KDE.news 

In the September 2001 issue of Linux Magazine, Konqueror, the KDE all-in-one wunder kind, has been awarded the Tuxie for Best Web Browser as part of the 2001 Editors' Choice Awards (the Tuxies). This new honour adds to the impressive list of awards that the KDE developers have earned in what seems now like many years of dedication and persistence. Congratulations to the hard-working developers who brought us Konqueror, KHTML, KJS, NSPlugins, Internet Keywords, native plugins and all the other marvelous technologies which we know and love as Konqueror. Read More

Waldo Bastian, the KDE 2.x release coordinator, has announced that KDE 2.2.1 was packaged as a tarball yesterday and will be officially released on September 17, 2001. Those of you expecting the release this Monday will be happy to know that the extra week was used to squash bugs. At about the same time, Dirk Mueller, the new KDE 3.x release coordinator (thanks, Dirk!), posted the projected KDE 3.0 release schedule. The short and sweet: first beta on December 3, 2001, first release candidate on January 7, 2002, and KDE 3.0 on February 25, 2002. Unlike the KDE 1 to KDE 2 change, this one should be much smoother: Qt has changed far less, and very few (if any) core applications will be completely rewritten, as many were for KDE 2. Read More

Some time ago, Bowie J. Poag wrote in with a link to the System 26 GUI Component Stockpile, a large public repository of raw materials such as individual sounds (clicks, beeps, bells and whistles) and images (buttons, textures, pixmaps, etc) specifically geared for use within GUIs. This may to be a good place to start if one were building a new KDE theme. And speaking of themes, kde.themes.org seems to be back although there does not appear to be any recent submissions. Are KDE users simply not interested in themes these days? Also a while back, rsk wrote in with this news: "Wow, it looks like the same guy that offered up all the suggestions for integration of the KDE PIM features has put his money where his mouth is. He is offering $350 and any product from Tux Store to the developer(s) that implements the features he's asked for in his story." I'm unaware of the current status of this contest, but any KDE developer interested can check out the full offer and contact the author directly for details. Finally, Robin Sharf wrote in to inform us of a port of Konqueror/Embedded to BeOS (with screenshot). Update: 09/07 6:00 PM by N: Also managed to miss this one: The first releases (since the AOL fiasco) of Kinkatta are out. Go to the page for a bigger update and the full skinny. On the plus side, KDE support is (literally) looking good but Benjamin would like to step down as maintainer and is seeking someone to fill in those shoes. Read More

Rob Kaper and myself have collaborated on a summary of the happenings at last week's LinuxWorld Expo. We tell you what really took place at the most fabulous booth at the show <grin>. And don't forget to check out Rob's extended and hilarious picture gallery of the event! Read More

OSnews is running a nice interview with Konqueror developers Dirk Mueller, Waldo Bastian, Carsten Pfeiffer and Simon Hausmann about what the future holds in store for Konqueror. Most of the covered topics are familiar to the frequent dot.kde.org reader, but some stuff -- such as details of the Atheos port, font handling, and plans for improved CSS2 support -- is very interesting. One of the most fascinating things about open source is that you get to watch the actual development process. Read the whole interview here. (The story was also covered by Slashdot, so masochistic inclined people like me might want to read through those comments as well.) Read More

If you did not heed our warning from six months ago and are still using KMail < 1.0.29.1 (from KDE 1.x), you are advised to please upgrade to KDE 2.2 (or KDE 2.1.x) immediately. In about a week the bizarre KMail 1,000,000,000th second bug will strike, which can cause corruption of your mail folders. Details about the bug are available here. Read More

This week's issue of KC KDE is devoted to the exciting events surrounding the start of KDE3 development and the Qt3 porting efforts. Topics include new applications such as Cookbook, KTouch and Kompare; large file support; S/MIME, EMail templates and KNode/KMail integration; advanced web shortcuts; KMenu plugins; new KDE email lists and websites; KRegExpEditor; KWinTV and more... Read More

Eva wrote in to inform us that the Solaris packages for KDE 2.2 are finally ready. They are targeted at the Sparc and Ultra Sparc architectures, and work with Solaris 6/2.6, 7/2.7 and 8, and possibly Solaris 2.5 and 2.5.1 as well (Don't blame us for these confusing version numbers). You can get them here -- be sure to check out the README. You may also be pleased to learn of the new kde-solaris list which already has a great number of subscribers despite the fact that it has not yet been announced! This is a good list to use if you are having problems with the binaries. Hopefully more of you running Sun systems can now enjoy KDE on your desktop and with less problems. Read More

During the first day of the LinuxWorld Expo, Hancom Linux and theKompany.com became the talk of the show with the news that they are merging their product lines and releasing a complete Linux/KDE office suite this coming November. Dubbed "HancomOffice 2.0", the suite will combine 4 Hancom products (Word, a word processor, Sheet, a spreadsheet, Presenter, a presentation program, and Painter, a bitmap drawing program) with 4 theKompany.com products (EasyDB, a personal database management system familiar to us as reKall, Envision, a diagram and flowchart drawing tool familiar to us as the KOffice component Kivio, WebBuilder, an HTML/PHP editing tool familiar to us as Quanta+, and QuickSilver, a personal information manager familiar to us as Aethera). The Word/Sheet/Presenter applications are advertised as outstanding at both importing and exporting the corresponding MS Office formats. Because it uses Qt 3.0 the same boxed set will run on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and -- yes -- even embedded devices (some planned devices were announced). Although the products are pure Qt, with 3.0's new features they should integrate nicely into the KDE desktop.
Suggested retail price: $99. Ready or not, KDE is coming to Main Street! Read More

Moments ago, at LinuxWorld Expo being hosted in San Francisco, CA, the KDE Project was honored as the winner in the "Best Open Source Project" category. On hand to accept the Open Source Product Excellence Award on behalf of the KDE development community were KDE developers Charles Samuels and Rob Kaper, as well as yours truly. Congratulations to the KDE developers, and thanks to IDG for recognizing the excellence of the KDE desktop! Update, Thursday August 30, @1:15AM: Rob Kaper has posted pictures of the award. Read More