The KDE project announces the availability of the third development snapshot of the upcoming KDE 4. This snapshot is meant as a reference for developers who want to play with parts of the new technology KDE 4 will provide, those who want to start porting their applications to the new KDE 4 platform and for those that want to start to develop applications based on KDE 4. This snapshot is not for end users, there is no guarantee that it will be stable, and the interfaces are subject to changes at any time.
This new development version of KDE features the following new technologies:
- Sonnet which has previously been covered on Linux.com.
- Solid, KDE 4's unified layer to deal with hardware and network resources.
- Vastly-improved support for the Windows and Mac OS platforms by cleaning up the source code from dependencies on X11. See kdelibs.com for more information.
- The recently added filemanager Dolphin which will be the default filemanager for KDE. Konqueror will still be available and share much code with Dolphin.
After "Krash", the first development snapshot, this is another milestone towards KDE 4.0 which will be released later this year. The KDE developers aim at a release in summer 2007. Reaching this target depends on application developers picking up the new technology to use in their applications. While "Krash" marked the milestones initial Qt 4 port, the use of D-Bus as the inter-process-communication system, the merge of Phonon as the multimedia framework and CMake, KDE's new buildsystem defines this latest release.
The next planned change is new integration of Oxygen, the new artwork concept. Work on Plasma is also taking up pace.
Download the 3.80.3 source, or install packages for Kubuntu or openSUSE.
For those who want to keep track of the development process, KDE Dot News regularly covers new and upcoming technologies through the series "Pillars of KDE 4" (informing about upcoming technologies) and "The Road to KDE 4", which covers new functionality that has been integrated in the official development tree.
Questions about KDE 4 are answered on various mailing lists such as kde-devel and kde-buildsystem, as well as on #kde4-devel on irc.freenode.org. Documentation for getting up to speed with KDE 4 development is available from a number of sources.
Comments
I think you'll find that the interior trim is the last thing to be applied. Painting is usually one of the first things they do on any car (after the chassis has been welded together).
Oh. Well, bang goes that analogy, then :(
Well, you can still analogise the flashy parts of the GUI with a car's interior trim, if you like :)
>> i know till now all the changes are under hood as some dev has said.
Then why do you want to see screenshots? As far as I know, it just looks like a broken KDE 3.5.x. Maybe not so broken anymore, and maybe a new window decoration or something like that, but probably not so exciting as it could (and will) be in a few months.
we could make screenshots of the sourcecode, or screenshots of the buildingprocess, or screenshots of the output of kde4 starting, screenshots of the error messages kde4 applications send to stdout/stderr
:o)
You get decent screenshots nearly every week as part of the "Road to KDE 4" series. I'd say that's as good as it gets, there's really not much more to visually show off than what Troy covers in his articles.
I guess we'll have to wait for the inclusion of oxygen icons in order to see something "new". I'd really like to see a comparison of a kde desktop with oxygen icons and with the classic crystal icons to see if this is already a little sexier.
Does anybody have already seen the oxygen style and theme in the wild ?
Oxygen is still a work in progress, but here are some screenshots:
1. KDE3 session running KWrite (KDE4) using the oxygen icons (where available) and the oxygen style (as it is at the moment, which is a snapshot of course).
http://img157.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot4jr1.png
2. KDE3 session running KWrite (KDE4) and Kate (KDE4) using the oxygen icons (where available) and the cleanlooks style.
http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot5ti2.png
These screenshots are made from svn snapshots and do not indicate anything expect the state of the theme and style at the moment of the snapshot!
thanks,
Looks really promising.
I wonder why there has been so little buzz around the development of the oxygen style itself, seems like a very important challenge for kde4 eye candy.
Nuno
http://pinheiro-kde.blogspot.com/
and David
http://oxygen-icons.org/users/david/?p=32
have been blogging a little bit about it.
Just FYI: I've been building KDE4 with the Oxygen icons, style and windec for a while now, and it looks even more different from "standard" KDE than the shots Tim posted.
I won't post screenshots, though, as there is still a little unflattering corruption caused by bugs in the style code (especially with tabs), and I'm not sure if the Oxygen guys would want it posted ;) Suffice to say that it looks (to me, at least) more like OS X than Windows, but more matte, smooth, and less "bulbous" looking - kind of silky, understated, light and creamy :) There's some animated effects in there (again, involving tabs) that some people might find garish, though.
Hope you found my incredibly vague description helpful ;)
Maybe we should create kde4rumors.com to get people even more excited before the official screenies release with blurry cell phone pics showing small parts of the style and features. This could be a funny way to preview alpha stuff without the negative comments due to the inevitable visual glitches.
I am currently building kde4 from the kdesvn build script, do you know if oxygen artwork will be right there or if I need to do something more ?
Hehe - good idea =)
"I am currently building kde4 from the kdesvn build script, do you know if oxygen artwork will be right there or if I need to do something more ?"
Oxygen is not in the mainline, yet, so you'll need to grab it from svn. It resides at:
kde/trunk/playground/artwork/Oxygen/
I believe you'll need Inkscape for creating the icon style - look in the "utils/" directory for more info. Since KControl is not currently functional, you'll need to invoke the kcmshell directory to set the theme/ style/ windec to oxygen - "kcmshell --list" will give you the info you need.
Good luck!
ok i have set icons and windec but when run kcmshell style it give me only QT4 style (plastique, cleanlooks and etc...) but not Oxygen
P.S.
i have compiled and installed oxygen style
> with blurry cell phone pics
ahahahaahahahahaha! best. idea. evar!
thanks for making me laugh =)
I've been planning to write an Oxygen article for a while, but I have a policy of only featuring things that have made their way into trunk as the defaults. Oxygen hasn't been merged yet, so I've just been waiting for that date.
When the merge happens, count on an article.
thanks !
You'll be able to view some screenshots in my KDE4 presentation, which I'll try to get online today or tomorrow, together with the second-day report from FOSDEM.
For KDE/Win there seem to be nightly builds (and build warnings)
http://public.kitware.com/dashboard.php?name=kde
and tests. What about KDE/Linux?
For linux, see this dashboard :)
http://developer.kde.org/~dirk/dashboard/
Shouldn't these points be part of the debugger of the developer's local build?
Is that dashboard integrated into the EBN suite?
From the Suse 10.2 review
"Konqueror -- and other KDE-related bloat -- has to go. Nobody uses Konqueror for Web browsing -- I have Web stats from half a dozen sites to prove it. It has a klunky interface, doesn't work with plugins very well, doesn't easily do tabbed windows like Opera and Firefox do, and in general has no advantages over its competitors. Get rid of it! We only need one Web browser, and the market has spoken as to its preference -- Firefox. At very least, Konqueror should not have an icon in the default quicklaunch area of the KDE menubar. Konqueror aside, take a look through the kickoff menu sometime and notice how many software categories there are, and how many programs are in each one of them. How much of this crap do we really need? One of my chief complaints about SUSE for many years has been that there is too much standard KDE crap in the default install. People should choose what programs they want, not be force-fed programs that they may never use. This will also make the installation procedure speedier."
http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/66/
I think Konqueror has an advantage: it integrates with KDE applications but that is mostly Firefox fault which does not integrate sufficiently and wants to open all videos with totem, all pdf with evince etc. etc.
> and the market has spoken as to its preference -- Firefox
NO: The market has spoken: IE
and why the hell do we have KDE and linux and other OSes all?
The market has spoken: Windoof (thats a pun for German speaking users)
I don't see what is so wrong with Konqueror: The only issue I experience is that it is quite slow opening a bookmark folder with 10 pages in tabs simultaneously. FF is much much quicker (BTW, why is that?). Generally, FF is also a good deal quicker at rendering pages.
After all, Konqueror is the base of Safari, also not too bad a browser!
heise.de a large german IT-news page statistics:
source: http://www.keks.de/web/heise-browser
year: % Linux + Unix -- % Konqueror/KDE
2002-01: 09.8% + 1.8% -- 2.1%
2005-01: 12.0% + 0.7% -- 2.3%
2005-09: 11.5% + 0.5% -- 1.9%
2005-12: 11.8% + 0.5% -- 1.9 %
2006-06: 12.3% + ? -- 2.0 %
2006-07: 13.0% + 0.5% -- 2.1%
2006-11: 13.0% + ? -- 2.1%
2007-01: 12.7% + ? -- 2.0 %
2007-02: 13.2% + ? -- 2.2 %
When Konqueror is so successfull, why oh why is it stuck at 15% of linux/unix browser marketshare?
Probably just the percentage of distros that make it their default browser.
By the way, why Koffice since the market has decided that OpenOffice is the best? And why Kmail since obviously Thunderbird is much more used?
By the way, many distros provide KDE as default desktop but provide Firefox as default browser : wouldn't that mean that Konqueror as a file manager is not that bad?
Nope. It just means that there is no app that could be a good replacement for the bloated konqueror. Frankly speaking, konqueror is one of those apps that I hate, but still use them because there is nothing to replace them with. Like the uberbloated OpenOffice, for example.
why is konqueror bloated?
On my modest system, it is lean and fast.
It has a simple browser profile, so if the interface is too cluttered you can change profiles.
as for browsers: if competitors like opera and firefox can't replace it, why should kde get rid of it?
What browser is left for you?
as for file managers: if none of the competitors can replace konqueror, then what would you use if KDE got rid of it?
Konqueror is, after Linux itself, the thing that realy make me stay with linux.
Make konqueror a native windows/macOS app, and I will soon like these OS much more.
And I'm always sad when I have to open a page in firefox in order to display it :(
If you don't like it, use firefox, opera, epiphani, ... but don't claim this is a bad application.
Sorry but the claim that "Konqueror" is not as much represented is because it not being default is WRONG.
I like KDE.
I use KDE.
I like Firefox.
I use Firefox.
I am sorry to say, but Konqueror has several shortcomings.
IT IS THE FAULT OF KONQUEROR.
There is no misrepresentation of that.
Sometimes you have to speak it out :)
PS: THe servlets in Konqueror are great though, its
what I miss in Firefox.
I love Konqueror
I use it for 95% of my web browsing and it renders most sites fine.
It is so much faster than Firefox as well... It integrates with the rest of KDE nicely (kget, etc)...
It's a matter of choice.. use what you like
Well, as we say in France, everybody sees noon at his door.
Firefox doesn't allow me to sort FTP directories on the type of file or on the date of modification.
Firefox doesn't allow me to download files where I want in the single click, I need to use their damned download manager which is about as flexible as my left toe.
Firefox doesn't allow me to upload files to a FTP site easily.
Firefox doesn't allow me to duplicate a tab easily.
These are some examples of things I can't do with firefox, that's why I prefer Konqueror.
I still believe that most people use the default program until for some reason they need to try another one (lack of functionnality, someone show them something else which is better, too unstable, etc.). For most people, it never happens, so they stick to the default.
let's not forget firefox doesn't allow you to drag an url to it's empty tab bar to open it (or unto another tab), you can't drag'n'drop tabs between windows, into the filemanager or onto your desktop, you can't do splitscreen nor filemanagement, etcetera. Firefox - I don't get how you can even use it... It's the least worse filebrowser on windows, but on linux, it's not very usefull.
>I am sorry to say, but Konqueror has several shortcomings.
What shortcomings? Your post is big on hyperbole and very short on details.
I have been using KDE and Konqueror for many years - since it was at the beta level. It is, for me the browser of choice. I like the clean integration to the KDE desktop. You cannot just simply drag a file off a web or ftp site and drop it on your desktop to create a local copy with any other browser. I like the fact that there are dozens of protocols, fish:// and smb:// are both particularly useful.
OK, sometimes it's not as good as FF at rendering supposedly Windows only web pages, but thank goodness these are not as common as they used to be.
What I would really like to see is Konqueror being given the same javascript interpreter as is used by Mozilla, and an option to be able to use Gecko as the HTML rendering engine if desired. Is this even possible?
As far as a file manager is concerned, I have a couple of friends who are still running the archaeological XWC simply because it has unique features which no other file management system offers. A true re-implementation of that package would be very welcome!
I mostly use Konqueror because it is much faster than Firefox and because its rendering is more pleasant. In addition, as most KDE applications, it has many (possibly user-defined) shortcuts and it is very flexible. One can be much more efficient with Konqueror than with Firefox. I switch to Firefox from time to time when the website is not compatible with Konqueror, which is seldom the case with clean websites.
Keep up with the good work!
I also use konqui and firefox interchangeably. It's very useful to have multiple browsers. Personally, I use firefox for most things, but use konqui for anything using embedded media. I really hate to loose 150 open tabs because of a crash in Java/Mplayer/Flash - and Konqueror allows you to just kill the subprocess without terminating the main browser.
I've got to ask, how do you manage 150 tabs in Firefox OR Konqueror?
(I use Opera. I like konqueror, but Opera is just better)
>Nobody uses Konqueror for Web browsing -- I have Web stats from half a dozen sites to prove it.
This is probably because people like to use the same browser on Windows or on Linux, not directly related to Konqueror strength/weaknesses
>market has spoken as to its preference -- Firefox.
Bleh, Opera is much better: FF responsiveness suck big time.
Do not pass your preferences as 'people', I myself prefer the 'all-in-one' interface of Konqueror than multiple browsers.
In all honestly I'd use Internet Explorer before Firefox. Firefox is slow, not standards compliant (slightly better than IE doesn't makes you the second worst), horribly ugly and will NOT fit in with any environment, the whole 'profiles' thing in Firefox seems to be code they just forgot exists and is only there to ignore the user when an instance locks up on startup or you try and open multiple instances too fast for it.
I think Konqueror's tab/split view are far superior to Firefox's, plus any problem in Firefox is the fault of the extension writers, yet the feature thats touted as the best thing in Firefox is the extensions! Theres been HORRIBLE memory leaks in Firefox since the dawn of time that the developers have mostly ignored (I think they finally fixed a couple with 2.0, or at least they claimed... most of what I've heard is its even worse in 2.0).
Sorry for the rant, but the firefox hypocrites really annoy me (like the article on slashdot about a guy finding a security hole in Firefox every day for a month is a GOOD thing, while a single minor bug in IE is just unacceptable).
I use Konqueror exclusively now, even though still have Firefox installed, but almost never use it. Konqueror is fast, light, stable, and its KParts technology is amazing. Firefox is slow, and eating too much memory. I guess approximately 10% of Linux / Unix users choose Konqueror as their browsers, and by porting KHTML to Windows, market share for Konqueror will increase significantly. Unfortunately some websites recognise only major browsers and not Konqueror.
From the article style, I'm guessing it is a GNOME user, who writes about KDE. There is a sentence about the new kickoff menu in suse: "It makes KDE almost useable". Well I honestly hate that new start menu in openSUSE, even after playing half an hour with it. And he complains about what they did with GNOME in SLED, an other opinion that a KDE user would never make...
I do not think you can take this article to complain about konqueror. I more think that those Gnome users don't have such a nice place as dot.kde.org, and are now visiting this news site...
And how about what kind of bloat? Look at windows. It has much more bloat, and if you want to have less bloat, don't use GNOME with GTK+, just use something like XFCE or even simpler.....
Huh? I use Konqueror all the time, and I've read plenty of posts on Slashdot and elsewhere from other Konq users.
Konq is a great web browser for most purposes. It's lighter weight and faster than Firefox, and it works better with KDE. It doesn't work properly on some sites, however, so I just use FF on those sites.
As someone else said, the market has spoken to its preference: IE. So why do we have Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Konqueror? Because not all of us like IE, thankfully. How many Mac OS X users do you know who use IE?
Using a browser should be like using an audio player or an email client. I should be able to listen to the same MP3s/Oggs with any music player I use, and I should be able to read my emails with any email client I choose, and for the most part, it works this way (all the *nix/OSS music players support Ogg). Why should I have to use a particular browser to browse web sites?
Most people commenting on Dolphin and Konqueror here seem to be focused on the file management part only and argue which app would be a better default (an argue I am not interested in).
I would be interested to know *how* Dolphin will affect the default web browser GUI of Konqueror because Konqueror will stay as web browser if I understand it correctly. KHTML/KJS will stay anyways regardless if it is the Apple or KDE flavour (a replacement chance has gambled away by the closed-minded Mozilla foundation at least two times).
I personally must confest that I have often two Konquerors opened in order to confuse myself less. ;-) One browser Konqui and one file manager Konqui, although I also very often I open on the fly a web page in the file manager or a directory on the web browser (Konqui lets you "just do" things ;-).
So what I particular would be interested in?:
* A pure file manager (Dolphin?) for local *and* remote files (I am pretty sure that Dolphin will only have a chance if it is network transparent). So basically a grahical (pseudo-)file management shell for all KIO-Slaves.
* A viewing shell (Konqueror?) for all kinds of KParts, for example KHTML, image plugins, documents...
So Dolphin and Konqueror would be just two frontends to basic KDE features any application knows to handle implicit, too (saving files on remote places, displaying HTML emails and so on...).
Konqueror will ~stay the same as it is now, i.e. an all-in-one power-tool. Additionally to that there will be Dolphin. Which one you use is your choice.
So will there be a lightweight web browser which focus only on web browsing like dolphin focus only on file managing ?
This might be a good idea as Zack shown some progress on integrating webkit into qt4.
A light cross platform webkit webbrowser could be very nice.
agreed; peter penz came along with dolphin, we just need someone to do similarly with a web browsing app along a similar vein =)
george staikos has been working on something, hopefully it emerges ...
and it perfectly ok if it gets added post-4.0. kde4 is more than the four-dot-oh
if we could get the same buzz that firefox has then we could use the app to promote kde.
Let's call it Kevlar (light and secure) for the argumentation purpose.
"Kde: where amarok, kevlar and koffice feel at home" youhou !
I firmly believe your involvment and (super)vision of kde is going to make the difference.
Okay, sooooooooooooooooooooooo if Dolphin is just a different front-end to all the same things Konqueror does and WILL do ... why do we need this kind of duplication? It makes absolutely NO sense if Konqueror will still be as capable a file manager as it is now! (The most capable I've ever used BTW)
I think the dev resources could be MUCH better used to just improve Konqueror ... like give Konq the Dolphin features/interface while it's in file manager profile mode ... and back to the web interface for internet browsing.
This just seems really needless and wasteful.
Read much?
http://enzosworld.gmxhome.de/ and http://enzosworld.gmxhome.de/news.html
You're forgetting the tiny detail called "feature sharing". KDE is excels at this.
Basically, Dolphin and Konqueror will share much of the backend. The views, icons, layouts, etc. will probably be the same in both applications. Just the shell will change -- and the fact that Dolphin won't load any KPart under the sun like Konqueror is meant to do.
There's no (or very little) waste of resources if code is shared.
Finally, there's always the fact that this is Open Source: we cannot force people to work on what they don't want to. If those guys want to work on Dolphin, who are we to tell them otherwise?
Unless, of course, you're prepared to sponsor a developer.
http://wwwl.meebo.com - web based multi messenger, no downloads, no installs, just works!
do we still need gaim, kopete, other multi-messengers when web based are available?