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KDE GUI

OSNews Talks With the Konqueror Team 281

Posted by timothy from the what-the-future-holds dept.
JigSaw writes: "OSNews features an exclusive interview with the Konqueror team, KDE's integrated filemanager, image/document viewer and web browser. Dirk Mueller, Waldo Bastian, Carsten Pfeiffer and Simon Hausmann are answering questions regarding the future of Konqueror, its portability and the integration with KDE3 and QT3. And speaking about KDE3, OSNews is reporting what's new in the new version: KDE 3 will be based on QT 3.0 and will also feature educational and other apps (like Kompare and KWinTV) as part of the default installation, support for extremely large files, new versions for KNode and KMail, email templates in KMail, advanced Web Shortcuts, S/MIME support, plugins for the KMenu, a graphical Regular Expression app (KRegExpEditor) and much more. A (very early) alpha version is already available."
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OSNews Talks With the Konqueror Team More

OSNews Talks With the Konqueror Team

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  • I wonder how they've improved KNotes, I employ that more than anything. : P

  • Fast... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DaFake ( 514519 )
    What the heck, how long ago was the release of 2.2 ?


    And now there's already an alpha of 3.0...

    • The article got it wrong, it is not an official alpha release.
      It is a build from CVS right after switching to using Qt 3.0.

    • Re:Fast... (Score:3, Informative)

      by HeUnique ( 187 )
      KDE 3.0 is not going to be a major rewrite like when it was moving from KDE 1 -> KDE 2

      KDE is now switching to a newer QT (3.0), it will be binary incompatible (because of QT 3.0 and GCC 3.0.1, and the upcoming 3.1) and will have some core functionality improved (like database support etc)...

  • Why do we need another web browser?


    Do you have some problem with Mozilla that we should know about?


    I'm sure some asshole will moderate this post troll or flamebait, but I'm 100% in earnest here.


    Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community. Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.


    If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may already be too late), we must, at all costs, avoid splitting into tiny, useless factions working on useless, duplicate projects.


    Here's an idea: before starting your new project, check to see if someone is already working on a similar project. Had the Konqueror team observed this little suggestion, the whole Konqueror fiasco could have been avoided.

    • maybe mozilla should concentrate on making a faster browser that doesn't crash instead of making the interface look nice. Does IE6 have all these fancy buttons and spinning barber poles to waste resources?

      • I think I am in the middle of a flamewar. Bt I "have to" reply.


        For me moz is very stable. even 0.9.1 did run for 3 days without any crashes. (it did not crash after then, i logged off... :).


        Another point is moz is actually useable under kde. i do not mean like another gtk program. there is a qt version of moz which was mentioned on slashdot previously. maybe a kparts port of moz can replace khtml in konqi. i really would like to see that :)

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kisielk ( 467327 ) on Monday September 03, 2001 @02:56PM (#2248767)
      In case you haven't already noticed, Konqueror is NOT a web browser. It is an application framework for their KParts technology.

      Konqueror is the file manager for KDE, and allows for embedded viewing of any files with KParts plugins (or whatever the correct term is). KHTML is just one piece of Konqueror, so your comments do not necessarily apply.

      Additionally, Linux has always been about choice and freedom. There is nothing wrong with the Konq guys making their own HTML renderring engine. In fact, you can even use the gecko engine with Konq if you so desired, but in all honesty I think KHTML has it out-done. Konqueror does so many more things than Mozilla, and much faster too.

      A more fair comparison of apps would be Konq vs Nautilus, as both of those have similar functionality.

      Anyway, that's my 2 cents :D

      • In case you haven't already noticed, Konqueror is NOT a web browser. It is an application framework for their KParts technology.

        Well Mozilla is NOT an web browser either. It is an application framework for running XUL applications.

      • try it on a modem it seems way faster

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by David Greene ( 463 ) on Monday September 03, 2001 @03:00PM (#2248784)
      Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community.

      Don't go blaming Konqueror or other browser projects for Mozilla's problems. I love Mozilla. I use it as my browser. But it has problems and those problems are there in spite of Konqueror, not because of it.

      Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.

      Just because a project is "first" doesn't mean it should get a monopoly on developer resources. Should the same be said for KDE over GNOME?

      If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may

      This is a flawed assumption. The Free Software Community does not exist for the business world or any other world outside that of the people hacking code.

      That said, if a project wants to court business, I'm all for it. But don't assume that is the goal of every project.

      Here's an idea: before starting your new project, check to see if someone is already working on a similar project. Had the Konqueror team observed this little suggestion, the whole Konqueror fiasco could have been avoided.

      I'm sure the Konqueror team was well aware of Mozilla when they started. The projects have different architectures and different goals. Mozilla will never be the integrated browser Konqueror is. ioslaves are something Mozilla will not have any time in the near future.

      There are lots of duplicate projects out there. I'm thinking of starting my own shortly. Why? Because all the other similar projects don't have the goals I have and their designs are clearly biased toward something I have no interest in. Furthermore, such designs are nearly impossible to "fix" properly to accomplish what I need. These are fundamental, core architectural decisions that can't be patched around. Better to start from scratch and build something the Right Way to accomplish my goals.

      Not to mention the complete lack of documentation and code comments. :(

      • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home AT cobol2java DOT com> on Monday September 03, 2001 @03:46PM (#2248896) Homepage
        Mozilla was first? really?

        As far as I recall - even KDE 1 beta 1 had some browsing capabilities - I remember when I tried it and then checking with ps if they're running netscape without widgets or something like that - it was quite a surprise to me back then to see a first "competitor" to Netscape in terms of graphics browser integrated so well..

        Now - if I recall correctly, KDE 1 (beta) was released at around 1997 with some browsing capabilities - so if I'm not mistaken - KDE was before mozilla..

        Please correct me if I'm wrong (give dates or something)
      • "If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may"

        This pisses me off as well, I've heard this crap too many times in the last year, I code for fun and knowledge not for the Business world. My ultimate dream is *NOT* to provide no price software to corporates although every fucking IT "jounalist" seems to think that's all the free software community lives for.

        Sorry bad day, better now.

    • The major problem with Mozilla is that it's so clunky that lots of people don't like to use it...

      I mean... opening new windows etc is just a PITA with Mozilla...

      I would have preferred if Mozilla would have been made into something light... not some huge-ass application that eats lots of resources and is sluggish on more or less any hardware..

      Actually I think it would have been perfectly fair if someone moderated you down... You really are trolling... and I should really not reply to such obvious trolls.. but wtf...
      • I mean... opening new windows etc is just a PITA with Mozilla...
        Huh? How is opening a new window a pain? Is hitting Control-N difficult? Or middle clicking on a link? Or clicking on the Navigator icon in the lower left?

        I know there are valid reasons for disliking Mozilla, but I can't even tell what you are trying to get at.

        • Huh? How is opening a new window a pain? Is hitting Control-N difficult? Or middle clicking on a link? Or clicking on the Navigator icon in the lower left?

          No... not hitting ctrl-n... but waiting for 2-3 seconds before the new window appears... (Mozilla 0.9.3 on Athlon 700, 512 MB RAM)

        • I think he means the time it takes - and regarding the time - he's right..

          One of the features that I like in Konqueror is to open another browsing window which runs on a seperate process - so if 1 konqueror crashes, the others remain running..

    • Why do we need another web browser?
      We don't, we have Konqueror :P

      Do you have some problem with Mozilla that we should know about?
      Besides for taking 25 seconds to load for the first time (in a while) on my Athlon 750 (for comparison, Konqueror takes at most 4 seconds on the first load)?
      Oh yes, it also seg faults when I try to load it now:
      ii mozilla-browse 0.9.3+0-3 Mozilla Web Browser - core and browser

      Yes, it also doesn't display Hebrew pages as nicely as Konqueror, which automagically selects the proper encodings and fonts.
      Its also not using the very very powerful KDE IO slaves and KPart architectures, which allows centrally writing code to support protocols, format interpretation, etc.

      I'm sure some asshole will moderate this post troll or flamebait, but I'm 100% in earnest here.
      You sure do deserve a 'troll' moderation or at least 'misinformed' (theoretic moderation) for reasons I will outline below.

      Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community. Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.
      Konqueror is *NOT* a web browser. It can be *used* as a web browser, but it is much more. It merely encapsulates the KParts/IOSlaves of KDE, with some nice toolbars, menus, and cute features on the side. As an example, Konqueror can use Gecko for rendering instead of KHTML.
      KHTML is the actual rendering engine. KHTML was there BEFORE mozilla. KHTML was there before Netscape opened its code.
      Mozilla people decided to REWRITE the rendering engine, rather than using the already-existing KHTML code!
      They should have joined the KHTML/Konqueror project.

      If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may already be too late), we must, at all costs, avoid splitting into tiny, useless factions working on useless, duplicate projects.
      Konqueror is very useful. Mozilla is very useful.
      Who cares about the impression of the business world?

      Here's an idea: before starting your new project, check to see if someone is already working on a similar project. Had the Konqueror team observed this little suggestion, the whole Konqueror fiasco could have been avoided.
      You mean the Mozilla fiasco could have been avoided, as KHTML was there first :P

      Maybe you should check on your facts, or read about the behind-the-scenes architecture of Konqueror and KDE, and that of Mozilla, and compare which is more powerful and flexible, and allows for more code-reuse/etc.
      • Peaker,

        They had a reason to rewrite it (almost) from scratch - they got a butt ugly code that Netscape programmers added and added and added without re-organizing the code..

        Of course - this move costed a lot - its September 2001 and 1.0 is not out...
      • Netscape's code was there before Netscape opened their code, too :-).

        Also, unless Trolltech was persuaded to open source Qt for Windows and the Mac (fat chance, in fact I think Qt didn't run on the Mac at all until very recently), KHTML and the rest of the KDE world could not have been an option for Netscape.

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Pim ( 140414 ) on Monday September 03, 2001 @03:20PM (#2248839)
      Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.

      Nice post! I showed it to Linus Torvalds and, though it was hard for him, he finally agreed to scrap Linux and work on the HURD. One battle won!

      I'm going to talk to Bram Moolenaar next, because I'm pretty sure there was another vi clone before vim.

      • > Nice post! I showed it to Linus Torvalds and,
        > though it was hard for him, he finally agreed
        > to scrap Linux and work on the HURD. One battle
        > won!

        Hurd development wasn't very open, so that might have been hard.

        > I'm going to talk to Bram Moolenaar next,
        > because I'm pretty sure there was another vi
        > clone before vim.

        Plenty, I believe both elvis and vile are older than vim.

    • Hei, people loke to do different thinks, I like to see old movies, you maybe like to see black-and-white movies. Diversity is nice. If they enjoy what they are doing, great. Maybe Konqueror will be better than Mozilla, maybe not. Maybe they grow together. Be happy!!

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by proxima ( 165692 ) on Monday September 03, 2001 @03:38PM (#2248874)
      Konqueror exists (in my belief) partly because of GUI toolkits.

      KDE is looking to provide an entire host of applications that all look, feel, and interact the same way. They are designed to work together, to complement each other. Easy examples of this include KOffice (Kword, etc), Konqueror, and KNotes. If you apply a theme to KDE, it affects every QT based application. Of course, GTK+ (GNOME) applications work fine, but they don't pick up the look and feel of the rest of the interface. Mozilla does not use QT, and it implements its own themes. Some people like their browser looking and feeling completely different from the rest of the applications they use, but others want consistency. My belief is that the KDE team simply wanted to provide an alternative browser that fit in with the rest of the KDE applications very well.

      Konqueror is designed like Internet Explorer was for Windows - it provides browsing, file managing, filesystem-like FTP, etc. Mozilla is a browser/e-mail client/newsreader designed as a standalone application. Konqueror leaves mail up to KMail, but KMail uses Konqueror's rendering engine (KHTML) to render HTML based e-mail (to my knowledge).

      So, in the end, users are left with two nice choices for their browsing experience. Konqueror works very nicely if you prefer KDE (I do), but loading up all the QT libraries under GNOME in order to run Konqueror makes it lose some of the speediness that fans of Konqueror enjoy. Mozilla is nice because it is completely standalone, fully-featured (some would say bloated), but most importantly very cross-platform. Mozilla runs very nicely, and looks almost exactly the same, on Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.

      Both browsers have their niche to fill, and I think both projects are quite worthwhile to pursue.

    • Why do Mozilla when we have IE?
      Why do Linux when we have Windows?
      Why do OpenOffice when we have MS Office?
      Why give people choice?
      Why have any kind of competition?

      Why do anything?

      You don't like konqueror/HTML. Well, don't use it. Just don't tell anyone what they should do with their "sparetime".

      I for one love konqueror. I for don't see any harm in friendly competition.

      And I for one love KDE... and to extend your logic: we shouldn't have Gnome.

      Bjarne

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why do we need another web browser?

      When the Konqueror team began there wasn't a half way decent working browser for Linux.

      Do you have some problem with Mozilla that we should know about?

      It's bloated and still incomplete. Just the browser please. The Konqueror team managed to provide just that, plus a good file manager, and the project began and completed (for KDE2 anyway) while Mozilla is still being developed. Thank God we have yet-another-IRC-client though, ChatZilla. Anyway.

      (Did anyone ask the ChatZilla team why we needed another IRC client, or the news and mail team why we needed yet another Email and News client?)

      Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community. Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.

      Why? No project is entitled to anyone's support! The Konqueror team had a different vision and coded it. Do you also ask why the Gnome team went off and started yet-another desktop environment? I'm glad they did. KDE has picked up some cool stuff that originated in the Gnome project. I'm sure the reverse applies.

      If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may already be too late), we must, at all costs, avoid splitting into tiny, useless factions working on useless, duplicate projects.

      I just want quality Open software. If it comes from fifty teams developing the same thing in parallel instead of two teams, what's the problem?

      Here's an idea: before starting your new project, check to see if someone is already working on a similar project. Had the Konqueror team observed this little suggestion, the whole Konqueror fiasco could have been avoided.

      What fiasco? You act as if Konqueror is some kind of great failure because their efforts weren't with the Mozilla team. That's utter nonsense. I can sit down in front of my KDE desktop and use a functional and fast Web browser. Hardly a failure or a waste of resources.

      If a group of developers want to start a project that duplicates the efforts of another, nothing you or I say here will change that. If the two projects have differing visions, but are forced to work together, I doubt the final result will be something anyone would be proud of.

      I don't think you should be attacking the Konqueror developers because they went and wrote a decent browser from the ground up instead of helping your own pet project reach the big one-oh.
      • In any meaningful way Konqueror isn't complete, neither is Mozilla, and neither of them ever will be. They are both quite usable, however. Your slam against Mozilla "still being developed" completely misses the mark.

        The "Chatzilla team" was just one guy (originally not at Netscape) who happened to feel like doing it. Should he have somehow been suppressed? You missed the mark again.

    • Re:What SHOULD have been asked, but wasn't: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home AT cobol2java DOT com> on Monday September 03, 2001 @04:03PM (#2248933) Homepage
      ok, I'll try to answer your questions...

      Why do we need another web browser?

      Why GNOME exists? because of some stupidity licensing issue (mind you - even after trolltech relicensed their QT - and I use KDE right now - you still cannot write commercial apps without buying full commercial QT license - so what RMS got from this? and his "forgiveness" to the KDE developers? nothing - cosmetic issue, nothing else)

      So do you say ditch GNOME or KDE and lets of them be de facto standard? good idea - try to convince some people - good luck.

      Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community

      How come? Mozilla is written in C, KDE and Konqueror - C++ - both are totally different creatures - Konqueror beauty is the the HTML rendering is just another plugin - try to do: man:gcc - see the online help in a very beautiful format. try to put an Audio-CD inside your cdrom and type: audiocd:/ - and it you'll be able to rip on-the-fly your audio tracks to MP3 or OGG format - so you see - KDE designers (and developers) wanted to do something very different then Mozilla..

      So far, the KDE teams seems to be way ahead then anyone else and it just seems to me that Mozilla and other parts are catching up, they're on the way to KDE 3.0 and they're completing the stuff (like CSS 2) while other KDE developers hiding W3C standards that the Mozilla guys doesn't even dream to do - like the SVG support..

      If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may already be too late), we must, at all costs, avoid splitting into tiny, useless factions working on useless, duplicate projects.

      Fine - help the Mozilla team to release 1.0. I see the reaction from Windows developers when they see Mozilla, and when they see KDE.. Guess what they preffer...

      Here's an idea: before starting your new project, check to see if someone is already working on a similar project. Had the Konqueror team observed this little suggestion, the whole Konqueror fiasco could have been avoided.

      Almost agreed - Mozilla is not Konqueror - it's just like comparing apples and oranges..
    • Why do we need another web browser?

      What's the difference between this and asking why we need another Operating System when Linus first introduced Linux instead of working on the HURD or why developers should work on mySQL instead of PostgreSQL? If you can answer these questions then you've answered your own question.

      Do you have some problem with Mozilla that we should know about?

      Mozilla and the Konquerer are slightly similar projects with different goals. Mozilla aims to be a cross platform all-in-one web development/usage platform while Konqueror is part of the KDE component architecture.

      Most people with even a passing experience in software know that all software is a combination of various trade-offs and compromises whether performance vs. correctness, space (use lots of mem) vs. time (use lots of CPU) or even ease of use vs. complete control of the system. Thinking that there can be one true product is the kind of fallacy and naivettè that brought us the Man-Month and "OO is a silver bullet".

      Did you ever wonder why Mozilla is continually falling behind schedule? Because people like the Konqueror team decide to go off on their own instead of working for the good of the community. Mozilla was there first, and it deserves the support of the community.

      This opinion is so wrong headed and biased I'm almost sure that you are trolling. Blaming Konqueror developers for the fact that Mozilla is behind schedule is like blaming dotcomms and software companies for stealing programmers that could have worked at NASA worked on getting people on Mars by now.

      If the free software community wants to make a good impression on the business world (and it may already be too late), we must, at all costs, avoid splitting into tiny, useless factions working on useless, duplicate projects.

      Seriously, who gives a fuck what the Business World thinks about Free Software? Dotcomm IPOs and get-rich-quick schemes will come and go but Free Software will still be around as long as there are coders with an itch to scratch. Free Software was here before NASDAQ became a topic of breakfast table conversation and it will be here the analysts and MBAs find a new fad to exploit the masses with be it BioTech or Genetic Engineering.

      For some reason you are under the impression that Free Software needs big business to survive which is so far from the truth it's almost laughable.

  • Konqueror is almost there. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by glitch! ( 57276 ) on Monday September 03, 2001 @02:54PM (#2248762)
    I use Konqueror every day, but there are just a few things I feel are missing. The articles didn't mention these, though.

    1. I cannot seem to find any way to stop animated GIFs. Is there some buried command for this, or am I SOL?

    2. It would be nice if I could put my favorite links on the menu bar, like with Navigator.

    3. The bookmarks menu demands that I hold down the mouse button while swishing through my bookmark folders. If I accidentally let go, I end up with the wrong site, or all too commonly, get the "edit bookmarks" page.

    4. There is noooo rule four.

    5. Konqueror still croaks on various web sites. I don't know if it is the complexity, or maybe something to do with managing the color palettes. (My xterms are fixed - graphics upgrades are impossible...)

    6. They did mention the loading time, but I'll still mention that it is slow. Sure, maybe my P150 was not up to snuff, but an AMD 800 with 256 MB of DDR?

    Some things I like about Konqueror:

    1. Rendering quality and speed are better than Navigator, in my opinion.

    2. The conditional cookie and javascript (by web site) feature is awesome.

    3. It's free, and has a long life ahead of it (thanks, guys!)
    • To stop animated .gif's, right click on the page and click "Stop Animations." It'd be nice if there was a one-click way to do that... but as of right now, that's how ya do it.

      James Crawford
    • 1. I cannot seem to find any way to stop animated GIFs. Is there some buried command for this, or am I SOL?

      Right click to get the popup menu, click "Stop animations"

      The bookmarks menu demands that I hold down the mouse button while swishing through my bookmark folders. If I accidentally let go, I end up with the wrong site, or all too commonly, get the "edit bookmarks" page.

      No it doesn't, at least not on my computer.

      Hmmm... what version are you using? Remember that new features and bug fixes are being added on a daily basis. Perhaps an upgrade is in order...
    • 1. I cannot seem to find any way to stop animated GIFs. Is there some buried command for this, or am I SOL?

      Right click, "Stop Animations," but I think it was a recent addition, so if you're using an old version you should upgrade.

      2. It would be nice if I could put my favorite links on the menu bar, like with Navigator.

      What do you mean? There is a bookmarks toolbar...

      6. They did mention the loading time, but I'll still mention that it is slow.

      Known issue. Being worked on (its not all KDE's fault). If you keep a Konqueror open at all times, you can avoid this. In newer KDE versions there is an option called "Use one process always" or something that can speed up opening a new window (but then if one window crashes, you lose them all). Also, clicking on the rotating "K" logo in the toolbar is hands-down the fastest way to get a new Konqueror window.

      The conditional cookie and javascript (by web site) feature is awesome.

      Yeah. Now that I've downloaded IE 6, I'm wondering if Microsoft copied KDE because Konqueror had that feature *way* before IE. That would be a first :-)

      • Known issue. Being worked on (its not all KDE's fault).

        Also, read the responses to question 7 of the interview. For example:
        We expect to see some more improvements from prelinking in a next generation Linux distributions. The current "object prelinking" manages to reduce the link-time of applications with 30% to 50%. The developers of the GNU linker are hard at work to get rid of the remaining 50% to 70% as well using a more advanced form of prelinking. This will effectively remove the linking overhead completely. Of course the 4-5 seconds that you mentioned are not all caused by the linker, so we will have to take a critical look at our own code as well to see where we can improve things.

    • I use Konqueror every day, but there are just a few things I feel are missing. The articles didn't mention these, though.
      heh, same here.

      2. It would be nice if I could put my favorite links on the menu bar, like with Navigator.
      Settings->Show bookmark toolbar
      if that's what you mean.

      3. The bookmarks menu demands that I hold down the mouse button while swishing through my bookmark folders. If I accidentally let go, I end up with the wrong site, or all too commonly, get the "edit bookmarks" page.
      This behaviour depends on the Style/theme you've chosen (look&feel styles). In the default one, you can simply click (and let go immediately) on the bookmarks menu, and wander without having hold the button.

      4. There is noooo rule four.
      I don't get it :)

      5. Konqueror still croaks on various web sites. I don't know if it is the complexity, or maybe something to do with managing the color palettes. (My xterms are fixed - graphics upgrades are impossible...)
      It happens very rarely that web pages cause trouble. Once in a few days of intensive browsing it crashes, but I never had it "croak up".

      6. They did mention the loading time, but I'll still mention that it is slow. Sure, maybe my P150 was not up to snuff, but an AMD 800 with 256 MB of DDR?
      It seems to load fast here (a matter of 1 second or 2 at most), but maybe its because I'm running KDE.
    • 2. It would be nice if I could put my favorite links on the menu bar, like with Navigator.

      Yeah, this works. It even puts the little favicon.ico picture next to them.

      You can't drag and drop them there, though. You have to add them as a bookmark, and then go into Edit Bookmarks and move them to the Toolbar folder.
      • You have to add them as a bookmark, and then go into Edit Bookmarks and move them to the Toolbar folder.

        Thanks for the tip - I must have missed the "Toolbar" folder somewhere... I did try adding "bookmarks" to the toolbar, but that just put a down arrow that just brings up the same bookmark list. Thanks!

        By the way, I'm using Konqueror 2.1.1
    • I'll try to answer...

      1. Right click on the window - click "stop animation" (the request came after people have complained that it takes lots of network bandwidth if they open remote sessions with slow connection)

      2. It's not as default - add bookmark - and it's on the tool - just don't forget to enable "show bookmark toolbar" in the "settings" menu. After that you can use the bookmark editor to do it as folders etc...

      3. I donno, I put "folders" in the bookmark toolbar and organize the bookmarks (2000+) - had no problem before that - and thank god the bookmark format is XML.

      5. Mind giving more details about it? I didn't understand u.

      6. Some pages appears slow - true. Thats going to be taken care of in KDE 3.0.
      • Would it be possible to have a permanent setting for "no animations" and also "don't download flash animations"? That would really improve Konqueror (which I use daily for hours, it is rock solid, and this is on FreeBSD with KDE 2.1.2).

        Also, Konqueror does also crash randomly and suddenly for no reason on some sites. Also, I get a lot of "cannot do the http://www.blah.com/ protocol" messages now, which I didn't used to get...

    • it doesn't load pages correctly (as IE and NS do)

      like this page: [lazylightning.org]

      it loads fine in NS and almost fine in IE, but Konq is horrible.

  • As a coincidence I wanted to use Konquerer today for the very first time but I couldn't because I didn't find out how I can use automatic proxy configuration. Any idea how I can do that? I can only fill in direct proxy settings but my ISP doesn't work like that.

    So now I'm using Mozilla...

    Greetings and thanks in advance,
  • I'm really happy with the way KDE is coming along. It is now very usable. I love how I can click on an mp3 or an mpeg video and it will immediately start playing. Or I can click on a pdf file from Konqueror, and Konqueror immediately turns into a pdf viewer. It's all tightly integrated.

    I see a problem with getting it to be more tightly integrated with the OS, like they mentioned with the filesystem issue. If KDE runs on every distro of Linux and BSD and Solaris, it will be impossible to make it a tighter part of the OS because there are so many possible ways which the filesystem or other parts of the kernel can behave. So they are forced to make it behave in a generic manner to make everyone happy. I don't like this aspect of software portability. I think it's really cool to have a GUI that utilizes the underlying kernel features.

    • Sounds like you want AtheOS [atheos.cx].

  • 'Exclusive' (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 )
    Why did they have to do an 'exclusive interview'? Couldn't they just do a normal one?

    • Re:'Exclusive' (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by The Pim ( 140414 )
      Why did they have to do an 'exclusive interview'?

      Note to OSNews: Exclusive means that the subjects agreed not to talk to anyone else, not that you're the only ones who bothered to interview them.

  • For the love of Khrist already.
    On a few applications it isn't so bad and helps to keep the enduser aware of the origin of an app. I'm not sure that's worth anything to the enduser, unless he's in the process of expunging all KDE packages from a system. If 'ls /usr/bin/k*' shows a long list then he hasn't got them all.

    But if it's innoccuous and even "unifying" on the kind of applications you expect to find built-in to a desktop environment like kedit or kpm, when used to prefix dozens of add-on applications the leading "K" becomes rather stupid sounding and I feel sure gives many newcomers an impression that Linux/KDE is bush league & unprofessional. A joKe.
    Koffice, Kword, Killustrator --not only are some of these flirting with trademark infringement, they are as names kwite krappy. The hard work going into this software deserves much better.


    Imagine yourself doing tech support over the phone and having to put "K" in front of every third word. Kwhat? Many "K" applications begin to confuse the user: is it K-this or k-that? This has already reached the point where it is worse than the legacy of x-this x-that for program names (begun I suppose when it was such a novelty for an application to be written with a xlib GUI that the author just had to insist on the distinction for his program's name -- now it's no distinction at all is it?)


    PLease use your imagination when naming your applications, and if you haven't got any, ask a friend. Hopefully there will be 5x the number of kde/qt applications in the near future. Now if they all begin with "K" autocompletion in bash (or Krun) is going to rapidly lose its usefulness for invoking them by name. In other words, NOW is the time to break this bad trend.

    • Dropping the K (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BierGuzzl ( 92635 )
      M$ has it's name added to the front of a ton of their apps. This doesn't help make a case in favor of it nor against it, but it does show us one possible way of doing things. Instead of Knotes, why not call it "K" notes, "K" word, "K" calc, "K" mail, etc. That way if you actually _need_ to specify that it's a KDE app, you include the K, and if you don't you just omit the K.
      • Why not just have original names? Licq? Gaim? Kmail? sheesh. At least I can give them credit for Konqueror.

      • Re:Dropping the K (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Jeff Probst ( 459812 )
        maybe because of trademarks?
        i dont know, but i think ms might go nuts if it gets even more obvious than KWord or KOffice.
        we have the KIllustrator case fresh in our minds.
  • There seems to be a lot of people talking about how Mozilla is slow, or Konquerer is slow, or IE is the fastest thing on the planet, all offering some vague timings that they seem to recall.

    What seems to be needed are some regular benchmarks, spanning a whole class of machines (not just your top of the line PIII, or the bottom of the line p-90). There are a lot of different tests that are needed. Some people (like me) don't really care about the load time, since we load it up once and that's it. How about speeds for rendering, accuraccy, conformance to standards, comparison of features, ...

    A few weeks back, one such comparison [slashdot.org] was posted, but was heavily critized by this audence. Perhaps the Mozilla team and KDE can decide on what constitutes a good test, run it will their current releases, and then the users can decide for themselves what is important. This will also let the developers know where their effort is needed.

  • KDE is taking even more steps to rivaling the UI Microsoft offers than GNOME is. The one thing I think Linux lacks now is interoperability, despite the openness of everything. Hopefully, KDE 3 will be a huge leap to close that gap.
  • I'm really curious how a regex editor would work. Do you get to make a DFA or NDFA, move the states around, drag arcs from one to another, and specify transition rules? Or maybe is it more like dragging "building blocks" (such as a Kleene star or a + (what's that called?)) around and specifying their order somehow? It just seems rather implausable to me.

    On the other hand, I think it would be great if they could put a good interface on it! I could see it being useful for someone who can never remember the specifics of regex syntax depending on what language he's using(like me)and great for people who would otherwise be forced to comb through documents word-by-word to fix - or tag - certain classes of mistakes (like my girlfriend, who will likely be a professional editor in a few years).

    Is anyone out there in slashdotland better acquainted with kregexpeditor?

  • What I don't get is: why do people invest a lot of time in writing KDE applications? What is the motivation? It can't be because the functionality is missing from Linux: many of the KDE applications had excellent, free, non-Qt-based equivalents before the KDE project even started. And many of the KDE applications are easily implemented as little Tk or expect scripts.

    KDE seems to be all about redoing everything within a single framework and toolkit to give users a Windows-like experience and to compete with Windows. To quote from the KDE web site: [kde.org] KDE seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT.

    But why? Who actually benefits from this? What is the point of creating a Windows-like environment for non-expert users on top of Linux? If I wanted a Windows-like environment, why wouldn't I just use Windows? And if KDE goes through all this trouble, why pick a toolkit that makes it more expensive for commercial entities to develop for KDE than it is to develop for Windows? And why is KDE embracing an approach, large C++ libraries and dynamic loading of native code, that Microsoft is already beginning to abandon?

    The KDE desktop is impressive looking, but I just can't figure out the motivation for working on it or for using it. After giving it a try for about a year (mostly because Konqueror was the best open source browser around until Mozilla0.9.3/Galeon came along), I'm back to using a simple window manager and a desktop menu.

    • > What is the motivation?

      It's the best development platform available on Linux today (and yes, I've tried Gnome, GnuStep and Tcl/Tk).

      > It can't be because the functionality is missing from Linux

      Yes it is.

      > many of the KDE applications had excellent, free, non-Qt-based equivalents before the KDE project even started.

      No (think integration here).

      > And many of the KDE applications are easily implemented as little Tk or expect scripts.

      Some may be, but far from all (Tcl scales very badly) but think integration again here. And looks too.

      > Who actually benefits from this?

      Users and application developpers.

      > If I wanted a Windows-like environment, why wouldn't I just use Windows?

      Openness, reliablity.

      > And if KDE goes through all this trouble, why pick a toolkit that makes it more expensive for commercial entities to develop for KDE than it is to develop for Windows?

      The cost of a Qt license is negligeable compared to the total cost of development of a typical desktop application. It's less than a month worth of salary for an average engineer.

      > And why is KDE embracing an approach, large C++ libraries and dynamic loading of native code, that Microsoft is already beginning to abandon?

      Because it works and there currently aren't any better alternatives.
      • It's the best development platform available on Linux today (and yes, I've tried Gnome, GnuStep and Tcl/Tk). [lots more like this]

        That's supposed to be an argument? It's merely a statement of your beliefs. (And, no, you haven't even scratched the surface of toolkits available for Linux.)

        The cost of a Qt license is negligeable compared to the total cost of development of a typical desktop application. It's less than a month worth of salary for an average engineer.

        Obviously, you have no idea how corporate budgeting works; a Qt license happens to be more than the annual expense budget most engineers have.

  • What pisses me off... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 10Ghz ( 453478 )

    After reading that Mozilla/Konqueror-thread...


    What is it with some people? KDE is an excellent desktop that progresses FAST (same thing can't be said for the "other" desktop). They have also created excellent multipurpose application that is the Konqueror. And still some people despise them!


    Why? Folks at KDE have done a HUGE service for the Linux-community! They do it for free, they create GPL'ed Open-Source software that surpasses many comercial counterparts. And still there are people who complain! Even RMS got involved with his "You must beg for forgiveness" Bullshit!


    You know what? RMS and other complainers can suck it. Suck it long, and suck it hard!


    If you hate KDE, then use the Officially-sanctioned-by-FSF-but-progressing-slowl y-Gnome with it's 20 million dollar POS filemanager. After doing that, just SHUT UP! Make KDE a non-issue in your life.


    As for me... I'll be using KDE, thank you very much. And no, I'm not going to beg for forgiveness from anyone! Not even from RMS!


    Phew! Feels good to get that off my chest. Just use the desktop that you like the best, and let others use what they like

    • You know what? RMS and other complainers can suck it. Suck it long, and suck it hard!

      Right on man! I am so sick of the politics with FSF. After reading a few threads with the 'free developers' early days w/Tony Stanco and RMS I realized that these guys are in it for 95% ego trip, 5% because they might actually believe in something. Sometimes I feel a bit misled, but on the other hand.. it's not about them. It's about free software.

      KDE - GNOME - whatever wars are quite boring, but when I see people slagging off the people who put in hard work w/nothing but slaps in the face from slashbots it makes me want to vomit. I for one am VERY appreciate of the work of the KDE team as I have an alternative to Windows that 'Works For Me(TM)'. (I use kde for 8-10 hours a day at work).

      But sometimes I feel FSF is more about politics than anything else.

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