KDE.news

Down to Business with Major Deployments

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

KDE software has been used in many large scale deployments, including universities, governments and countless companies.

One of these organizations suggested that KDE create a deployment forum so that others can benefit from their deployment experience. The forum would provide an opportunity for sysadmins and developers to ask questions and discuss problems/solutions related to deploying KDE software in large, complex environments.

We have created a new mailing list for these discussions at https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/enterprise.

All administrators of any deployments planned or in progress are invited to join this list to share and field questions. KDE developers and people maintaining Linux distributions with KDE software will also participate.

KDE Telepathy Sprint

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In April 2014, we had a sprint for KDE Telepathy, KDE's foremost instant messaging client. The sprint consisted of both past and new contributors from around the world.

Group chats

For the sprint we decided to concentrate our hacking efforts into a few key areas that are currently weak inside KDE Telepathy. We chose group chats as it was one of the most repeated feature requests coming especially from enterprise circles. It was something we supported at a basic level but, since none of us used it on a daily basis, it did not receive the attention it deserved.

Firstly, we forced ourselves to use a conference room for the duration of the sprint for all our chatting purposes and made a list of every potential improvement we could find. Afterwards we picked things off the list one by one and made significant improvements to the group chatting experience.

Our usability expert, Thomas Pfeiffer, was there with us providing valuable input from the usability point of view; thanks to that it was not just a mad hacking on features but also about making the application more usable. The screenshots below speak for themselves!

Answer text messages from your desktop

Easy chat via SMS using KDE Telepathy

During the sprint Albert Vaca and Alexandr Akulich worked on making a backend for Telepathy to talk to KDE Connect. This allows you to receive SMS messages from your phone and reply through a comfortable and familiar chat interface on your desktop.

Reducing the bug count

Another area we focused on at the sprint was our bug count. At the beginning we had 62 reported bugs (excluding wishes and tasks), some of them had been open for a longer time. So we allocated some space on the whiteboard for a giant bug counter; whoever then fixed a bug from that list got the honor of erasing the number on the whiteboard and writing a new one. We are now under 50 bugs, with under 50 further wishlist items.

Building for the future

We didn't just hack but also discussed where to go with KDE Telepathy.

Vision

According to the KDE Human Interface Guidelines, "A vision describes the goal of the project. It can be emotive and a source of inspiration, for instance by outlining how the final product makes the world a better place. It is roughly similar to purpose or aim, and guides through the development." In order to guide KDE Telepathy's development, Thomas, our aforementioned usability expert, led a session where we defined a vision for us.

Whiteboard work

The first question that was important for us was "Which users do we want to focus on?". We decided that we want to focus on Plasma users. We do not shut out users of other desktop environments or operating systems, but we clearly focus on integrating well with Plasma and provide the best experience for Plasma users.

The other defining question for our focus was "Do we want to focus on providing the best possible experience for users of popular instant messaging systems such as Facebook Chat or Google Hangouts, or do we want to focus on providing an awesome experience to users of open protocols such as Jabber?" Our answer to this question was that while we do not want to exclude users of popular systems, we realise that for them, we can only create an "okay-ish" experience at best, because those systems' APIs are very restricted and always subject to change. Only with open protocols we can use all of our capabilities to create a truly awesome experience for users.

Our vision draft is still being discussed on the mailing list and will be published once it's been agreed upon by the whole KDE Telepathy community.

Frameworks

In KDE Telepathy we provide several plasma widgets, which need to be ported in order to run on Plasma Next. In order to do this we first had to port our libraries to work on top of KDE Frameworks. By the end of the sprint we had the contact list and chat plasma widgets fully running and working on Plasma Next. We hope to release the widgets so that they are available for Plasma Next users.

API Breaks in the larger Telepathy stack

There is an upcoming change in the interfaces to the Telepathy backends that talk to the various protocols such as jabber. We need to be prepared for this change - otherwise when distributions update Telepathy, our application will cease working. We are making sure we have code ported and ready, so we can release at the same time as upstream switches. Most of these updates are inside TelepathyQt and we are working on the elements lower in the stack that will benefit not only us but also Ubuntu and Jolla.

Planning how to handle these two upcoming changes at once is awkward at best and required some delicate planning.

Wrapping up

Overall the sprint was incredibly useful in helping push our project forward both in terms of the extra development and planning moving forwards.

Thanks to the Blue Systems Barcelona office for hosting us.

More photos here

This document was written by the KDE Telepathy team; written using KDE Telepathy's collaborative editing features.

Season of KDE 2013 Applications Open

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Season of KDE is now officially open for applications.

To apply head to season.kde.org register as a student and click "Submit a proposal"

What is Season of KDE?

Season of KDE is a community outreach program, much like Google Summer of Code that has been hosted by the KDE community for five years straight.

It is meant for people who could not get into Google Summer of Code for various reasons, or people who simply prefer a differently structured, somewhat less constrained program. Season of KDE is managed by the same team of admins and mentors that take care of Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in matters for KDE, with the same level of quality and care.

Who can take part?

Everyone can apply for Season of KDE. We give preference to those who have applied for Google Summer of Code and to students, but we will gladly consider applications from anyone.

What do I get out of this?

A great summer working on a really cool KDE project and gaining valuable experience. If you complete your project successfully you also get a T-shirt, a certificate, and maybe a few other goodies.

What is the timeline?

Season of KDE is a flexible project to fit around school terms, work, and other commitments, and start and end dates can be discussed with your mentor. Projects should be completed before the end of the year, a typical Season of KDE project should take around 2 months.

How do I apply?

First get in touch with a mentor about your ideas, and what projects they want to run.

Then head to season.kde.org and follow the instructions.

Do I need to have a mentor before applying?

It is preferred. Ideally, you should contact a KDE sub-project well before applying, ask for feedback on your idea if you have one, and request a mentor directly. A list of KDE sub-project contacts is available on the Google Summer of Code 2013 ideas page. You can also apply without a mentor and we will try to find one for you.

Do I need to have a project idea before applying?

It is preferred. If you do not have one we will try to find one for you. Keep in mind that the KDE community is pretty big, so you should at least have an idea of which KDE sub-project you wish to work on.

Do I need to write a proposal like in Google Summer of Code?

No, but we would like to see a brief project plan describing what you will be working on.

Is it only for coders like Google Summer of Code?

We are willing to consider non-coding projects as well including artwork and promotion, but you should definitely get in touch to figure out the details beforehand. The KDE Community Wiki describes ways to get involved with KDE that do not require coding.

I applied for a project in Google Summer of Code but another student got selected for it. Can I still work on it?

Maybe, but likely not. You should ask the mentor that was assigned to your idea. We can try to find something related for you if you want, or something completely different. Let us know what you wish and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

Is this an extension of Google Summer of Code or connected to Google?

No. While Season of KDE is in many ways modelled after Google Summer of Code and administered by the same members of the KDE community, it is completely independent from Google Summer of Code and has no connection to Google whatsoever.

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For further questions feel free to join our IRC channel #kde-soc on Freenode or email the admin team at kde-soc-mentor-owner@kde.org

New KDE Telepathy brings Better Text Editing and Improved Notifications

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Good news, everyone! The KDE Telepathy team has just released version 0.6.0 of KDE Telepathy (KTp), KDE's instant messaging suite. This version brings a number of new features as well as a large amount of bug fixes.

About KDE Telepathy

KDE Telepathy is an instant messaging suite built upon the Telepathy framework. KDE Telepathy provides text chat, video calls and file transfer services over many popular instant messaging platforms including Facebook Chat and Google Talk. In addition KTp provides libraries for embedding instant messaging or real-time collaboration inside your application.

KDE Telepathy follows the philosophy that communication is a service offered to applications and the desktop. A more in-depth technical explanation can be read over here, but in practice, this means that KDE Telepathy consists of independent components. This allows KDE Telepathy to be well integrated with Plasma by providing plasmoids and runner interfaces as well as providing the traditional contact list and chatting application. This level of desktop integration allows endless possibilities and greater freedom in the way in which you interact with your contacts. Boundaries of Telepathy however do not stop at communication, the next step is collaboration, for example games can take advantage of Telepathy and provide a multi-player capabilities without the hassle of setting up network connections.

New Features

This release brings in a number of major new features. An overview:

Kopete log migration KTp now imports logs from Kopete accounts into our log format. For new KTp users this will be asked if they wish to import when they create an account, existing users can also import logs by opening the log viewer.

Clearer message notifications KTp had some feedback to improve the notifications of new messages. KTp now shows an icon in the contact list when a new message arrives, change the icon in the system tray, and for group chats show who is typing.

Better text editing The chat window now features tab completion for group chats, as well as text navigation for editing messages.

KTp has made adding emoticons easier too, with a new optional emoticon toolbar.

Advanced notifications KTp now supports setting different notifications for each of your contacts. This means it is possible to set an optional notification if your favourite friends come online, or play sounds when messages arrive from certain contacts but not others.

Improved password and security management KTp is now able to connect to password protected jabber rooms, a much requested feature. We have also improved our connection certificate handling, now using KDE SSL certificates manager and allowing the user to override invalid certificates.

Under the hood changes and cleanups A lot of our effort has been spent in a big refactoring under the hood, getting ourselves ready for the future as well as bringing speed and stability closing over 85 bug reports in 0.6.

0.6.0 features completely redone connection error notifications and other important UI areas.

Core filtering plugins

KTp has an extended range of message plugins to make chatting more dynamic and interactive.

Text messages can be formatted in bold or italics

Youtube links are show and can be played directly in your chat window

Links to bugzilla are shown inline with the bug title and resolution

When sending messages can use your KDE webshortcuts to make it quicker to send links

Messages containing your name are highlighted and a special notification with sound can be emitted. This is especially useful if you lurk in conference rooms

Getting 0.6
After this huge list of awesome new things, you might want to try KTp for yourself! So, where to get it?
First of all, the source tarballs are available from the KDE download servers. This contains our full set of applications and applets.

Most distributions, including openSUSE (in the KDE-extra repository), Fedora and Kubuntu, have packages available already or will have, soon. Note that you will need the full set of packages for KTp to work properly. In most distributions, that means installing the right repository and getting the ktp* packages.

Of course, if you find issues or think of possible improvements, you can either file a bug or join development!