KDE 4 Progress - A Review of SVN Version 811150

Another review of the upcoming KDE 4.1 was published at polishlinux.org. The review features the Panel's new configuration tool, the folder viewer, Gwenview, Marble, Akonadi and others. As usual it comes along with many screenshots.

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Comments

IMHO it is a bug and we're treating it as such in Fedora, but the upstream developers appear to disagree.

by Alejandro Nova (not verified)

Will we have this feature (or bug resolved) ready for KDE 4.1 Final? Will it have to wait until KDE 4.2? Is there a time frame for this? If this is addressed in KDE 4.1 Final, it would be marvellous.

Not upstream, no - it will 99.9% likely be done by 4.2. Distros will likely patch it in themselves.

by Zsolt (not verified)

I like pretty much Kickoff, my only annoyance is the keyboard navigation. I can enter to a submenu with Ctrl+Right and go back with Ctrl+Left. Going up or down is not Ctrl+Up or Ctrl+Down resp.), just Up or Down resp.). This is not coherent and it is an obstruction for fast keyboard navigation.
Thanks.

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

I'd say file a bugreport, this is a genuine issue which should be tracked properly...

by Bob (not verified)

Is there any way to get a system monitor in the KDE4 system tray? I use ksysguard to give me a small graph to tell me cpu, memory and network usage. I find it a good way to assure me that e.g. an application is processing something and that something is downloading.

by Luc (not verified)

+1 , i'm also missing this basic feature of kde3.5

maybe it's not there for a good reason (hint kde eating to much) ;-)

by jos poortvliet (not verified)

Someone is working on something like that, but it won't make it into 4.1 I suppose...

by Elad Lahav (not verified)

I still can't get my TwinView setup to work correctly with KDE4.
At first, the two screens were recognised, but the desktops were super-imposed on top of each other on the primary screen. This has changed sometime before 4.1 Beta 1, and now I get a proper desktop on the primary screen, but the second monitor is completely ignored (verified by debug messages during plasma's startup).
I have been updating the relevant bug report (http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153581), and at some point submitted a patch, but so far got no response from the developers.

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

unfortunately the patch no longer applies in trunk/ as root widget is long gone at this point. this actually makes it a bit easier in one sense .. but dual head support is not planned for 4.1. it sucks that dual is, and really always has been, a second class citizen as far back as kde2 when compared to single screen or xinerama/twinview/mergefb configurations, but not enough workspace developers run dual head systems. =/

in any case, there are a number of issues to work through for proper dual head support, and it's on the 4.2 roster.

by Elad Lahav (not verified)

I wasn't referring to dual head support, I was talking about TwinView (single Nvidia card, two signals). It works perfectly for me under KDE 3.5.
Yes, I know that the patch no longer applies, I realised it after upgrading to one of the latest snapshots.
My current problem is that the startup process does not recognise the two screens, even though a simple Qt4 application run from startx (via .xinitrc) reports the correct number.

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

ah, some of the people in that bug are talking about dual head, some are talking about xinerama/twinview/mergefb style. confusing..

> My current problem is that the startup process does not recognise the two screens

neat. wonder what could be causing that. until that can be tracked down, there's not much plasma can do.

i do know it works rather fine on xinerama/twin/etc these days as i just went over that support with one of the devs on irc a day or two ago. curious why your qt is getting confused =/

by Elad Lahav (not verified)

A current SVN snapshot still doesn't work for me. From your reply, I understand that this should be considered a bug, rather than an incomplete feature. Do I need to open a new bug report?

by teezee (not verified)

the kde fundation should use their money to buy all core developers a second monitor. Everything smaller than 24" OR less than 2 monitors is so nintys. And u would be suprised how more effective u get with a second monitor. Meybe we should start a appeal for funds to get this done. The development speed would way increase.

by reihal (not verified)

They don't even use 1 monitor, they use laptops!
Like girls and suits.
Pfft.

When you have started to use Dual Heads, there is no going back.

by yogo (not verified)

girls and suits ? ... DH doesn't always stand for Dual Head.

by Quintesse (not verified)

And what if I just want a "workable solution" for the time being instead of "proper support"? :)

For my system the situation is the "Clone mode", just like Xinerama except that the screens overlap. The second screen is my big LCD TV and I use it to watch movies and such.

But running 4.1beta1 still puts 2 desktops on top of each other.

I wouldn't mind hand editing configution file for the time being if I could just tell plasma to ignore the second screen.

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

> but dual head support is not planned for 4.1

And why not? The situation where it shows 2 desktops on top of each other is a blatant bug, so the feature freeze is a lame excuse for not fixing it. This is one of the most-reported KDE 4 bugs in Fedora.

by Anon (not verified)

Er ... lack of time, perhaps? Do you think the Plasma developers are all sitting around doing nothing at the moment, going:

"Hmmm ... we *could* start working on Dual Head support - or we could all go to the Bahamas!"
"Bahamas, Bahamas!"

by greg (not verified)

There is SOC project aimed to fix that.
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/kde/appinfo.html?csaid=EAB3DBE72F209C37
Any news on progress on this one ?

by none (not verified)

Big thanks to all the developers for their efforts! I especially like Marble for its OSM integration and can even imagine some game developers to use it for in-game maps instead of developing their own. Or x-based distro installers could offer it to select the local settings (suse does this, I believe).
Gwenview is coming along nicely, even with all the effects and eye candy it's still quite snappy and fast. Their are two things I would like to see: Gwenview using the Dolphin file-selection style (the little + and - sings) and an ability to export the list of filename of selected images. I already use it daily from within KDE3. (I still wait for Kaffeine and IRkick to be ported)

by Derek (not verified)

Try Dragon. Very nice.

Although the latest phonon moves and changes broke sound. Oh well, what's bleeding edge if it doesn't hurt from time to time?

Derek

by JRT (not verified)

Don't know exactly what to say about this. 10 days ago, if you had asked me, I wouldn't have had enough good things to say about Gwenview. It is still an example of excelant development work that sets a standard for other KDE4 apps to try to equal.

But (there is always one, isn't there). It appears that the View menu is now missing:

Fit to Page
Fit to Page Width
Fit to Page Height
Zoom

'Fit to Page' appears to have been replaced by "Zoom to Fit" (don't like that string much, but "Page" wasn't good either) but the other ones have gone missing. :-( What is the deal? Did some GNOME developers sneak in when we weren't looking. :-D

IIUC, we are supposed to have a HIG to cover such things. Has the HIG been finished for KDE4 and if so, where can I find it? Or did the HIG developers give up and go into hiding. The Kde-usability-devel mailing list appears to have been abandoned.

A consistent user interface is an important issue which should not be neglected. It has always been one of the Mac's important features. There were (still are) major issues with the KDE interfact guidelines not being followed in KDE3. I hope that the same thing doesn't happen in KDE4. There is only one way to do this: GUI guidelines need to exist, be clear, and the developers *must* follow them.

by David Johnson (not verified)

Anyone out there a FreeBSD user? We can use some help over at the FreeBSD/KDE project. We used to have some magical elves that would leave us wonderful working KDE ports under our doorsteps, but they have gone away. So we can use some more hands if you have them.

We can use help building and testing experimental ports, rooting out linuxisms in the code base, writing howtos, updating our webpage, etc. Join our mailing list at https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-freebsd. Thanks!

by hias (not verified)

hi everyone

KDE4.1 is really good, I use it since several weeks and for me it already rocks. sure there are some missing features like the mac style menu bar, but I guess at least with 4.2 all the features will be back and until then there are many new ones to discover.

I have a question regarding the nepomuksearch like it was described in this blog s
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3426
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3443

Does this work for anyone? If yes, how can I enable it, or which module do I have to compile?

Thanks,
Hias

by yogo (not verified)

Hi

I installed the 4.devel Kubuntu packages on an oldish laptop already running 4.05. It's a great improvement on 4.0x, the desktop effects work well even on a 5 year old Nvidia 64M card. Kudos.

Two things that did puzzle me:
1. the position/size configuration tool for the panel - it's bit like the devs have said "right, you asked, so you can configure everything!". It's a bit like an ugly pagination tool in a word processor! Would it not be a simpler to have a simple settings dialogue for width, height and position. With position you would just need to have a 3x3 setting (Top, Bottom, Side) + (Left, Right, Centre) with one choice in each, rather then pixel perfect settings. Maybe that's just me ;)
2. When the panel is placed on the top of the screen, the search field is at the bottom of the menu. Is that able to be put at the top of the menu ?

Other than that, kudos to the developers. Well done, improving all the time.

Thanks.

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

> . It's a bit like an ugly pagination tool in a word processor!

neat, you got the reference.

> Would it not be a simpler to have a simple settings dialogue

a lot simpler to code, sure.

the idea is direct manipulation configuration, vs "airplane cockpit" configuration. giving you the ability to simple manipulate things on screen till it looks the way want is usually a lot more straight forward than figuring out what a "500px panel" means.

(i'm to "blame" for the airplane cockpit config dialog in kicker, btw =)

note that it also lets us handle changes during screen resolutions in a least-surprises manner without the settings appearing to "jump around" in a config dialog that exposes exact sizes.

> the search field is at the bottom of the menu.
> Is that able to be put at the top of the menu

this was actually an intentional change (by wstephenson) to preserve the mouse ergonomics of the menu no matter where it is placed.

we'll see how it works out in practice in 4.1, but i have to agree with will (and the opensuse team?) that actually works out.

these are all slightly different ways of approaching familiar things and so there's a moment of "wait. what just happened?" if you are really used to the old ways.

but give them a try and a chance, see if they work out for you. things like the panel config have tested better with people who haven't used previous kde versions than what we had before.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

I just want to add that I completely _love_ the new panel configuration thingy. The moment I saw it pop up I went "wow!". It's really easy to figure out, it gives great feedback and it re-uses concepts people are already familiar with. Plus, it looks good.

by jos poortvliet (not verified)

Indeed ;-)

by JRT (not verified)

I think that you miss the point. Yes, it is 'gee wiz' and 'way cool' but that is not what is needed. This seems to be a general problem with Plasma. Plasma is designed to be different than the rest of KDE. This in and of itself is a usability issue.

But, it is worse since these things that are different are also harder to use which means that there are additional usability issues since people have to relearn how to do things. Specifically, doing everything by dragging with the mouse is more difficult for many people not to mention the disabled.

> note that it also lets us handle changes during screen resolutions in a
> least-surprises manner without the settings appearing to "jump around" in a
> config dialog that exposes exact sizes.

I do hope that your logic is actually better than that. If this is really a consideration, then isn't it possible to set the dialog's "exact sizes" in percent. We set magnification of documents in percent with a widget and that seems to work fine.

OTOH, users are used to right clicking a ToolBar and choosing the icon size from a list of choices. How is it better to have to try to do this by dragging? Note that you do NOT want to set the Panel to a size that will result in resizing small sizes (<32x32) of icons since this will make the icons somewhat fuzzy. You want to be able to choose one of the standard icon sizes, something which is much easier with a list than by dragging.

So, while I do think that this thing looks cool, it fails the test of usability and time is better spent trying to implement the other missing DeskTop features.

by Adrian Baugh (not verified)

Existing users will have an amount of re-learning to do, but it isn't exactly rocket science. The point is, it's a better and more intuitive paradigm for new users (there are more users who will try kde at some point in the future than the current installed base).

Your point about standard icon sizes is bogus anyway, as kde4 uses vector icons that are custom-rendered to the size you choose. I seem to remember quite a bit of work went into tuning them so they looked okay even when tiny.

And for a future where kde may be on anything from a mobile phone to a huge multi-monitor display, with a wide range of screen dots-per-inch, a fixed number of pixels becomes even less meaningful.

I for one welcome our new plasma overlords :-)

(Offtopic: also, the speed issues with nvidia drivers seem greatly reduced with the 173 drivers.)

by yogo (not verified)

Hi

> this was actually an intentional change (by wstephenson) to preserve the
> mouse ergonomics of the menu no matter where it is placed.

I have the panel up-top because it suits my tall height and therefore is better ergonomically for me. Important stuff for me is grouped at the top of the screen, so I quite like the idea of having the search field near the menu button - functionally similar items should be visually grouped together on the screen.
I don't think it is a difficult change either as I can drag and drop toolbars around in KDE apps using the grips.

> the idea is direct manipulation configuration, vs "airplane cockpit" configuration

Not sure about the airplane analogy as when you move a stick in the cockpit the plane moves based on your actions (hopefully) but I kind of agree with you on this point.. It could just be done a bit subtler, say with some grips or the like rather than an on-screen ruler/paginator? Consider it a constructive criticism from a long time KDE user but it just seems a bit over the top.
If I want to resize an application window there is no ruler to guide me, I just put it where I want. Doesn't this now give two different interfaces to the same operation ? How about matching it to the way other plasmoids are resize and repositioned?

Remember also that things need to be optionally keyboard driven. Sometimes entering numbers into a config dialogue box is easier for those who don't use a mouse.

Cheers, Y

by yutt (not verified)

I've always wondered why the Symantec logo was chosen to represent Plasma...

http://images.google.com/images?q=symantec%20logo

by Mark Kretschmann (not verified)

A striking resamblance.. it's not.

by Bobby (not verified)

Some people really have fantasies. I personally can't see the slightest resemblance between the two.

by jos poortvliet (not verified)

Yes, indeed, they are remarkably similair:
http://techbase.kde.org/images/6/67/Plasma_logo.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/netsecurity/1/0/l/A/symantec_logo.jpg

What did you eat last night? Maybe you should be careful licking post stamps...

by kde4 is awesome (not verified)

Hmm...The Symantec logo and the Plasma logo look nothing alike.

by Evil Jay (not verified)

I don't see the resemblance.

The plasma logo is unique. Symantec's logo is just a modified yin yang symbol that reminds me of the South Korean flag.