KDE Commit-Digest for 12th August 2007

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Significant progress in Colour Mixing in Krita. A new, more usable sidebar for okular. International Date Line support, and the merge of Summer of Code work in Marble. Solid is used for hardware detection in Digikam. KRunner uses Strigi for filename-based searches. The ability to switch cursor themes without restarting KDE. Timelines for multiple timezones, rich-text support and other journal improvements in KOrganizer. Support for storing bookmarks in Akonadi. Initial porting of the Kollision game to QGraphicsView. Support for KNewStuff2 in KWordQuiz and KVocTrain; KNewStuff2 support (and the spectrum viewer) removed in Kalzium until KDE 4.1. Initial import of Blitz, an improved graphical effect and filter library for KDE 4.0.

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Comments

by lukilak@we (not verified)

anyone already live working in a kde4 environment for developing kde4 ?

by Felix (not verified)

I've compiled KDE4 from svn. But not for development.

It compiles, starts. Very very slow, many crashes, many things not working or missing.

I would not use it for development, working in kde3 and running it on another xserver screen would be best I think. Even Alt-Tab sometimes doesn't work here, kicker is not responding, konqueror has problems, kmail doesn't work at all with my imap server, kmahjjong is working ;)

Personally I would say it is in Alpha-stage.

But as a demonstration of the technology it is very good, you can see the kde developers really implemented new and very good ideas. Looks _very_ promising.

Greetings
Felix

by digger (not verified)

I'm really wondering why hardly anybody is digging this:

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Photoshop_can_t_do_it_CorelPainter_can_t_but_...

by Nonymous (not verified)

Because the Digg crowd is a bunch of arrogant asshats who think they know everything.

The previous statement would be a flamebait if it had a slight smell of doubt, but it's very true. Just go to that URL and read the comments yourself.

PS: Please don't spam the dot with Digg links, Digg is shit and anybody with IQ > 70 will tell you that.

PPS: I never liked all caps text but.... KRITA IS AWESOME!

by Soap (not verified)

Your language was a little harsh, but, wow, I can't believe how stupid those comments were. That was a new low, even for digg.

Those people clearly can't remember fingerpainting when they were kids.

by Michael (not verified)

As much as I like Krita - I Don't think it's a new low for digg or that they have a low IQ or whatever. They are just stating the facts:
1) Not many people need this. Krita is missing MUCH more important features right now. I can't even edit GIF images from my web pages. I know this is QT and Ubuntu and whatever but sorry folks: ImageMagick and GIMP open and close them flawlessly and at least they should have implemented sth. to circumvent this. Further flawless with the resizing dialog (no center option the last time I checked) etc.
2) There actually IS other software that can do similar things.
3) If Krita is a painter app like it's always said then you cant really compare it to Photoshop. If it is a photo editing app then it's missing a LOT of necessary features still.
4) If you don't have this feature you still can make a palette of, say, green colors anyway. You can even create a palette in PaintShop or another app that supports this and use that in Photoshop.

Sorry folks, but the digg folks are right. Krita is a promosing app dont get me wrong and this is a nice feature and I don't have a problem reading a feature about this on the dot BUT don't let me get started on features Photoshop has and neither Krita nor Gimp has...

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

Well, the text on digg was a bit over the top really. I don't think any Krita developer would put it that way. I'm trying hard to avoid comparisons to Photoshop myself -- I'd rather compare Krita with Corel Painter.

And yes, we are aware that there is other software that mixes colors in something resembling a painter's palette. There's just no available software that does it as well as Krita -- Bill Baxter never released his Dab, Stokes or Impasto (all of which include similar technology, but Krita has advanced on his work in some areas).

As for gif -- if you want to edit indexed color images, use a tool that's good for that kind of thing. Kolourpaint or the Gimp. It's not what Krita is for. It's out of scope for us. We do lab, xyz, ycbcr, hdr, lms, kubelka-munk -- others do 255 colors in a table. Others do indexed palettes of various colors to pick from -- we have that as well. But we've also got something that makes the image creation experience a lot more fun and that lets people bring real-world skills to the computer.

But it the end, I simply cannot understand why people actually want to spend their time being so negative every time a nice new thing comes along. It's not cool, it's not sophisticated, it's not productive... What do those digg people get out of it?

by digger (not verified)

@ all parent posts:

Think about Digg and its typical readers/commenters all you want (and you are probably right), but...

However, once you hit one of the technology front pages of the Digg service, chances are that you'll find a dozen or so new readers/users who never had heard of your application. Forget about the dumbasses in between who shout loudest about their negative feelings.

Also, remember: "Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all." There's more than a grain of truth in that saying....

by Nonymous (not verified)

Sorry, but no; putting it on Digg will only bring asshats and trolls. And they the worst kind of asshats and trolls, they stick around and command the developers as if they were paying for it. And the only way to shake 'em off is to scrap the project.

Those who ever heard of KDE will notice Krita sooner or later. Those who are interested in it will join the mailing-list and/or the IRC channel. Let's not lure the asshats here.

You might think that I'm bitter about Digg, and you bet I'm. I've been there before and all the "news" I see is brought to you by "Apple worshipers", "Racist fascists", "Self-righteous heretics", "Potheads, er.. I mean Pot-heads" and more fun types.

by Michael (not verified)

>As for gif -- if you want to edit indexed color images, use a tool that's
>good for that kind of thing. Kolourpaint or the Gimp. It's not what Krita is
>for.

Mmm, I dont find this very convincing, really. It's more a programmers' thinking than a users'. And thinking like a programmer is quite often
a very bad choice for making user interfaces and implementing functions.
I want to edit images, with seperate layer, use filters on them, rotate them, paint on them. The only thing is - I want to save them as GIF later. Sometimes. Sometimes not. And now I need a seperate app for this. Well, whatever...

by Kleag (not verified)

I use it daily since a few months, rebuilding with kdesvn-build every day. It is quite stable.
I'm using it to develop ksirk and kgraphviewer. Currently, I use kate+konsole instead of kdevelop4 is not usable (in my last tries).
What I miss is an automatic start of nepomuk services and strigi daemon. Also, I'd like to know how to ignore the menus and other desktop entries filled by my distribution (and to only use those given by KDE4). I'm never sure if a menu entry is a kde4 one or one from my distrib (mandriva).

by Debian User (not verified)

I think on techbase they have a trick for that. Was something about XDG_* enviroment variables. Have a search there.

Yours,
Kay

by Jos (not verified)

find out where vandenoever.strigi.service has been installed. Then make sure you define XDG_DATA_DIRS such that XDG_DATA_DIRS/dbus-1/services/vandenoever.strigi.service points to this file.

In the standard KDE4 environment you can add
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$KDEDIR/share
to your .bashrc file.

If you want to define multiple directories in XDG_DATA_DIRS, separate them with colons.

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

I wonder why both Digikam and Gwenview are busily working on thumbnail view. Improving performance seems to be the game, as I see Aurelien complain about KPreviewJob being slow. How much duplication is going on here, and how much could be shared? This goes for all these graphics viewers out there, of course. They each have the same or comparable effects (some shared with kipi-plugins, yes) and a lot other things in common.

Showfoto, gwenview - digikam, kphotoalbum. a lot of similarities. Now I'm OK with having many apps doing the same, I know you can't force developers to work together anyway. But the annoying thing is that each of em does SOME things right, and others wrong... So they should at least watch each others apps more often, and steal (or share) more ;-)

I esp want to mention digikam here - I love the app for it's features, but I loathe it for it's complexity. I think all tabs in there should be removed. Yes, all of them. That would force a huge redesign of the UI, but I think it's possible - and it would make it finally a lot more usable for mere humans ;-)

Of course, lot of work. Maybe some usability guy can/wants to help, I'm not much in the usability area...

Second thing.

Marble.

Wonderfull work going on!!!

Last, congrats to Daniel (Mosfet) for his first commit in a long time ;-)
Welcome back!

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

BTW I choose to ignore the whole colormixing stuff, not because it's not really amazing, but because I assumed many others would have said stuff in the time I wrote this mail. Not true, so:

- great work, emanuele, on that! It's way cool to have stuff our proprietary competition doesn't have ;-)

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

Now I'm busy completing myself anyway, so here's another thing:

Congrats, Bram, on your top location :D You're consistent and enduring bug killing spree has put you second, third and fourth a few times. Now it's your turn to shine on top :D

@ Danny: he has 24, yet his bar shows zero?!?

BTW about the whole digikam thing, love the work on it, Gilles, don't mistake my criticism for negativism. I really do appreciate the hard work you put into it (and the statistics show that work). I just wish all the app would feel more natural...

by Thomas Zander (not verified)

Jos, I think you need a cat to talk to ;)

by djouallah mimoune (not verified)

didn't you know that he broke up with his girl friend !!

by shaforostoff (not verified)

freedom (including personal one) is above all

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

hehe, he is right, I DO need a cat. That's how bad it is - I HAVE one already...

aaah, it'll be allright, don't worry, be happy...

by Simon (not verified)

While this is not something I'm likely to use much (I don't even use Krita very much as digikam is so good for photo manipulation nowadays and that's the limit of my artisitc activities) the colour mixing in Krita looks very cool. I can see that this could be great for someone trying to do some freehand artwork with a graphics tablet for example - just imagin how natural it would be to mix your colours over on the edge of the tablet (in a manner of speaking) to get the one you want

by Kevin Colyer (not verified)

I am thrilled to see ground breaking technology going into Krita. While I am not an artist this sort of innovation will add momentum to KDE becoming a true platform of choice for artists. Well done!

I can see I am going to have do some finger painting!

by Gopala Krishna (not verified)

Its really an amazing work by Emanuele Tamponi :)
I never knew that color mixing would be so complicated. Thanks for this wonderful technology and also the main seeder of this idea :)

by Zeog (not verified)

Awesome work! Doing the hard research work, digging through the literature and doing the maths is the right way to go. Thank you!

However, I think I've seen mixing colors like this before, but now I'm not sure anymore. Some time ago I played around with a program called ArtRage which -- I think -- also managed to create the feel of real paint and color mixing. Apart from confirming whether or not this awesome color mixing feature in Krita is a very first, it might give some inspiration for further projects, as well.

by pak (not verified)

Yes, artrage already has something much,much similar to this.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

Actually, no, not that similar. If you mix blue and yellow in Artrage you get purple, not green. Our approach is much more realistic.

by John Tapsell (not verified)

Sweet! Marble now supports the International Date Line. I can finally try and get myself a nice Brazillian girl :)

by djouallah mimoune (not verified)

yeah, i am not alone, the idea pop up in my head, when i read this commit ;-)

by JKdsjjaoO0Ol (not verified)

If the local village idiots do not like your fat ass, why do you think Brazillians do? Or are you supporting human trafficking?

by Troy Unrau (not verified)

Daniel M. Duley committed changes in /trunk/kdesupport:

Adding Blitz, my first commit in many years :)

by Richard Stallman (not verified)

Ah! :) Great! Welcome back Mosfet!

by shaforostoff (not verified)

behindkde.org to interview him?

by Richard Van Den Boom (not verified)

I'm not sure I understand what Blitz is about. Is this to provide a library for graphical effects a la Beryl to KDE?

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

it's replacing kstyle, which simply is a mess. They want to replace it with quasar in the future, but that's not ready yet (Zack is on it). So as a intermediate solution, Blitz might be put in kdesupport. But it's not fully decided, yet.

by Jakob Petsovits (not verified)

That should be kdefx, not kstyle. Apart from that, true.

by CHX (not verified)

Some ideas for painting (brushes, etc) can be taken from here: http://www.pixarra.com/product.html

But as it seems from the screenshots, it does color mixing extremly bad ).

by MORB (not verified)

Corel Painter could also be a source of inspiration:
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1166553885783

I remember that it was what professional graphic artists I worked with used when they needed a realistic painting simulation.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

Oh, we have looked at pretty much every existing paint application in existence. Twistedbrush, Deep Paint, Artrage, Corel Painter -- there are many more, on Windows, but also on Linux. Applications like Gogh and Mypaint are not bad at all. And I know that the Mypaint author reads the Krita mailing list.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Maybe this truly innovative piece of software can be another source of inspiration:
http://macenstein.com/default/archives/759

by anonymous coward (not verified)

That video is VERY funny!

Can we make this line thinner? No.

Haha.

by anona (not verified)

I love the commit digests. This looks good, but how this should be done in a few months time I'll never know.. :(

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

I must say I agree with you. From what I'm seeing being discussed on the mailinglists still, that seems way too deep and pervasive. But we'll see.

by anonymous coward (not verified)

The color-mixing looks quite interesting and cool. I'll have to compile krita myself to see how it works with not-so-uniform-brushes. But I do wonder why the author starts to paint his pictures IN THE COLORMIXER, and not in the image itself. Doesn't that show there's a problem with the UI/usability? Then again, it probably was just an early demo...

Else, I'm very happy to see mosfet back in kde-land. Welcome back!

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

The color model that enables this kind of mixing isn't yet available for the main image -- not a big issue, just not done yet. It's on Emanuele's todo, together with complex loading (that is, more than one color in a brush) and other stuff.

by Richard Van Den Boom (not verified)

That's really an impressive work. I guess, once this can be applied to the image, that watercolor and things like that are not far away. :-)
Would it be possible to have this behaviour as a property of a layer? It would probably be interesting for artists to have a background more or less unmutable, and to have the possibility of drawing on a calc/layer with color mixing, taking into account the background colours, but not modifying the background layer itself.

by reihal (not verified)

If the amount of white in the brush could be changed dynamically (like with pressure on a drawing pad)
it would simulate water.
You could do a "watercolour" right there in the mixer.

by Richard Van Den Boom (not verified)

Well, watercolor is a bit more complex, since there is diffusion (not sure it's the english term, maybe more scattering) going on even after you actually painted, for a certain amount of time depending on the amount of water and of the type of paper. But having correct color mixing is probably a prerequisite, I suppose.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

That's right. Well, it's possible to have watercolor simulation without k-m color mixing, like we had in Krita 1.6, but with the right color mixing and hopefully a better approach to the physics filters it'll be much better in 2.0.

by Soap (not verified)

Diffusion is the right term.

by John Tapsell (not verified)

Could this be used to get a realistic silver/gold/etc color? Silver looks silver because it doesn't reflect light uniformally in all directions.