWIW: I like the current black/red/blue (depending on the state) tab titles a lot!

by Enrico Ros (not verified)

Even if we're already accustomed with the great KDE-CVS-Digest i've to thank you for bringing us always the bleending edge of kde development!
I can't wait anymore, I need to read it! Thank you!!
enrico

by phluid (not verified)

1. Is kmdi going to be ported to use ktabwidget so that apps like kdevelop and kate can use it's features? Is konsole going to be ported to kmdi or ktabwidget solely? Is konqueror going to be ported to kmdi? I'm confused.

2. The close button on tabs in Konq is sweet, and a long overdue addition (props to whoever worked on it..), but is there any way to use Mozilla-like behavior, as in close button in the edge? I find this far more space saving and less annoying than the galeon-like close buttons currently in CVS... A lot of people who undoubatly switch BACK to konq in KDE 3.2 (gotta love a better tab implementation), from browsers like Mozilla, Firebird (Phoenix), and Epiphany, will probably love a setting to switch it to the side. Only current Galeon users will like it, but galeon is fast moving to a state if irrelevence, as it was snubbed for inclusion into GNOME 2.4 in favor of Epiphany (which btw, has a sweet bookmarks system that any konq developers should try.. could be made into a kioslave, *hint* *hint*)

Anyway, great work as usual in CVS kde developers, kde 3.2 is shaping up to be a great release. Oh yeah, thanks as usual Derek!

by anon (not verified)

Konsole is perfect the way it is. Please don't change nothing.

by Mark Hannessen (not verified)

it would be nice to be able to "spawn" new shells using ctrl+shift+n just like spawning new tabs in konqy.

by binner (not verified)

Use Ctrl+Alt+n (since KDE 2.2) or "Settings/Configure Shortcuts...". :-)

by Mark Hannessen (not verified)

thats really cool !! thanks a lot.

but isn't it confusing to have two different key combinations for two things that are so similair? i tried ctrl+shift+n naturaly in konsole because konqy did it that way, when ctrl+shift+n didn't work in konsole i thought it wasn't inplented and didn't bother searching. i probably should have looked a little better, but i bet there are more people who made that mistake.

by jadrian (not verified)

I agree, it should be consistent. That's why I submited this whishlist report:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53855

Please vote for it.
Thanks

by binner (not verified)

Konsole was there first. :-) Its shortcuts were chosen to don't clash with common shell shortcuts. Konqueror chose others because its shortcuts conflicted e.g. with KLineEdits in web pages. It's not easy to find common shortcuts. I changed Konsole to default to Ctrl+Shift+N as alternate shortcut for "New Session".

by Matthias (not verified)

But konsole already does that. Doesn't it?

*switch-to-konsole* - *press ctrl-alt-n* - *getting new shell*

Yes, it does.

Or it might be a special custumisation i did myself.

by binner (not verified)

I plan to change Konsole to use KTabWidget. A toolbar button group is a wrong GUI representation for multiple sessions.

by anon (not verified)

Argh. That would be quite awful. It looks and works great the way it is, especially with the bar at the bottom and with text beside icons. For an idea of how bad normal tabs would look try gnome-terminal.

Please get consensus and check with the maintainers before making this big change. :(

by optikSmoke (not verified)

I agree! The buttons look beautiful.... frankly, using tabs would be ugly (especially in keramik, but that's just a gripe I have with keramik's tab widget)

No tabs in konsole! PLEASE!

by binner (not verified)

Try Keramik/II for slightly different tabs or use a different style.

by optikSmoke (not verified)

I use Mandrake Galaxy at the moment..... I haven't found a perfect style as of yet, but some of the nice little touches in Galaxy allow me to ignore some of the little things I don't like.

by Andre Lourenco (not verified)

same here :-)

by binner (not verified)

> especially with the bar at the bottom and with text beside icons.

What makes you believe that this will go away?

> Please get consensus and check with the maintainers before making this big change. :(

I convinced at least myself already. :-)

by tuxo (not verified)

Ah no, please don't use tabs instead of buttons, it's perfect the way it is now! Gnome terminal is ugly!

by tuxo (not verified)

Another reason why tabs is not a good idead is that with terminals, the focus is always on the bottom (where the cursor is). Now with tabs on top a la konqueror or gnome-terminal, one has to switch focus all the time when changing a terminal. With the current button-based implementation, it is possible to have the button bar on the bottom, so one doesn't have to move the eyes up and down while switching.

by lit (not verified)

You can move ktabwidget (and qtabwidget) in top and bottom, and hopefully someone will extend it to rotate to left and right too like kmultitabbar can (which is the widget used in konqueror's sidebar, afaik)

Perhaps the konsole tabbar should be set to bottom by default.

by fault (not verified)

> For an idea of how bad normal tabs would look try gnome-terminal.

Yes, do try gnome-terminal in fact. Tabs work quite great for this purpose. Konsole's buttons and tabs are the same metaphor.. having konsole use buttons instead of tabs has been a long-running UI consistancy bug since KDE 2.0 (konsole in KDE 1.2 didn't have MDI, did it? did kvt?) that simply needs to be fixed sooner or later. It's actually possible now that we have a tab widget that is as powerful as Konsole's buttons+a toolbar were. Back in Qt 2.x, I remember qtabwidget being pretty hard to extend, not sure when it got fixed :) I'm sure when konsole was original developed, it would have used a tab widget if there was one sufficient for it at that time.

I'm personally looking forward to colored tab highlights ala konqueror in konsole (the current notfications, etc...)

by Mike (not verified)

I'm going to join the chorus and say I like Konsole the way it is. When working in a terminal, the command line is almost always at the bottom of the screen. It makes sense to place the tabs/buttons close by.

I took a look at gnome-terminal, and it just doesn't feel right. I usually switch terminals using shift-left and shift-right. I like the fact that I can watch the buttons change right below my command line. This is one of my favorite features of Konsole, making it my terminal emulator of choice.

I also like the "new" button on the left-hand side. If you were to switch to tabs, the next step would be to add a toolbar for the "new" button. Frankly, that would just add clutter.

You might notice that Gideon also uses buttons instead of tabs. They work quite well.

By the way, Konsole lets you move the toolbar to the top. Does anyone actually do that?

by fault (not verified)

> I'm going to join the chorus and say I like Konsole the way it is. When working in a terminal, the command line is almost always at the bottom of the screen. It makes sense to place the tabs/buttons close by.

Uhm, ktabwidget supports being at the top *and* at the bottom. I assume that it'll be put at the bottom by default in konsole.

> If you were to switch to tabs, the next step would be to add a toolbar for the "new" button

Have you seen ktabwidget within Konqueror? The new button is within the tabbar. You could probably put a close button on other side too.

> I like the fact that I can watch the buttons change right below my command line.

It would probably pretty easy to let the tabs accept that kind of focus.. If it can't already.

by nbensa (not verified)

NO PLEASE!!! Konsole is OK the way it is now. DONT USE TABS IN KONSOLE!

by binner (not verified)

Your arguments are really convincing. Wait - what arguments? It would help if people would read the other comments before whining about losing a bottom bar and other things. :-)

by Melchior FRANZ (not verified)

Tabs aren't only OK, they are a requirement. Buttons just don't make sense for switching konsole instances. That's completely inconsistent. People will soon forget the buttons, once they see the new (very well done!) tabs at the bottom of their konsole window. (Back oriented people are free and strongly encouraged to fork konsole and maintain their very own implementation. :-)

by Torpedo (not verified)

Yes, I think its better to use ktabwidget, wasn't it its target?!. Long life to code reusing...

by uga (not verified)

IMHO, first keramik's bulky buttons and tabs should be flattenned a bit before this change. They take much more space than the buttons when ->setFlat(true);

When I code, I usually hate to put keramik's buttons just for that, so I *always* use the flat option in my dialogs. I need to learn coding qt's styles asap....

by MxCl (not verified)

Keramik 2 addresses this, anyway you could always use a different style

by uga (not verified)

If Keramik's tabs where flat that would look nice, but it just doesn't look right for me with bulky buttons on the bottom. Is there a ->setFlat() option for tabs? That would be nice. Otherwise I'll have start making my own patched konsole ;-)

by till (not verified)

> there a ->setFlat() option for tabs?

Yes, there is in fact.. However, it really depends on the style maker to implement such a varient tab. Most KDE and third-party styles don't include it. TrollTech's do.

BTW, KeramikII's tabs are less bulky than Keramik3.1's tabs.

by SadEagle (not verified)

>> there a ->setFlat() option for tabs?
> Yes, there is in fact..

Huh?

by till (not verified)

ugh.. too much coffee.. i was referring to qwidget::setTabShape(QTabWidget::triangular)

by Mystilleef (not verified)

I'm I the only one who works in Konsole without the scroll bar, the menu bar, the status bar, the tool bar and in full screen all the time? I'm I the only one who sees all those bars, icons and widgets as distractions? I'm the only one who see KDE's interface getting cluttered and uglier as the day passes by? I'm I the only sick brother around? Even Konqueror's Keramic style tabs look bulky, bulgy, cluttered, unnatural and just plain annoying. Isn't it about time KDE's user interface designers and engineers started incorporating the simple, sleek and slim fundamentals into their design philosophy. Visible tabs on a CLI is just blatantly inexcusable. Even if you are to incorporate them, please design them with simplicity and style in mind and make them less conspicuous or less distracting.

Regards,

Mystilleef

by till (not verified)

> Even Konqueror's Keramic style tabs look bulky, bulgy, cluttered, unnatural and just plain annoying.

wait for KeramikII in KDE 3.2 :).. less bulky tabs

> Visible tabs on a CLI is just blatantly inexcusable.

A nice balance might to be to hide the tabbar in konsole (like it is in Konq), when only tab is in use.

This has been a main feature of konsole since KDE 2.0. It's one of the main reasons people uses Konsole versus something like Eterm or aterm. When gnome-terminal did not have it, people screamed until it did.

This brings up a good point though-- a lot of people use KDE for it's features. This of course doesn't mean KDE developers should not focus on slimness and sleekness (which were main features of KDE 1.2...)

I do agree that KDE is quite a bit more cluttered than it used to be.. Especially things like the control center. Of course, on going work (http://usability.kde.org/activity/completed/panelconfig.php) is always going on in that sector.

by lyp (not verified)

autohiding would rock

by Anon (not verified)

What status bar?