What's Coming In KDE 4.4 423
buzzboy writes "If you're wondering what the folks over at KDE have been cooking up for the next major release, KDE 4.4, well, quite a bit as it turns out. In a lengthy interview, KDE core developer and spokesperson for the project Sebastian Kugler details the myriad changes that are coming with the 4.4 release — the fifth major release since KDE 4.0 debuted to much criticism nearly two years ago. The project has closed about 18,000 bugs over the past six months and the pace of development is snowballing. The 'heavy-lifting' in libraries and frameworks for 4.0 is now starting to pay off. Perhaps the biggest change is in the development of a semantic desktop. According to Kugler, 'If you tag an image in your image viewer, the tag becomes visible in your desktop search. That's how it should be, right?' There is also a picture gallery of KDE 4.4 (svn) screenshots so you can see what it will look like."
Manually semantic != semantic (Score:5, Informative)
I saw a preview of the semantic desktop at the Open World Forum in Paris and I think it has the same down-fall as other initiatives: you need to tag most of it yourself.
Other people may be better at this than I am, but I can't even be bothered to tag my e-mails, let alone each and every file. Granted, this system does some 'auto-tagging' but to call it a semantic desktop because of that is a bit rich. YMMV and I like to be persuaded to look again.
Already slashdotted (Score:3, Informative)
I couldn't find a version on google cache. So here's the full text:
The final release of KDE 4.4 is due in early 2010, and not since the arrival of KDE 4.0 two years ago has an open source desktop environment been so highly anticipated by the free desktop community. Unlike the anti-climax that was the first KDE 4 release, however, KDE 4.4's developers say this new version will actually deliver on many of the original promises of this next-generation desktop environment -- and then some.
If maturity is the measure of a desktop environment then KDE 4.4 will have a lot to live up to, as it represents the fourth major release of the KDE 4 series.
Many small things that make the user's life easier have been done. . . Those changes might not be significant on their own, but they add up to a system that feels really well rounded
-- Sebastian Kugler, KDE spokesperson
With the feature freeze for KDE 4.4 looming in November 2009 -- after which no new features will be added and only bugs will be fixed -- we decided to take a look at what KDE has in store to lift the free desktop to a new paradigm.
Features, updates and bug fixes
Like any major version increase, KDE 4.4 will include numerous feature enhancements, updates and bug fixes.
According to KDE's developers, 4.4 will have an immediate advantage over previous versions by leveraging the latest Qt 4.6 toolkit, which brings a new layout mechanism in QGraphicsView and improved performance, among many other additions. In fact, KDE 4.4.0 was delayed by two weeks until February 2010 to make it possible to release on top of Qt 4.6.
General enhancements include improved desktop search, better privilege escalation, remote controllable Plasma widgets and more polish to the existing code base.
KDE developer and spokesperson for the project, Sebastian Kugler, says it's difficult to determine exact numbers of features, but for 4.4 it would be a very high number.
"4.4 is a significant release that brings many new features. We have new applications, for example Blogilo, a local applications for writing blogs, allowing for offline editing of articles," Kugler says. "There's is a new network manager (living in the notification area right now, a plasmoid for it is planned for later). Also applications that are not directly shipped with KDE are maturing now. Amarok, Digikam, Konversation and all those applications that are well known from their KDE 3 version are now available in a KDE 4 version."
The desktop look-and-feel has also received a makeover. The new Air theme for the Plasma desktop shell is more polished and has added subtle animations to improve the user experience.
"Many small things that make the user's life easier have been done, sometimes something as small as giving feedback from the buttons in the quick launch area of the panel," Kugler says. "Those changes might not be significant on their own, but they add up to a system that feels really well rounded and well done."
A more visible development in Plasma is the new netbook interface, which will also debut as part of KDE 4.4. Plasma-Netbook will sport a mobile computer form-factor for desktop Plasma widgets.
Kugler says there are plenty of interesting changes behind the interface, too. KDE 4.4 will ship an authorization framework based on PolicyKit, so applications and the desktop can elevate privileges safely, and administrators can specify exactly what a specific user is allowed to do.
KDE's developers have also made the desktop more social and "connected". There is a Plasma applet that shows answers to questions from the KDE knowledge base, with the aim of making it easier for new users to find help.
KDE 4.4 will also make it possible to drag content from Web sites onto the desktop. For example, a picture can be dragged it from the Web browser onto the desktop and a Plasma applet showing this picture is added to the desktop where the file was dropped. The wallpaper can also be set this way or from any remote URL.
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Re:Can we stop posting links to cio.com.au? (Score:1, Informative)
It's nothing to do with Australia's bandwidth and more to do with their host's. I live in Australia and this site is dreadfully slow for me as well. The page has been loading for two and a half minutes and so far just one thumbnail is visible aside from the limited text. The rest of the site is equally slow.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Informative)
Oh yes, here's another one: the inability to make two rows of taskbar at the bottom.
Actually, I think this is possible now. Although, I agree that the rest of KDE4 makes me not want to use it either so I can't confirm at the moment. I do go back to it every now and again to check it out and see what's new. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well with remote desktop programs like vnc or freenx so I can't confirm that multi-row taskbar at the moment.
Wait, here [ubuntuforums.org] we go:
When you configure your panel ( Right Click on the Panel bar-->Arrangement->Size-->"Custom" ) so that the size is less than 34 pixels, it will display as a single row.
When it is more than 34 pixels but less than 52 pixels, it will display as a double row. When it is greater than 52 pixels, it will display as a triple row.
(You can also choose "Tiny" or "Small" and it will be a single row, whereas "Normal" will display as a double row, and "Large" will display as a triple row.)
Re:Labelling. (Score:1, Informative)
The KDE team has already said that KDE5 will be a small API break, like KDE2 to KDE3. The whole point of the major changes between KDE3 and KDE4 was to have a modern framework that would last for years to come.
KDE for Windows (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Manually semantic != semantic (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tags? It's called meta-data. (Score:3, Informative)
Tags are one specific type of metadata, intended for a narrow range of uses.
Re:Every time it is thousands of bugs... (Score:4, Informative)
As for 4.x is good for general consumption, each time they said that, at least in release notes, there was a phrase along the lines of 'unless you need X feature.' For 4.3 it was ready for general use, unless you used multiple monitors as that support, while there, had not fully been exposed.
I found 4.2 too be too much of a pain to use, mainly coxing it to run on 2 monitors, but 4.3 hasn't given me any problems
Re:Labelling. (Score:3, Informative)
I use KDE 4.3.x on all my computers that run linux (approximately 13 of them). There are still some very annoying yet obvious bugs that one would expect them to have resolved some time ago (one example is a scrollbar on the right hand side of the desktop window (folder view) that shows up on virtually everyone of my computers when the desktop loads). There are many others too. It's almost as if they are treating folder view as a red-headed stepchild--whereas frankly I can't imagine them even considering their other view as a viable product design choice. It's the fact that they made the desktop view's desktop folder a full screen folder that causes the scrollbar. It was a bad design choice and it will bite them in the ass as KDE 4.3.x gains momentum.
A couple more would be the slowness of kwin (though it is getting better it is still very slow) and the fact that when I save a file to the desktop icons frequently don't appear, but if I open my home folder then the desktop folder I can see those icons. Another would be that when you hover over a folder the contents are displayed in a popup window and there's no way to turn that off--often it gets in the way of the copy or move process and shows up in the wrong place on the desktop. Another is that when you try to use KDE to share a folder using the folder sharing facility it doesn't work and never has. I could go on. Maybe some of you others have experienced this stuff too. Maybe some of you have answers for us. But, it is messy and needs refinements more than we need more features. They should focus on refinements for the next few releases and then add features after that.
I like the implementation of KDE. Overall, aside from the annoying obvious bugs it is a killer desktop manager, especially on a wide screen display. On a fast computer it runs very well. On a somewhat slower computer that's another story, but without kwin it runs decently. For the life of me though I can't understand why a modern desktop ignores the screensaver aspect and why the power management is so poorly designed. I have to go to no less than 4 screens to adjust power management (or turn it off).
I like dolphin but when I try to rename a file and the characters of the name are highlighted I can't right click on them to choose to cut, etc. Instead it pops up the normal context menu for that directory entry. Though, I do like dolphin. It has nice features, is relatively fast and simple and can be customized with many options.
I think they should implement jumplists like Win7. That'd be a nice addition to the mix.
Re:Labelling. (Score:5, Informative)
Compiz effects in kwin were ALWAYS optional, and were not turned on by default unless your hardware supported it. They could always be turned off with a single keystroke (Ctrl-F12? Can't remember) as well as within System Settings. That has been there since the very first beta releases I tested.
I've never seen an input lag, even running on an 8 year old crappy laptop. I do turn off Strigi/Nepomuk to cut down on HDD access. I'm curious what distro you were running.
Re:Best quality, Best reputation , Best services,l (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, read at a higher threshold.
So what you're saying is you want to look in the muck for pearls, but are offended by the muck? Tough. If this post can be deleted, then those pearls you're looking for will be deleted in just the same way.
Re:Network Manager + Hidden ESSID (Score:3, Informative)
If you read the summary, networkmanager has been moved back to a tray applet for the time being.
The NM plasma widget was, to my knowledge, never an official part of KDE 4.x upstream. It was a Kubuntu-specific thing.
The NM applet in Kubuntu 9.10 is far better.
Re:Last piece (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Labelling. (Score:3, Informative)
It always has something to do with visuals - GNOME wallpaper, GNOME themes, GNOME treatment of multiple desktops, etc. The fact is, KDE users are used to a higher amount of customizability, but of course all of it can be worked around in GNOME.