In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Akademy 2007 draws to a close. Dolphin embedded as the file management view in Konqueror. Plasma continues to mature, with new data engines for Tasks and Bluetooth, and EBN and Task Manager Plasmoids making an introduction. Further progress in Javascript bindings through QtScript; import of Kimono (C#) classes. More basic functionality added to Kollagame, a game development IDE. Initial work in the KWin/Xinerama and 2d Projection for Marble Summer of Code projects, with continued progress in the Icon Cache, KOrganizer Theming, KRDC and Music Notation projects. KListView gets support for keyboard navigation, and a new, more descriptive name: KCategorizedView. KIconCache renamed to KPixmapCache to reflect its wider benefits to graphics across KDE. Paint mixing improvements and general speed optimisations in Krita. KMail and Mailody now share account identities. Support for more digital camera models in Digikam libraries, with the porting of many image plugins to KDE 4. More interface and collection management work towards Amarok 2. More effects for kwin_composite. Decibel is moved to playground/pim. system:/ and home:/ KIOSlaves removed, with preparations to remove media:/ in the near future.
Comments
Heh, you're quite an effective content creator yourself, Jos ;)
Danny
It's an interesting gaming niche and one can be surprised to find how many of these small-time RPGs are written (mostly, if not all with proprietary game makers for Windows). Within a short time one will come up with dozens of exciting new ideas how to make that an even better project. It's also one of the apps that will surely benefit hugely from a Windows port, exposing itself to a big new crowd of potential game makers.
It's also something I proposed in the KDE games survey.. if someone ever bothered to read that ;-)
There's a really nice java based tool that should be coming out soon that's like this... http://www.stencyl.com
It looks a lot more polished than what Kollagame looks like.
Good work still!
"Dolphin embedded as the file management view in Konqueror"
To me the whole message about the purpose of Konqueror and Dolphin is a mess. In response to criticism of local and internet bookmarks and other things being mixed together, Dolphin was born to be a second filebrowsing app. Of course, Konqueror had to retain its filebrowsing capabilities for those who didn't like how pared down, sparse or dumbed down Dolphin was. Then, as the reality of Dolphin being the default sank in, Dolphin gained more and more features (Dolphin can use Konqueror service menus, option to have Delete instead of Move to Trash in context menu, treeview). So much for simplicity. It just can't be done while satisfying everyone who will be using it.
And now, Konqueror will be Dolphin while filebrowsing? IIRC Dolphin will open a lot of stuff in external viewers no? Isn't that what made it a "file browser" instead of a "universal viewer?" Whatever the differences, If Konqueror will now behave as Dolphin in filebrowsing mode I don't see why it should even bother.
All this effort to simplify things, and KDE can't even decide whether or not to draw a distinction between viewing the internet and viewing local files. Separate apps, or the same app for both? How about both options? We'll have both separate apps *and* an app that does both! Brilliant! All we need now is a dedicated webbrowsing app. Perhaps Konqueror can embed it for viewing webpages. Perhaps Konqueror can simply become "the desktop".
*spirals further into ranting*
With the kmail and mailody strikes me as similarly odd. All of this "we must make things simpler" is useless without real changes. Digikam for example: having to add a camera? Having to figure out what model it is? Having to choose the right entry when you have several? Retarded, especially in the case that the USB system conspires to give it a different number each time necessitating a dance along the lines of Remove Camera, Auto Scan, Add each time you wish to use it so that it accesses the right port (what my grandfather has to do, and can never remember how to do). If AutoScan can pick it up every time, it shouldn't have to be explicitly invoked. Just do it and let the user access whatever camera(s) may be attached at the moment.
Then there's Koffice. File->New brings up a mess of a dialog that in addition to letting you choose from a bunch of templates also duplicates the functionality of File->Open and File->Open Recent: things that obviously fit with the task of creating a new document. And those responsible actually think this makes sense, and that the layout (with columns and buttons sprayed all over the place) is sensible. Recent Documents is grouped with the templates, while Open Existing (for all those documents that don't happen to be recent) is its own solitary button off someplace else, and the Use This Template button (for opening a blank document, as people tend to want to do when starting koffice from its icon istead of doubleclicking a koffice document in one of two filebrowsers) is in some nebulous location in the middle of the dialog. WTH.
Kaffeine has gone from a videoplayer that does what it needs to do with important controls well laid out to an awful tabbed monstrosity with more complex keybindings and the all important ability to put the progress bar wherever you want. Ktorrent feels that *IDEA* is a great interface for the task of downloading things. Amarok has a playlist that mutated ungracefully into the main window with an alphabet soup of widgets. Cervisia provides a way to integrate CVS into Konqueror even though almost everyone uses SVN or Git or something else now. One has to have kghostview installed and cluttering up the kmenu for print preview to work in anything. Kget doesn't actually resume timed out downloads on its own at all. Kcontrol is about to be replaced by an OSX knockoff that still manages to add tabs. It's impossible to make a simple pie chart in Kchart (a pie chart with 3 values needs a 4x4 table with the values reading left to right in row 2 starting with column 2 and their corresponding labels entered *top to bottom* in column 1, starting with row 2. Makes a lot of sense).
There are just so many things that actually need fixing that it frustrates me to see so much effort churning into duplicating functionality with new applications.
No responses needed or really wanted. I'm just ranting; I know nothing will change. I've been watching for years what makes KDE and Linux unusable day to day for ordinary people and stuff like Dolphin, Mailody, Plasma etc. doesn't address it. It makes me irritable. I can't recommend this to anyone and I no longer do.
Drink a beer (or two) and relax!
> Dolphin embedded as the file management view in Konqueror.
Well, I don't drink beer (food allergy), but since I have no idea what the above means, I am going to wait till I find out before commenting.
However, I do have some questions.
Konqueror is a file browser (dolphin isn't -- unless you count looking at the previews as browsing). So, does this mean that if I am using the Dolphin KPart in Konqueror that it won't be possible to browse files?
Dolphin has a better Location Bar, but how could this work in a KPart?
Konqueror currently uses KFM for file management and directory based file browsing. IIUC, KFM is really two different file managers/browsers: list & icon. Will these still exist?
Perhaps some screen shots would help.
IAC, what I would like to see would be to have the Dolphin Location Bar available in Konqueror. Having the bookmarks available in a sidebar rather than the toolbar would be nice too.
"No responses needed or really wanted. I'm just ranting; I know nothing will change. I've been watching for years what makes KDE and Linux unusable day to day for ordinary people and stuff like Dolphin, Mailody, Plasma etc. doesn't address it. It makes me irritable. I can't recommend this to anyone and I no longer do. "
Neat - an excellent way of spreading FUD without being held accountable for it, or having to clarify exactly what it is your are criticising so people can try and sort it out ("I know nothing will change" - things have and are and will change, so I have no idea what you are trying to convey here. Do you think the KDE guys just sit around with their thumbs up their arses all day?). Your rants on Konqueror and Dolphin, for example, are so muddled that they are of no use to anyone, and it's hard to tell whether you even understand the goals of Dolphin (it is not intended to be "simple" - it is intended to be *usable*. Not including service menus and a tree view *detracts from usability*, so it's no wonder that they were added - and yet you're trying to spin this as a bad thing that makes a mockery of Dolphin's stated goals!) or the usage of KParts (no, Konqueror "will not be Dolphin" when it is filebrowsing, but will merely embed the KPart. I'd imagine that it is up to Konqueror whether it opens any URL in an external app or internally - just as is the case now) but of course, since you have stated that this is just a quick cut'n'run post, there's no point us asking, is there?
I'm not even going to touch half of the other stuff - you harp on about Cervisia while the world now uses SVN, apparently ignoring the continued development of kdesvn. You pretend that KGhostview isn't being killed off for KDE4. You ignore the large amount of work that has gone into KGet in the make-kget-cool branch. But no, nothing ever changes - except, of course, for all of the things that do and which render some of your complaints obsolete, but we'll ignore them, eh? And what is this "so much effort churning into duplicating functionality with new applications"? Are you referring to Dolphin which absorbs the massive resources of one man working in his spare time?
If you're not going to stay around and clarify or defend your rants, then please just keep them to yourself - you're doing nothing but sowing doubts about the competence and commitment of the KDE devs and you're doing it in such a way that it's hard to mount a defence of their actions (when they are defensible, of course).
> Dolphin which absorbs the massive resources of one man working in
> his spare time?
Not to mention that AFAIK he's a fairly recent addition to the KDE team, injecting some welcome new life into KDE file management. Thank you Peter, just ignore all this negativity! :)
Do you actually know that ranting and not providing constructive criticism will not yield any result?
As a simple user, I'm getting tired of negative posts *every single digest issue*. I don't think this gives more motivations to the developers.
> And now, Konqueror will be Dolphin while filebrowsing?
No, Konqueror will use its custom context menus and will also show files embedded as in KDE 3. Users won't notice that a Dolphin part is used for displaying the content. No feature from Konqueror offered in KDE 3 will be skipped in KDE 4...
> IIRC Dolphin will open a lot of stuff in external viewers no?
Yes, Dolphin opens files in external viewers.
> Isn't that what made it a "file browser" instead of
> a "universal viewer?" Whatever the differences,
> If Konqueror will now behave as Dolphin in filebrowsing mode
> I don't see why it should even bother.
Then please just don't bother... We are open for constructive input, but as you declared your post as 'rant' yourself, I see no need to investigate any time in giving some more background informations...
"> And now, Konqueror will be Dolphin while filebrowsing?
No, Konqueror will use its custom context menus and will also show files embedded as in KDE 3. Users won't notice that a Dolphin part is used for displaying the content. No feature from Konqueror offered in KDE 3 will be skipped in KDE 4..."
At last, some real information. Thank you.
Ok, aftr the rant, the answer you deserve and that you looked for with the rant.
You're just a moron, useless to KDE, FLOSS and IT community in general because you criticize without even understanding basic concepts.
Do you feel happier now?
Some points are right.
The Digikam one, for example. Digikam is great, but it needs some serious usability work.
I disagree on KOffice, I love the startup page, would want it in more apps.
And yes, Kaffeine, I dumped it when it wanted to become a 'mediaplayer (retarded concept, if you ask me) instead of just a good videoplayer. And KTorrent IS becoming a bit complex, though we have KGet for the simple stuff.
Digikam is a power-user app, and its UI is in some cases a mess. But in this case I think that the best solution is a tiny, little new app to do the dirty work that the vast majority needs while dealing with cameras.
I'm planning tu implement one if I can pass the initial barrier to become a KDE dev :)
well, I don't think digikam is a poweruser-app. Most ppl NEED a lot of the functionality it provides, and several apps do provide most of it in a much more usable way. There is also kphotoalbum, which offers an even more complex interface for the same thing, though with its advantages and disadvantages. I'd rather see you work on digikam, then, maybe you can persuade some usability person to give digikam a review? promising you'd implement it?
and you can do a lot yourself, with the HIG and looking at how other apps (apple, windows) do things. Take the best from there, add own ideas - you'll get a long way in making it more usable...
I hope the digikam people have a good luck at Picasa (now it even runs on Linux :))... to me it's album management done right. Simple retouching is super fast - for complex stuff I can open gimp or krita or whatever, but seriously all I want to do is some cropping, sharpening, rotating etc. In Digikam right now there's not even a rotating button I think, and rotating brings up a very annoying progress window. But I'm sure it will rock for 4.0. Looking forward to it!
>I hope the digikam people have a good luck at Picasa (now it even runs on >Linux :))
If Picasa become the standard photo-management program under Linux, there is no reason to do an open source photo-management program...
Please explain.
I mean, a Picasa with complete KDE integration would be wonderful, and maybe one day Digikam could become this software
Why ? digiKam is not currently integrated into KDE ???
Oh please, don't make digikam into somthing like picassa.
I used picassa a week before I get back to digikam.
While on windows, I used ACDSee.
I had a look at KphotoAlbum.
And ____For_Me____ Digikam is _by_far_ the best of them all.
> I'm planning tu implement one if I can pass the initial barrier to become a KDE dev :)
Good luck...
We working on digiKam project since 2002. I hope than you can have the same experience than us in this domain...
Gilles Caulier
I'm just extremely anxious and curious about the removal of system:/ and media:/ kioslaves. I am aware that their current implementations are not even close to perfect. I'm just wondering whether alternatives to these have been considered.
If there's a mailing list thread I can refer to, or a proper place to ask this question, please do tell.
(Because I hate to see the Dot become a ranting ground :P)
the replacement is simple. we just need to have a similar kio like solid:/ or so, which just have symlinks to the real folder: clicking on solid:/cdrom actually resolves to /media/cdrom and not to solid:/cdrom/whatever, how it was in kde3. that was not so good as argumented earlier, and thus it was removed.
what we need is just a plain summary kio which just symlinks to the real paths. nothing more. period.
But is konqueror itself getting any love? It seemed alot worse of than dolphin in alpha 2 so i hope there are plans to really get it up to speed soon, it's my favourite kde application.
I know that alot of code is shared between them and so on but i'd love to see some more work go into konq itself.
The file browsing kpart is getting love via dolphin, and KHTML is still being worked on, so both of those will get love, but the actual Konqueror application I don't think has been getting all that much attention (the code is supposedly a mess, which is part of the reason Dolphin was created instead of Konqueror being improved).
Two weeks ago there was a thread about that there were no Konqueror development activities for a long time. Emil Sedgh asked Danny about this and he answered that 'Konqueror is just a shell around KDE Technologies.It hasnt much codebase.'
Then I suggested a non-exhaustive list of improvements that could and should be made on Konqueror the shell as it is still an important KDE application and the default web browser but I was late so no answers came.
So here is my list:
- Session handling (almost every other browser does this and it would also be usable in the file manager)
- Better profile handling (more settings stored in profiles, e. g. toolbars)
- Better tab handling: rearranging tabs (currently dragging a tab to an other place duplicates it), Undo close, etc.
- Home button which reloads th start page of the current profile (for some people it is a major problem that the home button directs to the home directory when they browse the web)
- Better arranged configuration area: a tiny central configuration and the configuration area of the filemanager (Dolphin), khtml, kpdf, whichever is currently used
- File information sidebar. I know Dolphin has this, but it could also be implemented in KDE, as many people would continue to use Konqueror as a file manager. (See our debate at http://dot.kde.org/1172721427/1172897220/1172915550/1172918074/ . So is the purpose of Dolphin to be really a subset of Konqueror?)
In the last suggestion I should have written Konqueror instead of KDE, sorry.
"Session handling (almost every other browser does this and it would also be usable in the file manager)"
Konqueror supports desktop session, i.e. if you log out with Konqueror open, when you log back in Konqueror will return to its previous state (I don't recall if back/foward history is restored with it though).
"Better profile handling (more settings stored in profiles, e. g. toolbars)"
From what I've heard/read the profile handling is a large part of the reason Konqueror's code base is a mess.
"Better tab handling: rearranging tabs (currently dragging a tab to an other place duplicates it), Undo close, etc."
Rearranging has long been possible, use middle mouse click and drag. Undo close currently would require a lot of work from what I've read.
"Home button which reloads th start page of the current profile (for some people it is a major problem that the home button directs to the home directory when they browse the web)"
This would be an interesting idea, though I personally think the profile system is a broken design (it shouldn't matter which button you click on, maybe profile is set based on what you're currently looking at, now what link you used to open Konqueror would work better?).
In some of my spare time I've been working on trying to rewrite Konqueror in a way that'd be more flexible and easier to maintain (though I don't have much experience using KParts or KIO in development so I'm having to learn about all that before I'm able to get much done).
" From what I've heard/read the profile handling is a large part of the reason Konqueror's code base is a mess."
So it shuld be rewritten. It is not a good strategy to start writing a new program if the existing becames an unmaintainable mess, instead of restructuring the existing application.
"Konqueror supports desktop session, i.e. if you log out with Konqueror open, when you log back in Konqueror will return to its previous state (I don't recall if back/foward history is restored with it though)."
It is good but I think real per-app session handling is still missing. One can use different sessions only by workarounding with profiles. And if Konqueror crashes (which, to be honest, not very rare), my session is gone. (Opera restores it, including history.)
"Rearranging has long been possible, use middle mouse click and drag."
Thank you, I didn't try this.
"Undo close currently would require a lot of work from what I've read."
Then it should be really a mess. :-(
"It is not a good strategy to start writing a new program if the existing becames an unmaintainable mess, instead of restructuring the existing application."
Sometimes an application becomes such a mess as to make anyone familiar with the code base pretend it doesn't exist, and scare away any potential developers, which is I believe pretty much the situation thats developed with Konqueror.
"And if Konqueror crashes (which, to be honest, not very rare), my session is gone. (Opera restores it, including history.)"
Theres actually a plugin to help with this situation. Go to Settings -> Configure Extensions -> Tools tab -> and enable Crashes Monitor (might be enabled by default), then go to Tools -> Crashes and "All pages of this crash" for the right crash.
"Undo close currently would require a lot of work from what I've read."
Not sure if it's in SVN yet, but it sounds like most of the work is done.
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=117563613117290&w=2
For file information bar, see my Cbar Konqueror sidebar: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Cbar?content=46391
It is easily extensible with Python scripts even :)
It looks good although it could be a bit nicer. If it is well integrated with KDE, it should be distributed with Konqueror.
I was wondering if anyone could clarify what commits like this one for kspread
OpenDocument Loading/saving.
I thought kspread was already using odf. I'm extra curious what this means in the context of flake since I've also seen mention of flake rendering or saving in odf. For things like kword and kspread that already use opendocument, what do these commits mean?
Thanks for all your work!
Hi Christian,
in KSpread things got improved. You may also like to take a look at the bidi-thread in the koffice-devel mailinglist for a more concrete example.
KWord got in rather large parts refactored and partly rewritten (e.g. the text-engine got replaced and is now build up on Qt4 scribe). So, there things really changed drastically and while they still stays a long way to go, we already made huge progress. Let me say thanks to google here for sponsoring us (see http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Summer_of_Code/2007/Projects/KWordOpenDoc ) and for sure thanks to Pinaraf! :) You may also like to look at http://wiki.koffice.org/index.php?title=KOffice2/Goals#KoText (well, probably not really that complete but at least it provides a better overview then I am able to write down here).
In the context of flake it does mean, that things are now much better integrated and it feels really good to take a look at the codebase and to realize what was already done. While each flake-component does provide load/save odf functionality it may not direct related to the KSpread OpenDoc-loading/saving here as long as you don't integrate flake-components into KSpread or use KSpread itself as flake-component.
after sending the reply I even did take a look at the commit you are refering too and seems we both did misunderstood it since if we follow the link to what was actualy committed, it's clear, that the "initial opendoc loading/saving" was only related to auto-filters. So, auto-filters will be handled too now :)
"Dolphin embedded as the file management view in Konqueror"
I thought we were going to have a choice on which to use. If I don't like Dolphin, and Dolphin powers the file management in Konqueror, how do I end up having a choice?
Konqueror will be just like Konqueror of KDE 3 (whit improvements of course), for and end-user kike there isn't difference.
It's just using Dolphin Kpart for browse folders (which is good, Dolphin is unmesurable faster than Konqueror), for open a PDF inside it will use another Kpart, etc.
Sorry for my english.
for and end-user there isn't difference*
Sorry xD.
Dolphin *can* be embedded in konqueror; like KWord can be. Doesn't mean you have to, you can start it without konqueror just fine.
In other words; its an extra feature, not relevant for people that don't want to use it.