KDE-CVS-Digest for July 16, 2004

This week's KDE CVS-Digest:
Kolourpaint adds Emboss and dithering effects, more levels of undo.
Digikam adds RGB balance plugin.
KPresenter adds a custom slide show option.
Krita improves input tablet support.
Kexi continues improvement to query editing.
KSpread gets a new formula engine.
Kopete sees beginnings of MSN file transfer support.
KConfigEditor can edit both Gnome and KDE configurations, and export configurations in KJSEmbed JavaScript.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by yo (not verified)

Many thanks to Derek for his steady work, and many many thanks to Enrico Ros
for his wonderful and very important work in improving the visual
appearance of konqueror and kde [1].

Keep up the good work!

[1] http://robotics.dei.unipd.it/~koral/KDE/kflicker.html

by fake guy (not verified)

Yep, go Enrico! (italians do it better ;-)

PS. Where did you take this wallpaper from?
http://robotics.dei.unipd.it/~koral/KDE/screenshots/mydesk2.png

by Brinkley (not verified)

I second this..(italians do always it better....)

Go Enrico !!!

Anyway, who's the girl ?

Thanks and best regards

http://robotics.dei.unipd.it/~koral/KDE/screenshots/mydesk2.png

by Flinkbaum (not verified)

> I second this..(italians do always it better....)

I third^H^H^H^H^Hdoubt this.. (especially when writing english: idaib -> idiab, not to mention "italians do it on topic")

by John (not verified)

Wow! I've been away from KDE really for a couple of years now since I got my first Mac. But I like to pop back every now and then and have a look at how you guys are getting on. Must say that that is to date the most beautiful KDE screen shot I've ever seen. So I took a look at some of the other graphics examples in your directory too. I'm really impressed. Very crisp, very clean, and looking very mature. If this is what's coming in KDE 3.3, then I might just have to dust off my PC and have another play.

Well done guys.

by Anonymous (not verified)

The widget style (Plastik) will ship with KDE 3.3, but not as default. All are other stuff (icon theme, window deco, wallpaper) seem to be user customizations.

by Roland (not verified)

Yes, that's the greatest advantage of open source, it's not just about shipping a product that somehow works, but also about improving and optimizing it afterwards.

That's why KDE gets better every release while many people aren't sure about other products... (DRM, product activation, etc.)

by Fast_Rizwaan (not verified)

Hey, My many thanks to those kool developers with a such precision observation :) Thank you!!!

by me (not verified)

"Michael Pyne has created a script to assist users to install KDE from cvs. The script and documentation can be found at http://grammarian.homelinux.net/kdecvs-build/."

Isn't this the same thign as konstruct?

by Eike Hein (not verified)

Nope, Konstruct doesn't do a CVS checkout AFAIK. It's for releases only (including those marked as "unstable", such as alphas, betas and RCs).

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Nope. This is for those who like being on the bleeding edge. Run code written yesterday.

You are on your own, and at your own risk. It may not build, and you may end up with a build that is broken. That being said, kde cvs is remarkably stable most of the time.

Konstruct is for releases.

Derek

by compilefarm (not verified)

do we get a build system for KDE ? one that like mozilla and so ? tinderbox is it.
we need a compile farm so see whats broken in cvs.

by smt (not verified)

There are often times where people make changes to applications which don't really have clear (or active maintainers), or to parts that affect different parts of KDE, like Frans did. Yeah, consensus seems to have worked in the past, but I don't think it any longer works as well in issues that can be quite devisive.. usually with one or two people *really* advocating one side or another. So, what happens is that long discussions happen with no consensus occuring, and the same discussion happens every month or two with the issue never getting resolved.

The other thing that can occur is that someone posts a RFC about an issue. Only a few people seem to care. A few months later, people suddenly get riled up when things get committed.

by compilefarm (not verified)

what was the problem that kulow and frans had ? as i understand kulow did not know of any discussion and just reverted his patch. Does he think he could be aware of *all* discussions ? i think no one can.
and just reverting someones patches can kill all motivation and make bad climate in the project.

sounds like some *linus* type person for kde.

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Kulow's issue was due to the feature freeze. We are well into a release cycle, and the release dude has to keep a lid on things otherwise nothing will stabilize.

This is good.

Derek

normaly usability fixes dont break anything - so you could relax here a litte bit.

a he should heave pointed out that he revertet because of the feature freeze - but from his mail he reverted because he did not know of any discussion. And thats the point.

i think we dont need someone blindly reverting patches like *he* like kde to be.

i think he thought:
oh i dont like this fix - revert :-( this suxx

by Nicolas Goutte (not verified)

Sorry, but Stephan Kulow did not revert just because he did not like it.

He is the release manager and therefore he must careful of the state of KDE. That some KDE applications suddenly would not appear in GNOME is not good, not at all. (Especially that the .desktop files were unified to allow that they show in all desktops following the specification.)

Have a nice day!

by Anonymous Coward (not verified)

Rubbish. Stephan is the release co-ordinator, it is his duty to ensure that any unplanned changes however large or small get reverted during the crucial stages of the release cycle.

Until you become a developer you have no right to complain.

by Henrique Pinto (not verified)

You are being extremely unfair to Stephan Kulow. Frans commited the patch without discussing it, and, just after the patch was commited, lots and lots of people asked for it to be reverted, as no discussion happened, and many people disagreed with the changes. Coolo just pointed out that the patch violated the release plan. Then, Frans himself reverted the patch, not coolo. Read the mailinglist archives if you don't believe me.

by Derek Kite (not verified)

Riled up is maybe the wrong word. There were valid concerns about the changes, and some different implementation ideas.

Usability improvements happen on two levels. First is to have consistency in the UI, capitalization, button placements, common dialogs all the same, etc. That is happening already. Stephan Binner, who also maintains konstruct, does style guide fixes. There are still improvements to be made on this level.

The second level is changes in the way things work in an attempt to make it easier to use, or possibly easier to learn. Already there are two sometimes conflicting goals, ie. file management by console commands. An extreme example, but easy to use, hard to learn. Which do we want in KDE? In each situation, how can both be accomplished? Do we cater to our existing user base, which is predominantly experienced users, or do we alienate them in an effort to pursue new users? Or do we try to find the difficult sweet spot in the middle? The project needs developers, who more likely will come from the experienced users. Or maybe from some packager who sells to new users. Hmm.

To confuse the issue even more, we should ask whether there is a problem that needs fixing. I don't think there is even consensus on this basic question.

One advantage KDE has is the experience of others. We can avoid the mistakes that others have made.

Where do I stand in all this? I still haven't forgiven the industry for moving to the CUA. My fingers find it unnatural and frustrating. What really bothers me is to learn how to do something, then find I have to relearn because someone made it 'easier'. I like the efforts that have gone into optimizations. I like how more and more things just work in KDE. I don't like change for the sake of change. And being an unusually cranky sort, I keep my opinions to myself. And live with whatever others decide. So far so good.

Derek

I think Kulow is not as good in making Usability Decisions as Frans is. Frans is dedicated to bring usability enhancements to kde. Kulow ist dedicated for code (library development). so i dont see the point that he is judging the usability fixes.

i hear like "i like my system, please dont change it" attitude.

I like that the Gnome people have the courage to make massive desicions to change their Enviroment, this makes innovation !! (the thing on the spatial mode will calm down).

My Proposal is to Name one Head of Usability who will design the enhancements and assign the coding to some core developers with discussion of the list.

I think the developers should subordinate themselves to the usability gurus not the other way around , what so you think ?????

by Nicolas Goutte (not verified)

Stephan Kulow is the release manager of KDE. So it is him who has the final decision in case of conflicts (and this was a conflict).

Have a nice day!

by Anonymous Coward (not verified)

> I think Kulow is not as good in making Usability Decisions as Frans is

Why? Stephan is a highly respected and one of the original developers. How you can you claim that?

> Frans is dedicated to bring usability enhancements to kde.

How do you know that?

> Kulow ist dedicated for code (library development). so i dont see the point that
> he is judging the usability fixes.

Rubbish.

> My Proposal is to Name one Head of Usability who will design the
> enhancements and assign the coding to some core developers with
> discussion of the list.

Nonsense. That is the complete anti-thesis to how KDE is developed. People do coding because they want to, not because they get assigned it by some dictator. Since they are unpaid and do it because the like doing it, I hardly think it's reasonable to expect them to do stuff they're ordered to.

> I think the developers should subordinate themselves to the usability
> gurus not the other way around , what so you think ?????

I think you should get more of an idea about how KDE is developed.

i think you should read the mailing lists more - Just answering rubbish to every statement is not very good.

thank you mr.rubbish.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> My Proposal is to Name one Head of Usability who will design the enhancements
> and assign the coding to some core developers with discussion of the list.

just like we name one Head of Software Design who designs the feature enhancements and assigns the coding to the various KDE developers? ;-)

of course not, that's not how Open Source methodologies work.

so the question is: is Usability a centrist's wet dream which only works when driven top-down? or is it possible to rework the process such that it can effectively co-exist with the Open Source coding model? i think the answer is "yes". before you nay-say, remember that many used to (and some continue to) say that Open Source coding practices can't, won't and don't work largely because they thought that all software development must look like the models they had theretofore known (closed models, primarily).

> I think the developers should subordinate themselves to the
> usability gurus not the other way around

why should anybody be subjugated to anyone else in this scenario? why not achieve an organic, flexible and cooperative relationship between the various disciplines?

(art, documentation, translation, usability, accessability, coding, Q/A, promotion, etc..)

> Riled up is maybe the wrong word. There were valid concerns about the changes, and some different implementation ideas.

Of course.. I'm not exactly talking about this situation, which I'm blisfully ignorant of, but other situations in general that I've noticed. A lot of objections only seem to happen *after* things are commited rather than *before* when people ask for comments. That causes a lot of strife. People seem to read kde-cvs more than kde-core-devel :-)

by Derek Kite (not verified)

>People seem to read kde-cvs more than kde-core-devel :-)

You are right about that. Most of the developers don't subscribe to kde-core-devel.

And I agree that sometimes the discussions get rather emotional.

Derek

i just looks like everyone has to ask kde-core-devel for permission if you want to change some usability stuff.

by Christian Loose (not verified)

No, but you should ask kde-core-devel when you do a major change to several apps across module boundaries in the middle of the feature freeze.

Improving usability of a single app isn't a problem at all when the maintainer knows about it.

It seems to me as if you're talking about things you don't know anything about.

by Mikhail Capone (not verified)

I just want to say "thanks" to all the developers who work on KDE. I can't wait for 3.3, I'm sure it's going to be a great one.

by AC (not verified)

Hi Derek,

First of all thanks a lot for the time and effort you put in the Digest every week. I appreciate it as much as KDE itself.

I would like to make a request to expand the Internationalization Status. The status is now the top 10 of http://i18n.kde.org/stats/gui/HEAD/toplist.php This is the GUI translation. Would you be so kind to add a top 10 of http://i18n.kde.org/stats/doc/HEAD/toplist.php This is the documentation translation. Which IMHO is (almost) important as the GUI translation.

Thanks a lot !!!

by ingwa (not verified)

At the start of the weekly CVS Digest there is a nice section with statistics. Currently there is the top ten list for most number of commits, and the number of changed lines is also shown

I think that another nice piece of statistics would be the total number of votes for the bugs that each developer has fixed. This would be a way to see who has done the community the biggest service this week, as it were. :-)

Would this be too complicated to implement?

by Derek Kite (not verified)

>Would this be too complicated to implement?

Probably. I'm not sure if such statistics are available readily. The majority of the stats come from the repository itself. What you are asking for would come from the bugzilla site.

If you want, send me the necessary query(s) from bugs.kde.org and I could use it.

Derek

by Anonymous (not verified)

Don't know how it works 'inside' bugs.kde.org.

http://bugs.kde.org/votes.cgi?action=show_bug&bug_id=48302
text on page "Total votes: 397"

regexp like /Total votes: (\d+)/i may help with it?..

by anonymous (not verified)

The following should work 'inside' bugs.kde.org:

SELECT
profiles.login_name,
SUM(votes.count) AS vote_sum
FROM
bugs_activity ba
INNER JOIN profiles ON ba.who = profiles.userid
INNER JOIN bugs ON ba.bug_id = bugs.bug_id
INNER JOIN votes ON ba.bug_id = votes.bug_id
WHERE
bugs.bug_severity != 'wishlist' AND
ba.added IN ('RESOLVED', 'CLOSED') AND
DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 7 DAYS) < ba.bug_when
GROUP BY profiles.login_name
ORDER BY vote_sum DESC
LIMIT 10
;

An email I sent to [email protected]:

Although I'm aware of how the view profiles
work; what I've been hoping for wasn't the already existing ability to
configure separate views, but rather the actual functionality of separate
'homes' for the web browser and file management views.

For instance: Settings -> Configure Konqueror... -> Behavior -> 'Home URL'

I currently have set to 'http://slashdot.org', and I've saved the 'Web
Browsing' view profile, so that when I fire up Konqueror web browser, it
goes straight to my "home page".

The problem that annoys me to a large degree is that when I'm using Konqueror
File Management, the 'home' button is a web page ( slashdot.org )... when I'm
file browsing, it's logical that I would want my 'home' to
be /home/ ... not http://www.slashdot.org!

What I think should be the case would be separate 'home urls' - one under:

Settings -> Configure Konqueror ... -> Behavior -> 'Home URL'

...and another under:

Settings -> Configure Konqueror ... -> Web Behavior -> 'Home URL'

In fact, if you read the descriptive heading under Configure Konqueror ->
Behavior, it clearly states: 'You can configure how Konqueror acts as a file
manager here.' ... and then there's the 'Home URL' setting, complete with a
default of '~' and even a file dialog button to browse your filesystem with
to set a new "home" with. Then there's the 'Web Behavior', which states
'Configure the browser behavior' ... and it lacks the ability to set a home
url.

Not only is this extremely counter intuitive, but from a practical
functionality standpoint - it makes no sense, and is quite frustrating.

I was wondering whether others were similarly frustrated with the current
behavior, and whether anyone knew whether this was going to be "fixed" or
not.

Thanks!

The home url should be left as ~. If you want to (web) browser to start on slashdot u should open konq in webbrowsing profile, goto slashdot, then save view profile webbrowsing and tick the box that says save URLs in profile.

Now u click web konq it goes to slashdot, Click file konq it goes to ~.

Good idea, create a wish bug and it will have my voting points.

Please search before creating a new bug report.

Such a bug probably exists already, as the idea is far from being new.

Have a nice day!

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

This has been partialally fixed in 3.3.0.

You can configure it so that: "Load Profile" is next to or replaces the Home button. This will give you a drop down menu of profiles to load and the "webrowsing" profile can contain your web home URL while the "filemanagement" provile can contain your $HOME (or other) directory.

--
JRT

The solution is to make /home/user your home URL and use the bookmark toolbar for your web bookmarks. It's just a different way of thinking about Konqueror. The idea of a home url on the web doesn't really make that much sense; I'm sure you have many URLs you visit regularly and arbitrarily choosing one to be "home" above the others doesn't make that much sense. OTOH, there is a clearly defined home directory.

Personally, I sometimes find it useful to turn a web browser into a file browser by clicking the home button, so it can be useful. Like I said, it's just a different way of thinking about Konqueror. Discussions about this behavior of Konqueror must be as old as Konqueror itself. It hasn't been changed yet and it isn't likely to be changed.

I'm cool with thinking about software that works differently from what I'm used to in new/different ways - but certain things I believe tend to be better off left alone; especial "standard" or "de facto" behavior... such as the long standing (like, since forever) concept of a "home page"/"home url" when using a web browser.

It's not just me ( a long time unix/linux user and programmer ) who fails to see the logic in this behavior - but everyone I've ever introduced to KDE. The view profiles functionality is one thing, but the "either/or" behavior of Konqueror's "home url" is a real pain to introduce to people, not because they're unable to work in new and different ways from what they're used to - but because it truly is a counter-intuitive and somewhat awkward behavior. Especialy in KDE, which does a truly phenomenal job in allowing the USER to define his/her preferred environment and behavior through configuration options. I would expect the "modify your habits" attitude to be more becoming of Gnome or Windows.

Having the ability to configure the "home url" separately for the File Management and Web Browsing views in konqueror would allow people to work the way they want to, instead of the way Konqueror forces them to work.

At anyrate, I'll search the bugs db and create a feature wish if there isn't already one existing concerning this.

This, and the fact that there are 2 million different toolbars for konqueror are the things that annoy me most. Am I the only one in thinking that there should be one (yes ONE) toolbar for the browser and one (yes ONE again) for the file manager?

by Rayiner Hashem (not verified)

No, I agree with you :)

What about configuring the animated logo to take you to your home page once clicked? Right now, it opens another konqueror instance. Why would one need that in the first place?

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

Yes, you *are* the only one. :-)

Actually, for a configuration that some people wanted, we need an additional toolbar for Konqueror (it would be empty and not used by default). To configure like IE without changing the Main & Extra toolbars.

What I *do* think is that the default configuration has too many icons on it. I remove some of them and configure Konqueror to be more like Mozilla.

I would also like to see the Animated Logo on the Menubar -- like other browsers.

--
JRT

Alright, but why another *extra* toolbar. What's wrong with just having one or two toolbars and using as many icons as is needed. To give you an example, I really don't like cluttered toolbars either. So, I take away all the icons I don't need and leave about six. Then, if I decided to change view from multicolumn (which still doesn't work right btw) to detailed list...lo and behold. Two more icons appear! (increase/decrease font sizes) So, I remove them, change to say tree view, and THEY'RE BACK!!! And so on, and so on. Please give me ONE good reason why this is needed. Seriously, I just can't figure it out......

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

As I said, an additional toolbar is necessary to have an IE like setup without modifying the existing Main and Extra toolbars:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tyrerj/kde/kde00.png

If it is to be used only for this use, it should probably be called the Navigation ToolBar.

In regard to your other problem. I have also experienced problems removing icons form toolbars. Were they still there after you restarted Konqueror (you might even have to kill all running instances of it). If you still have this problem in 3.3.0 Beta 2, please file a bug report if there isn't one already.

--
JRT

That looks like ages old versions of IE, nothing like IE 6.0, whose toolbar can't really be replicated because Qt doesn't support selective text labels. The small toolbar to the left of your screen is ridiculous. The icons are small and hard to click. There are too many of them.

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

I am puzzled. My IE-6.0 looks just like it:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tyrerj/files/ie6-jrt.png

And exactly what can't be replicated -- were is the selective text label? The "Go" icon in IE says "Go" but that is an *icon* with text in it.

I find the small toolbar quite useful. I don't use these often and it is easier than using the menu. But this is KDE, if you want it larger just right click and select a larger Icon Size. Too many of them -- yes, I agree that the default configuration has too many icons in the tool bars. Unfortunately, this appears to be a political issue with the developers.

--
JRT