The KDE community has released another update to its cutting edge KDE 4.0 desktop. KDE 4.0.2 has, along with the bugfixes some new features in Plasma. The panel can now be configured to sit somewhere else than at the bottom and UI options for changing its size have been added. Do not let yourself be distracted by those new things, there are also plenty of bugfixes, performance improvements and translation updates in there, among which support for two new languages: Persian and Icelandic. KDE 4.0.2 is thus available in 49 whopping languages, and more are soon to come. More highlights include rendering improvements in KHTML and lots of bugfixes in Okular and Kopete. The KDE community hopes you enjoy this release which should be hitting your favourite packaging system soon. See the changelog for more updates and info page for download options.
Comments
Found the workaround for Switch user issue.
You need to type SESSIONS in krunner. Dunno why it doesn't do this by default.
If you press Switch User it does show "SESSIONS" in krunner for a split second, but only for a split second.
/facepalm
But thanks for the workaround! It's appreciated.
No probs. There is also a problem with System tray and kde 3.X applications or non native applications like amsn. Icons don't show up in sys tray but are floating instead.
Workaround. Run as different user (I did it as root) then launch the same application as logged user, close root application and your normal user application is sitting in system tray.
This is fixed on aMSN svn
Cheers weintor.
Have compiled from svn and it looks OK. However, the same issue still persist for the 3.X applications like Klineakconfig, kpowersave and Kcheckgmail.
Yes, something strange is going on there. I see this behavior (SESSIONS appears and disappears), but as soon as I restart krunner, e.g. to debug it, it starts to work. So it is very hard to see where is the problem.
So as a workaround type: "killall krunner;krunner", without quotes, in krunner and it should work. :)
> Much of that stuff is there, but missing a GUI
"There, but missing a GUI" is functionally equivalent to "not there" for the vast majority of people.
Consider allowing that notion for GUI. A GUI that cannot be configured via GUI is not configurable, is it?
Yours,
Kay
Im here on OpenSuse System. Looks good. Thanks alot for your Work on KDE.
For german speaking visit http://www.kde4.de
Thanks for the spam, I'd appreciate if you could do without next time.
I think one reason might be that many have been disappointed by the new, not-so-perfect kicker implementation. At least I have got the impression that not being able to resize the panel was one of the major complaints, and I can understand that the marketing crew wants to make clear that that is being successfully worked on.
Sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to PlasmaLover up there.
Yes, that is the number one reason. A lot of people missed this feature, so it has been addressed and also backported to branch.
As to pushing Plasma in someone's face, at least for this release, Plasma is the only component which has also seen new features (and with those UI changes), so why shouldn't we mention that? Given that a lot of people missed configurability of the panel, this is probably the interesting bit for most of the users. If not for you, there's a lot of other content in the changelog as well.
> Plasma is the only component which has also seen new features (and with those UI changes), so why shouldn't we mention that?
You're right, it should be mentioned. But I think the attitude against mentioning it is that the people responsible for Plasma should be keeping their heads down out of embarrassment rather than calling attention to themselves.
A lot of people were pissed off not just about how much the move to Plasma broke, but how unrepentant certain people were and how they blamed users and reviewers for their failures. Crowing about how they managed to unbreak something just antagonises people further, even if that wasn't the intention.
Hey you guys, i noticed that the train station clock is still not available as plasma applet, at least not in the official 4.0.2 ... when 4.0.0 was coming out i made a tounge in cheek sort of comment about a conspiracy of a bunch of lame people about quietly killing the cool train station clock (previously promoted by Aaron's screencasts and nuno's mocks) and replacing it with a generic clunky one, instead of just beeing a cool Desktop and giving users what a majority of them really liked in the first RCs.
Someone from the devs said "you know, it's actually in playground, just be patient" ... but seeing it not in the release AGAIN just makes me thinking about that lame people's conspiracy all over again... if you can't bring it over you to ignore a few ignorant nay-sayers who supposedly didn't like the train station clock, at least provide it as an alternative please.
Heh, yeah. Maybe a good idea to move it from playground into extragear, so it gets released next time as well. :-)
Ahh, but will Debian package it, even in experimental, some time this year, instead of sticking to a broken, old mis-packaged version of 4.0? There's the question! ;)
No, I'm not being completely serious. Yes, I respect the debian dev's hard work. Yes, I just thought I'd post this and gently nudge them into doing a little more ;)
Have you even checked the debian repositories. The packages are coming into experimental. The debian kde package team are actually doing an excellent work in packaging. 4.0.1 was available the day it was released, and so is 4.0.2
There are even plans of moving onto 4.1 trunk as it may be included in lenny (at least the development files)
Hmm. Quite right, sorry -- my mistake. It seems -t experimental wasn't working for me. Pinning works fine though.
What are you talking about? 4.0.2 is already mostly there in experimental, and 4.0.1 was there before. Works fine for me.
Yes, you're right. Sorry. My other comment below has a few more details.
I need to agree that Debian packages are quite up-to-date but some packages are still missing for i386 platform:
- kdebindings
- kdewebdev
- kdeaccessibility
- and to a certain extent kdeartwork
Kdeartwork-theme-icon is in conflict with kdelibs-data from 3.5.X which makes this package at the moment pretty useless. Many applications were not ported yet to KDE4, namely Amarok and K3B - both relies on kdelibs-data 3.5.X
I have created deb package for kdebindings (necessary to run programs which depends on Kross like Superkaramba's widgets). It is a stripped down version of debian kdebindings, free of C#/Mono garbage.
You can grab it from here
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=65U7FVBH
There is no guaranty that deb package won't conflict with other packages on your system or that it will work at all. It works for me on DEBIAN/sid.
Enjoy,
D.
Commits: 2612 by 245 developers, 6750 lines modified, 1558 new files.
Open Bugs: 16124
Open Wishes: 13711
Bugs Opened: 278 in the last 7 days.
Bugs Closed: 193 in the last 7 days.
Source: http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-02-24/
There are a lot of open bugs & more are coming as the features extend. But there is plenty of time to fix them. (!?)
yea, no worries.
The KDE people are geniuses!!! (at least in my view)
Hopefully all this will be ready in 4.1. Everybody on Facebook is cheering you on!!! Huge worldwide fanbase.
Open bugs statistics mean shit with bugzilla. It doesn't really reflect reality, at this point. Most reports are dupes or invalid and whatnot.
Maintaining the bugzilla is often more time consuming than fixing actual bugs, that's the sad truth.
Then perhaps either abandon the current data and start fresh, or ask a team to do a bunch of maintenance trying to confirm/close bugs.
This is quite normal as more people start using it. The number of newly opened bugs is little more than an indicator for one or more the following:
- Number of bugs (d'oh!)
- Number of users
- Number and Variety of new features
- Variety of usecases
- Intelligence of bugreporters (think dupes)
- ...
And then there are bugs and bugs, some are less relevant to you than others.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. :-)
Will we get a cool desktop transitioning effect in KDE 4.1?
Like Compiz Cube - or something even much, much cooler?
I can't wait to be blown away. Those effects really help visualize having virtual multiple screens.
Its on the to-do list, but it isnt high on the list. It requires of coures 3D transformations of windows in kwin, and about a week ago there was a proof of concept (cover-flow like window switcher, see here: http://dot.kde.org/1204429306/1204452439/ ) so we know its possible. The KDE developers want to fix bugs, make sure that plasma is essentially usuable, and focus on usuability before they add a lot of bling bling. Be patient-- or if you know C++, you can code it yourself quite easily, just modify the source for the kwin effect I mentioned above.
I do like blings and I miss quite a few things that Compiz-Fusion has but I would prefer to see a feature complete KDE for 4.1 (meaning migration of all or the most of KDE 3.5x programs and functionality to 4.1) and a rock solid Plasma Desktop and Panel. Feature parity and stability should be the main goals for 4.1.
That would be nice. 3D effects are cool.. :drool:
Its actually really easy to write kwin plugins, I wrote wobbly windows in 8 hours. I'm curious what plugins people are most waiting for, any voters?
I wanna do a window animation plugin, but Im not sure if the kwin developers would accept my work. My idea is to break down all window animations into five parts: effects that move the window around the screen (like having it appear from one of the corners), effects that change the opacity of the windows (or color or whatever), effects that scale the window, effects that rotate the window, and effects that break the window into a grid and manipulate it. By combining these 5 effects, I think all window animations could done. Can anyone think of a problem with my solution, or window animations that aren't covered by my wonderful system?
I'll probably start writing my window animations plugin later tonight, maybe I'll have it done next week. I'm excited!
If the code is good and you are willing to maintain it, there are not really any reasons the kwin developers should accept it. Since it's just pluging it's much easier to get accepted too. Depending on it's degree of usefullness it may not be put in the main package, but end up in a addon or extragear package.
Drop a message on the kwin mailinglist, they are a friendly bunch.
That would be really great!! I'm all for it.
A "magic lamp" type effect for minimizing to taskbar would be great.
Also some cool effect to switch desktops. The compiz cube is nice, but I think there could be other effects, something that would let users visualize a "virtual screen" on either side of their physical monitor. Let your imagination flow.
I would also like an effect that adds "depth" and vibrant color to the desktop. Make the "experience of 3d" somehow. Try to imagine the coolest desktops you've seen in sci-fi or other CSI, NCIS type shows. Think of what you would like the effects to look in 5 years from now.
Maybe we should do a deviant art type competition for coolest look for effects and then see if programmers can incorporate those into reality.
I - like some others - would like to use KDE 4.1 for a CarPC (low resolution 7" touch screen in the car) I would like to see some effects that would look good in a car, but not distract from driving. (Maybe look to Polyphony digital (makers of Gran Turismo) designet auxiliary gauges for the new Nissan GTR)
Can't wait to see what you come up with. :)
If you want a sci-fi desktop, what you want is not desktop effects but qt style and color scheme. If you know C++, can you clone the oxygen or plastique styles and create a new, sci-fi style. Maybe in the future I'll create a qt style to resemble ncurses interfaces-I think that would be cool.
No, no... I don't mean the look, like icons..
I mean animations, things that happen on the screen.
I love oxygen style. I just want my desktop to surprise me and make it a joy to work with.
I am sure that the most of us /especially those of us who can't code) would greatly appreciate your work.
Yea we do!!!
Thanks for coding.
Shouldn't that be "available in a whopping 49 languages" and not "available in 49 whopping languages?" It is indeed the number that your adjective is stressing, not the languages themselves.
--
Best Regards,
Grammar Nazi KDE User
Give Seb a break. He single-handedly represents the KDE e.V. Marketing group and doesn't get much sleep. Plus English isn't his native language.
Once it's posted to the Dot it's up to people like Riddell to edit it. I do not have such karma (but I do get more sleep than Riddell, I hope. :))
LOL =)
Excuse me, what is a "Grammar Nazi KDE User"??
It's a grammar nazi who also happens to be a kde user
In no way affiliated with actual Nazis, I can assure you. And don't take my grammar correction too harshly; just getting you pumped up to strive for perfection as you work on KDE4. ;)
Why hasn't this bug gotten fixed yet? Sorry to say, but...it looks so ugly! :\
I have stopped using desktop icons with KDE4 just because I can't stand the black background they draw.
Please, someone fix this.
Other than that, KDE4 is a great release! <3
Full ACK. This is really the worst thing of KDE4 and the reason why I don't use it yet. i just see so many disadvantages and hardly any advantage. Sure, the effects and stuff are nice, but when so many basics are missing which made KDE great I still prefer to stick to KDE3 for the time being. BTW: What I really did hope for with Plasma was a way to draw labeled "boxes" (like Development, Graphics, Network) on your desktop and put multiple auto-arranged icons in it.
I think the black boxes are nice. But maybe give users an option to make the box transparent, everybody's happy ;)
I completely agree they're ugly. I submitted a patch that got rid of them and addressed the issue of white text on white background but it was rejected. If you want the patch let me know and I'll email it. I use it daily and I think it makes the look MUCH nicer.
Has proxy support been fixed yet? This is the only thing that's keeping me from being able to use kde 4. It's kind of useless without internet support, and I have no direct connection at uni.