Poll: What KDE Feature Do You Most Want?

Polls are an oft-requested feature of the dot. KDE.com has risen to the challenge with its latest user poll: "What Should Be the Highest Priority of KDE Developers Leading Up to KDE 2.2?". I just installed Linux Mandrake 7.2 (until my SuSE package arrives), and after upgrading to KDE 2.1.1, I feel that a KDE port of the configuration utilities could bring a huge amount of polish to this distribution. A KDE interface to Linuxconf might be a good start. Others would however prefer a KDE installer, and some simply think that KDE should be faster and/or less of a memory hog. Here's your chance to cast a vote and voice an opinion.

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Comments

by gis (not verified)

> CVS Konqueror permits sorting of History by Date, although it is still organized by sites in this case.

not just CVS, this is possible since 2.1 IIRC. And spark and some of his friends are working on making it categorizable by date as well, so stay tuned :)

I read elsewhere that this is possible. but i can't find out how...

how do you do it?

oh poo.

don't menuclick on "History" - rather, menuclick on any subentry (website) and --> sort --> by date. of course, this does not sort just the history for that website, but all of them. just a strange place to find this menu option.

by george moudry (not verified)

Pasting is my pet peeve. I wish I could select the text to overwrite and hit "paste".

by Martin Fick (not verified)

The location thingy used to annoy me too, but the little "x" next to location now clears the field so you shouldn't have that problem anymore.

You already CAN drag images from a website to the desktop!

by What we really ... (not verified)

To be honest, what kde really needs are womans.. yeah.. for me ;-)
nah.. really.. what we need right now is a full office suit, we need to speed up koffice cuz' i think its what the future user will need.
I think the config part is something that distribution should do, kde is a unix enviroment, not a linux enviroment.. and i think we can't afford to lose developement time in a linux-only feacture..
other thing.. make konqueror a real browser(to me is) but we are lucky of a good bookmark manager, a good history manager.. a sidebar(just like the one you can find in mozilla) and things like that.. speed is important too..

Well. i know i asked a lot of things.. but i hope someone read them and think about them.. as soon as a i lean c++ i will start coding something for kde..

kde is a great desktop enviroment/programming plataform.. thanks kde people

See you

R

as much as I would love to have a nice installer for KDE I think Konqueror needs as much development as possible, Lay on the features and plug in support, add a quick bookmark feature (I think I have seen that feature allready?) I think a built in "getright-like" program would be pretty cool, I know there is one out there, but it just doesn't feel very smooth (intergrated) A z-modem like resume built in to Konqi would be a superlative feature! I'm just a filthy end-user so I just have filthy end-user needs :)
I think KDE should try to put IE and Nautulus to shame! Konqi allready does it in alot of ways, but KDE's flagship Killer APP should outshine them all, the pride of KDE and it's users!
whatever you people do is allright with me, It allways reflects what KDE users want. and that is what truly matters.

I think a Getright-like application is extremely important. So I decided to start coding !!
I am already working on it. I will be releasing it in a month or so, so keep tuned!!

Regards

by Steve Hunt (not verified)

I thought there all ready was one... something like Caitoo?

Yes, there is that one but it is really not that intergrated into KDE that well, I have used it and it is missing somthing, I think it needs to be a little more intuative as well. If it was like "Getright" it would excellent. I thing that it should be intergrated allmost seemlessly into KDE. heck, maybe a Konqueror specific app.
I think would really make Konqueror an even better app than it is now.

by Steve Hunt (not verified)

Integrating it into Konqueror sounds good. Maybe we could do what Opera does with downloads. Opera has a powerful download manager built into the browser. That might be a good solution.

EXACTLY! an intergrated download manager, with resume and segmented downloading all the other valuable features that getright and the Opera download manager has! That will go far in making Konqueror the absolute best browser,ftp,file manager there is! done brainlessly like Getright! I don't mean that it has to be an idiots program, just intuative. if it's intuative that is 90% of the battle right there!

Below is just some ideas i'm throwing out. I am just a dirty-filthy no-account end-user with no programming skills. please don't brow-beat me :)

(maybe even have a download percentage box built into the browser (that you can click and detach if you would like)
that you roll over it and it displays expanded information in a pop up! something that doesn't get in the way and doesn't clutter up the desktop or your browsing.)

by What about d4x? (not verified)

There is very good download manager for X (d4x :), but.. gtk2..
Beside this, it's quite fast and nice from perspective of system (in compare to flashget under windows, which kills system performance)

koffice...continue improving it until secretaries demand it of their managers...

by Philippe Lafou (not verified)

If Koffice could be a good replacement for M$ Office, Kde would be almost perfect !!I just want it to be lighter ... It 's a quite slow on my PII 350 !

thank you for your incredible work !

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

The frustrating question here is the reality that KDE already does a very good job at this. The new print functions, adding a journal and gantt capabilities to korganizer, filter enhancements to kmail and the work being done on koffice. It is coming along and it just takes time. Although I miss seeing development on krayon. The upcoming QT 3 and Gideon are really exciting...

In my opinion what KDE needs to do now is not focus on providing programs that are as good or better than windoze alternatives but focus on extending the paradigm by extending the use of what is now available in dcop and kparts. For example who uses knotes? They were a rage a few years back but just being able to stick them on a desktop is only so good. How about promoting a framework to integrate KDE applications even easier then it is now? How about being able to attach knotes to a document and have the document be able to launch knotes when called (if knotes is on the system)? So I could send a document to you and it would be a compound document with information that it had attached knotes... or korganizer calendar event, or kjot or whatever.

Possibly defining interactions within kparts so that when a KDE program opens up something with an attached document an integration toolbar is shown with an icon for it. Clicking on the icon shows what is available for the particular application.

It is already possible to launch an application with korganizer alarms for instance and to send it command line args. How about making this work within a framework where a drag and drop provides a list of options. How about having a compound document viewer to see not only what they primary document is but what has been attached so you can vew and edit attachements.

What I'm suggesting is a method to make it even easier to develop (via a framework for interaction and compound documents) and easier to use application interaction. The idea is that while I would like to have various interactions among programs I'm not ready to take the time, therefore I don't begin to realize the potential. By making it more efficient and structured suddenly stand alone applications integrate as seamlessly as monoliths with very little developer or user effort.

I'm suggesting this not just for koffice but for all KDE apps so that computing becomes very organic in that you can interact with far less constraint. The idea is to have a UI method and guideline for for easy and consistent compound documents that works as slick as kparts does.

Another thing I noted was the idea Eazel had for notes in directories. It's one of the very few things that sound attractive about it. With the idea I've suggested this would be easily done but in contrast it would be far from the limitations of a design like Eazel. Any program could be enabled to a set of prescribed interactions of another by implimenting a framework and possibly some form of IDL.

I hope this gets some note. While these things are possible now with KDE they are not yet at a level that they are widely used and certainly not where they invite a paradigm shift. This would be a grand use that would turn heads! In effect any application could inherit another on a whim provided they are enabled and instead of developing large feature sets we could instead focus on buidling great features and merging them with our favorite apps and widgets.

by Andy Marchewka (not verified)

> How about being able to attach knotes to a document and have
> the document be able to launch knotes when called (if knotes
> is on the system)? So I could send a document to you and it would
> be a compound document with information that it had attached
> knotes... or korganizer calendar event, or kjot or whatever.

Hey, I like that idea -- a reusable annotation mechanism. What about sticking notes other places as well, like in konqueror, attached to specific directories and files or even web sites?

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

>Hey, I like that idea -- a reusable annotation mechanism. What about sticking notes other places as well, like in konqueror, attached to specific directories and files or even web sites?

The concept I'm advancing would not be limited to knotes... it would mean a document from any emabled application and to anywhere that KDE touchs so you could attach a note to a web page, a wave file to a directory or attach a web page to an email and indicate it is to be opened with Quanta and display attached notes as well as a Kivio diagram.

The concept is to provide a framework for melding all of KDE into one seamless and intelligent (as opposed to the fairly static presentation now) experience. The next level!

by Count Zero (not verified)

Actually, the idea of attaching notes to folders,
documents, programs, web sites, etc, so when you visit then again in Konqui you see the note, is
great.

Another nice thing would be also to incorporate the nautilus notion of "emblems", to file icons.
Coupled with alpha blending, they will be both
usefull and cool.

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> Actually, the idea of attaching notes to folders, documents, programs, web sites, etc, so when you visit then again in Konqui you see the note, is great.

The idea I'm advancing is not file manger bound! It's a framework that means you could see it in konqi sure, but you could attach a sound to an image or a note to a web page in Quanta or a link to a calendar item in a kword document...

I would clearly mostly want some general configuration files mangement app.
Someone talked about an xml based app.
I think this would be great and would probably allow distributions to adapt to their own system.

Second important thing: I think KDE relies too much on advanced or newer features of XFree. No problem at home but at work I have an "old" NCD Terminal that keeps reporting Unknown Extensions. And I can't switch keyboards anymore. I don't think the 1997 Ncd X server uses that Xkb mechanism...

I know there is a font installer under developement, so I will not ask for this. I just hope it will be a great one!

Oh! And that "preview sound files" Nautilus has is just cool when you're looking for a specific song you don't remember the title what that goes lalala....

Also the Mail notifyier should somehow be able to interact more strongly with kmail and maybe other mail apps. Like a right mouse menu allowing you to either check your mail or launch the editor...
I had to find the command line option for kmail (--check) in the docs to have it behave as I wanted.
And I still haven't found a way to have it check the mail only on the mailbox it's currently monitoring.
Not very user friendly ?

by Matt Newell (not verified)

I agree with your point about a configuration management app. I think that it would be possible to make configuration files so that they hint at how a gui should be created and still make them editable by hand.

As far as your XServer problems, they are unfortunate, but not likely to get fixed. Almost everybody uses XFree86 or one of the commercial X servers, which support these extensions. You will have to find a developer that has access to the XServer you mention, and convince him to fix the problems(not likely:().

I have seen the font installer, and it looks very good. It doesn't have XRender support yet, but the author said that he would work on it:)

There is a lightweight embeddable sound program called Kaboodle in CVS that should be able to preview sounds in Konqueror.

Matt Newell

Why ask? You have a whole database full of open bugs, many of them dated. Just wade through and fix as much as you can. I know it sounds boring but it would be very useful for the users.

When you are done there are alway the wishlist reports :-)

I myself have a big folder in Kmail full of confirmations of KDE bugs I have reported. Sometimes I look through that folder to see if I can delete something, but the net change during the last moths has been a grow.

And yes, I do have plans to help. I have signed up for a C++ class in the fall.

by Michael Ashton (not verified)

At the moment, I most want KWord to be fully usable. Also, I'd like to see ATM-style typeface management. My understanding is that both of these things are being actively worked on, so keep it up. :)

And by the way: I'd like to thank all the KDE developers for their hard work producing such a great system. I used to be a GNOMEr, but KDE 2 won me over. I use KDE both at home and at work, and I haven't regretted switching for one moment. KDE rocks, keep up the good work!

I would really like to have distribution lists in kmail. The list could contain entry's from the various supported addressbooks and distributions lists (recursive lists). double addresses due to the recusive nature should be filtered out upon sending. Related, it would be great to have the ability to forward a message to a distribution list, thereby excludeding the adsress it came from, from the distribution list.

I allready put these wishes on the kmail wishlist.

Well!
1) Speed and Stability
2) Offline Browsing support in Konqui
3) Good import filters for MS Word in KWord
4) More Themes
5) Ability to save images along with the web page

Use WWWoffle - konqui should play nice with it.

A nice interface or kio-slave to wwwoffle's cache would be good (the one it ships with is pretty boring but simple to modify). A way for konqui to detect if wwwoffle is running and then add a few buttons or menu items for controlling it would be neat.

Yes, wwwoffle is perfect for dial-up connections. And konqui is playing perfect whith it.

The ability to save images along with web pages is being implemented in a Konqueror plugin called Web Archiver. It's in CVS in the kdenonbeta or kdeaddons (it's currently being rearranged)

Thanks

SD

by Johann Lermer (not verified)

...are my most wanted features

Speed: I know, that KDE applications are not dramatically slower than other programs, but the startup time of _any_ KDE application, even the most simpole one, is a pain. I know, that much work on this issue was done in the past and as far as I remember, developers said that this is mainly a problem of GNU's linker. So, is anybody in contact with the GNUs to improve this?

Size: Well, not so much the memory footprint, but the size of the binaries. I might be wrong, it could even be a problem of KDevelop. Just an example of a little (VERY little) application I wrote some days ago: First, I wrote the program, made the makefile by hand and the resulting binary was about 10k in size. Then, I created a project in KDevelop, compiled again and had a binary 300k in size. As KDevelop is using autoconf/automake just like KDE, I fear that KDE suffers from the same auto features.

BTW: Speed and Memory Footprint are two most most named disadvantages of KDE (from the people I know)

Information: This is what's lacking most, IMHO. I don't mean the KDE Help System, I mean technical information. What is KDE doing, how and why? Although there's a little bit of information more and more coming in (like the Panel Applets tutorial by Matthias Elter a few days ago), I have the strong feeling, there could be more. Here a small example from yesterday: From time to time I'm compiling from anonymous CVS. But for one or two weeks now, compiling fails all the time. Yesterday I found out that even ./configure failed with error messages that were too esoteric for me to understand. Around midnight I had the idea (from a hint for CVSUP) to download kde-common and link the admin dir to the modules manually, after deleting the existing admin directories. Now it compiles. But no information about this admin stuff, the auto routines, configure and other secret things that are happening inside KDE can be found -- or at least I'm too dull to find it, but then there's lacking the information about where to find the information ;-)

by Anders Lund (not verified)

As far as the size of kdevelop apps, did you turn off all debugging features? while working with a project in kdevelop some libs are statically linked and extra debugging information included in the binary.

by Johann Lermer (not verified)

Well...err... yes, I guess. I'll have another look at the compile options this evening.

by someone new (not verified)

The filemanager is the key application - it is much much much too slow.

KDE developpers should try out a Windows system or MacOS/X and see how fast their filemanager type apps are able to pop open windows.

Sigh I fear that a good usable filemanager is a dying breed these days. Windows integrates **everything** into their filemanager and KDE integrates even more! ;-) MacOS/X finder (which is a little like the NeXT workspace app) is more my style - a good fast, gui and keyboard accessible filemanager is crucial you can start apps or open files from there - the integration part with apps opening "inside" konqui and explorer is silly IMHO.

I didn't mention nautilus since it is completely unusable unless your box has at **least** a 600mhz CPU. Nautilus may become popular in a few years but right now it is way ahead of its time in terms of the resources it needs. My fear is KDE will become the same ... I have 100s of 400mhz machines that I DON'T want to upgrade (and won't) for several more years. Right now those that have FreeBSD and Linux (about 25) all run kde1 since kde2 is much much much too slow.

yeah, right!
kde2 is so slow, piece of useless software created by spoiled ignorant programmers.

kde1 was running smooth like silk on my p2-400mhz (as well as on p1-166,
kde2 cant even run as fast on p2-400)

BAD JOB, kde2 people!

by Johnny Andersson (not verified)

Speed is indeed a problem with modern computers and programs. Not just KDE programs, but as we're talking about KDE, let's use that example.

I want my KDE desktop running on my 400 MHz 128 MB PC to feel as fast as my 14 MHz 4MB Amiga did a few years ago. It's a matter of perceived speed, and that's what's important. Say I want to look at some files in a directory . Click on the desktop icon in KDE, and you sit there for 3-5 seconds waiting for the computer to do a very, very basic thing; list a directory. Do the same on the Amiga, and the window pops up immediately. Granted, KDE shows fancy icons and lots more info, but surely my 400 MHz box should be able to do that just as fast as the old Miggy?

Sure, todays apps have tons of more features, complex theming and so on, but the computer are much more powerful, too!

I think something important happened when the PC started to take off as a home computer. As the computers got more powerful, the programmers could be a bit more lazy. It is indeed a good thing to be able to write software in high-level languages instead of assembly, but it went too far, and people started to get used to slow programs.

So lets break the trend with KDE. Er, you guys do it, I don't have the time. ;-)

by AC (not verified)

I noted that all KDE apps startup _much_ faster
when using a different window manager (Xfce or ICEWM).
So I guess the KDEWM is a good thing to improve.

Also, various KDE programs have resource-consuming issues (look at your processor use when viewing an animated gif in Konqueror, now this IS a BUG)

by S.W.B (not verified)

I don't think K Apps are much faster to load under other window managers. On my 4 year old box, OpenOffice Writer takes about 30 seconds to load under IceWm, Gnome, and KDE 3.0. I think it is the actual applications that are a bit bloated.

by ShyGuy (not verified)

Of course there are always wishes for new features but don't forget "old" features of KDE 1.1.2 which got overseen when KDE was rewritten:

- Hot corners for activating screensavers
- Frameless/hidden/sticky windows based on class or title
- Automatic hiding of [external] taskbar

I bet there are more, but these are the ones I was most used to and still remember. Others may miss other "old" features. The code for all this exists and someone who is familiar with both KDE-versions should be able to easily convert it.

by jw (not verified)

add
- give back control of the root window (stop covering it)
- restore the ability to configure the decoration widgets
- make click through, raise and activate actually activate
- make upgrading much easier (i'm on SuSE 7.1)
- allow multiple desktops running on same machine

Overall though it is improving fast, THANKS!

by Graham Palmer (not verified)

The external taskbar which is hideable is the feature I miss most.

I also miss the configuration of the terminal window with respect to colours of my choice.I used to use an amber on black terminal and find it very comfortable.

No new features, just "minor" changes:
- good ol' KDE1 hideable taskbar
- even more stability in general
- make kab read/write vCard format
- give kmail some sort of journaling. when my kde crashes, i get plenty of doubles in my inbox which already filed.
- even more Solaris 8 support

running 2.1.1 on Solaris 8...

by Loranga (not verified)

Is it possible to make KDE run on MacOSX? Rumours says Qt will soon be available for MacOSX. If you replace the X11-dependent code with code dependent on Qt/MacOSX, wouldn't it theoretically be possible to run KDE on MacOSX?

One little thingie still iritates me from time to time.. I used to be quite a big ctrl-XCV user, but the problem I have in kde (x in general actually) is the following.. I make a selection, ctrl-C, and usually I then make another selection and press ctrl-V to replace this selection by the previous selection.. But ofcourse, by selecting the to-be-replaced selection, the previous one is gone and the visual effect is that i don't get a paste at all.. The truth is that X sees selecting text as a copy operation. This can be solved by using the kde copy/paste history tool (quite handy), but not so handy if you just want to make a quick ctrl-XCV-style paste I used to do in windows..

Is there a possibility that kde can do something about this of is it a matter of XFree?

QT3 should solve this.

by Kevin Puetz (not verified)

yeah, QT2 mishandles X11 clipboards a little, resulting in this annoying behavior :-)

if you are explicitly copying and pasting, it should avoid being broken by the selection - which it will be in QT3.

Of course, here's hoping that someone backports the fix into QT2 as well :-)

by Robert (not verified)

Get shot of Netscape.

Netscape crashes. I got the new netscape thinking it would be better. But its big and clumsy and loses your emails and guess what, it crashes.

If it was only my machine this happens loads on I wouldn't bother grumbling. But it crashes on all of the Linux'es I have going at home and works servers.

I haven't got the new KDE yet, but I'm hoping when I do it will be a 'full' web explorer so I can stick Netscape in the bin.

Oh, that bit about not having the new KDE yet. I have actually got it as I bought Suse7.1, this fell out of favour with me when it miss-guessed my monitor and put the frequency UP. I soon knew about it of cause, my monitor automatically gave a signal that there was a problem. A puff of smoke.

Improvements to Konqueror would be nice.

At the moment it chokes oon certain JavaScript.

Ideally what i'd like to see is a way to select different rendering engines in Konqueror. Say for example the default one doesn't work on a site, you open up a menu option and switch to the Gecko engine, or even (though i don't hold out much hope of that one) the Opera one.

This would also have the added advantage of allowing webdesigners to check what their work would look like in multiple browsers, while retaining the UI they are familiar with.

Also a good media player would be nice.

I know there's a lot of good media players out there, but you seem tohave to use so many different ones to be able to play everything.

XMMS for Audio and a few Video formats,
Aviplay for various Windows formats using Windows codecs,
Xine for MPEG/DVD.
Realplayer for RealMedia, and so on.

What i'd like to see is, well not something exactly like Windows Media Player, but a central Media center.

Something that can handle all the above media formats and more, whether by built-in support or drop in modules.

There are other areas that need work, but the majority of computer users use their PC's for the Internet, Media and the odd bit of typing, so that's the area to concentrate on IMO.

by Juha Manninen (not verified)

I would like to see the version of QT and KDE without X-window available for desktop, too. It has been developed for PDAs etc., but there are many older PCs that could use a light version of Linux + QT + KDE. Eg. I have an old P100 with 16 MB of memory. It runs Win95 well, including surfing with Opera. X-window + KDE is far too heavy for it.
Before Linux was advocated for having smaller memory footprint than Windows. Not any more! Or, you could use some ancient window manager, but that is not realistic for new users.
Think also how Linux and its desktops are getting popular in poor countries, because those people are not able to pay for Microsoft. They can't pay for the newest hardware, either.

Juha

by Gaute Hvoslef K... (not verified)

Just wait for that SuSE package to arrive. In SuSE 7.1, the YaST 2 modules are integrated in KDE's control center.

by freedesktop (not verified)

Far more cooperation & standardisation with Gnome.

I would like to see DCOP and Orbit work together as suggested in http://kt.zork.net/kde/kde20010331_4.html#3

What about Qt layered on top of GTK? (QTK)

Really, this is not meant as a troll.
I can dream, can I?