KDE CVS-Digest for December 10, 2004

In this week's KDE CVS-Digest (experimental layout):

mDNSResponder libraries moved to kdelibs.
Krdc and Krbc now use DNS-SD.
khtml improves CSS compliance.
KNewStuff support for wallpapers.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

I love to see KinDergartEn 3.4...

Please, please, please keep this stuff optional.

k3b is not part of KDE

Not yet.

I'm not aware of any intention to make it that.

Even if it will not, blinking and animated stuff is still a pain.

You don't care about correctness in flaming against KDE 3.4, right?

As long as I have the last kword. ;)

Your not gonna get it...

cause I'm gonna take it!

by Max Howell (not verified)

> k3b is not part of KDE

Yeah it is, it's in kdeextragear. Apps in keg have their own release schedule but get translated, get docs, and are in CVS.

I'm not the only one who thinks KDE should get more this way. The regular KDE releases should be: kdelibs, kdebase, kdepim, a collection of KIO-slaves and misc. libraries. Everything else should be on a separate release schedule imo.

kde-multimedia would turn into just the codecs, (thus under misc-libraries)
kde-network can be just the useful kio-slaves (probably more, I'm not very familiar with this module)

Things like kuickshow should go into kdebase, as it is small and very useful.

Things like kpdf, kopete can have their own release schedules.

The main reason I think like this is because I want all the KIO slaves and I want all the libraries and I want Konq and Kicker. But I don't want everything from the rest. And the apps in keg are the best (K3B, konversation, gwen-view, amaroK), and this is because they have dedicated developers who can dictate their own release schedules.

I've seen this sort of thing discussed on the lists before and usually 2 or 3 vocal people shout it down. Maybe for KDE 4?

by Bert (not verified)

Jupp. Maybe KDE will be stripped down to KDE core competence.

But I thinks the way it is now is fine.

KDE is no "big leap" development anymore. We see it mature and grow.

What counts now is in the application space.

by bangert (not verified)

i don't claim any greater insight, but i feel this way too...

there are just too many apps which are not very well maintained. that is no problem in itself, but it lowers the overall quality of the packages (IMHO)

look at kppp, ksirc, kwikdisk and the like. not that these programs are not usefull, but they either
- serve a too specific problem to be actively maintained
- have better* alternatives (either in KDE cvs or outside)
- or are simply in need of "some love"

having (large) numbers of lesser supported programs in the main distribution makes the desktop as a whole feel cluttered.

of course, there is always DO_NOT_COMPILE, but i'd prefer sane defaults - one can always add programs on top of a desktop base install.

i know about the argument for the large packages and my experience from the gnome packages has been mixed - but just because that way of handling things has problems of its own doesn't mean that it couldn't be better...

the aim, as i see it, is to clean up the packages a bit. with the move of kmail and knode to kdepim the kdenetwork package is looking very different and perhaps it is time to rearrange things a bit

i'd expect some selection to happen naturally for KDE4 as many apps will need to be ported over to new API's

and then again i'm only standing here at the sideline...

*YMMV

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> I'm not the only one who thinks KDE should get more this way. The regular KDE releases should be: kdelibs, kdebase, kdepim, a collection of KIO-slaves and misc. libraries. Everything else should be on a separate release schedule imo.

I would probably be amicable to that in general. The release schedules have been a challenge for kdewebdev, but my impression is that translators seem to like it like this and distributions that consume KDE like this. Schedules are good for developing urgency but different programs and features develop on different timelines. Primarily I want everyone to be happy and I want to be a team player, but I used to set my own release schedule and I really loved it. I guess I just need to follow mailing lists more closely but finding time seems to be the challenge.

The chief problem with the collective schedule, along with the expected things that don't make it in, is that we always seem to have something we just get in before a freeze. The fine tuning of the UI ends up going into the next major point release and the cycle continues. Then there are the features that will never fit in the allotted time. However the arguments to the contrary with the potential confusion and dependence on core libraries is not without merit. In fact a feature utopia is a developer dystopia with short and long development branches releasing, which makes the current system look not so bad. If anyone finds a working utopia let me know. ;-)

EHi man, the shell is down there, if you want it

by Anonymous (not verified)

> mDNSResponder libraries moved to kdelibs

That is wrong, they may be used by kdelibs but are not contained in them.

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Let's rephrase that. Libraries that offer the DNS-SD are now part of kdelibs. They are based on mDNSResponder from apple.

Indeed, the mDNSResponder libraries must be installed separately.

Derek

by Eike Hein (not verified)

I'd love to see a screenshot. Anyone? :-)

by Brad Hards (not verified)

Derek,

Nice work, as always.

Just a suggestion: change the regex that does the links to only look for whole words. That prevents things like: cOPIEs, where OPIE is a link to something unrelated. Maybe also try to exclude anything that is inside an open quote, or adjacent to a / (path delimiter).

Brad

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Everything is fixed. Looks much better :)

Derek

by Mohasr (not verified)

now knewstuff can download wallpapers from k-l.o , what about iconsets,mouse cursers,splash screens,Color Schemes and Service Menus and anything don't need intallation? it will be a killer feature to integrate kde-look.org and kde together

by chris (not verified)

how about a standart way to integrate websites (webservices) with the desktop ?? anyone ? like kommander programms or kjsembeded apps ?

by Henrique Pinto (not verified)

That standard way already exists. It's called KNewStuff...

by bangert (not verified)

yeah - take this to freedesktop.org and share it with the gnomes (and roxers and xfcers)...

everybody likes wallpapers...

at least the spec is something, the desktops could share...

by Anonymous (not verified)

Themes shared between GNOME, KDE and other DEs would be THE killer feature.
Just imaginge Crystal on GNOME and Industrial on KDE. Everybody could use his favorite theme on his favorite DE. Hosted on freedesktop-look.org

There should be done much more together.

by bangert (not verified)

i was only talking about the downloading of desktop independent theming stuff - like wallpapers and as you mention icons... (window)styles and other stuff involving code is tricky - also because of virus ...

for icons there exists the [email protected]
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards_2ficon_2dtheme_2dspec

AFAIK the gnomes are already following it (I'm not sure), but there still seems to be some confusion about it (see recent post on kdedevelopers.org when it gets back up)

yes, it would be great if icons could be shared across the desktop. it would be totally cool if the icon-theme chosen in the 'home' desktop would be respected by the others

and then a repository serving icons for all desktops (using the fdo-newstuff-spec) could be put up...

by Joe (not verified)

How would it be the "Killer" feature?

Yeah, even better than a VPN connection or IMAP that works 100% of the time...yeah, keep dreaming. You're the kind of guy who "can't live" without ground-effects on his Honda Civic, aren't you?

by JohnFlux (not verified)

I'm trying to convince cartman to use knewstuff for icon themes for konversation. Only a small thing I know, but it's one small step :) We just need to figure how to get them on kde-look.org

by superstoned (not verified)

just tried KDE 3.4 alpha 1, and - amazingly good work! its much faster, and the look of plastik is greatly enhanced. and some features are just sooo cool :D

thanx, kde team!