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KDE GUI

KDE 3.0 Release Plan Updated 307

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-oughtta-be-interesting dept.
loopkin noted that the dot is running a bit about the KDE 3 Release. Here's the release schedule, and as you can see, the upcoming weeks will be interesting. I guess I should figure out why my truetype fonts all broke on a recent update to debian unstable so that I can actually enjoy the new releases :)
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KDE 3.0 Release Plan Updated More

KDE 3.0 Release Plan Updated

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  • Now that Gnome is maturing and releasing 2.0 [slashdot.org], it looks like KDE is stepping it up to steal some of Gnomes limelight...

    Please note that I did -not- pick a side. Lets not break out into religious wars, please...

    • Re:And the competition goes on... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, you're absolutley correct and on target! Except trying to steal Gnome's limelight is like trying to steal Loki's cash reserves.

    • Re:And the competition goes on... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jonathan_ingram ( 30440 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @11:03AM (#2894598) Homepage
      The KDE release timing has absolutely nothing to do with Gnome. Take a look at the 3.0 release plan [kde.org] -- it's been like this since at least last September. In fact, I wish KDE had got 3.0 out sooner - it was originally supposed to just be a port of KDE 2.2 to Qt 3, but some new features have snuck in. These range from the productive (much faster html processing, better dcop architecture), to the useful (much improved javascript support), to the useful and pretty (better file selection dialog), to the pretty and useless (alpha blending / transparent menus), to the totally useless (animated mimetype icons).
      • to the totally useless (animated mimetype icons)

        actually, it's not useless. if konqueror is that slow to load it's partly because it has to load many icons for the spinning wheel, instead of just one animated icon...

  • Sporting new features (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shadowin ( 312793 ) <shadowin@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Thursday January 24, 2002 @10:55AM (#2894544) Homepage Journal
    KDE 3.0 has plenty of new features [kde.org]. However, I think they should work on fixing up the Klipboard. That's one thing Windows has I wish KDE had... a good clipboard system. I also hope they don't screw up Konqueror with the Smart "window.open" Javascript policy. Right now, I love being able to turn off those X10 pop-ups.
    • as for the Klipper, the problem doesn't rely only on KDE.. actually, there as been a bug sneaking in QT, more or less fixed in Klipper, and then fixed in QT, so problems occured in Klipper... well... as u can see, it's a complex mess.
      what is as stake is copy-pasting URLs. If you deactivate "Actions" in Klipper, it works much better. Or using a good couple of QT/KDE. The work done by RedHat in their last updates is good, and everything works fine for me (seems Bero finally went back to qt-2.3.1).
      FYI LICQ has the same problems as Klipper.
    • Beg your pardon? I've found the KDE clipboard features to be far better than Windows.

      Besides KDE has Klipper, Windows has Clippy - nuff said.

    • I really think they are in dire need of a *good* pda application.. kde-pim barely works (at least for me) =)
    • Popup options in kde 3: Allow, Ask, Deny, Smart. That enough? ;-)
    • I also hope they don't screw up Konqueror with the Smart "window.open" Javascript policy.
      Right now, I love being able to turn off those X10 pop-ups.

      Yes, it is nice.
      But I set it to ask if it is allowed to popup a new window.
      Then when I log into my bankaccount it tries to popup windows, and if I do not clock on Ok fast enough (1 millisecond) it timesout, and I get dropped back to the login.
      Maybe they fixed that?
      Or maybe my bank needs a fix.
  • With a small amount of playing around, KDE can be made to look suspiciously like a certain product made by a certain evil empire. Add to that the fact that it's free and you've got a great alternative to an operating system made by a company that charges you more than the price you paid for the OS for every patch. (win95,win98,winME,winXP - all bugfixes for win3.1)
    • Until... they try to open a Word Document that their mom sent them, or try to set up printing, or try to read the crappy fonts.

      I like KDE, it's great, but really, no matter how great it gets, it's got to have the nice conveniences that end-users have grown accustomed to before it'll make any headway against the evil empire.
      • Well, since KDE is a window manager, it is no more responsible for making sure a user can read a word file than Microsoft is for making sure you can read a psd, pdf, or wpd file in Windows. (Photoshop, Acrobat, or WordPerfect respectively)

        It would be the responsibility of the distribution, i.e., Red Hat, Mandrake, SUSE, to make sure that you had a copy of Open Office or the Microsoft Word Viewer+wine combo installed on your computer.

  • Hertical statement (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Arimus ( 198136 )
    At the risk of being burnt at the stake and getting a troll rating...

    I like linux, I use it alot both for work and home use but I am getting tired of the chase for the desktop market. MS, like it or not it, are pretty secure on the desktop market. Where Linux scores is the server room and for that area I personally prefer reliablity, security etc over a fancy GUI front end.

    GUI's are nice but not the end of the world.

    (And yes I am bored, its late in the day and I've being trying to write requirements doc's all day, my coffee level is on overdrive...)
    • KDE and GNOME exist to provide a nice desktop environment for those linux users who would like to use one. As far as I can tell, the people actually building them care little for marketing or microsoft's share of "the desktop". (KDE anyway, I'm not so familiar with the GNOME scene, so I won't speak for them, but I suspect it's the same).

      If you don't use a GUI, then, well...don't use a GUI. Good on you, mate.
    • MS owns the desktop PC market. Who cares, we're all moving on.

      The notion of a personal computer is from the past. People use their network interface device. Right now it is a PC, in the future, who knows.

      Microsoft Homestation is their answer for consumer access. AOL will likely have their answer. Apple seems to be ignoring that market and focusing on people that have money and want digital toys. The new iMac with DVD burning, iDVD, iMovie, and iPhoto aims for this market.

      The work environment? You need a system that supports something like Outlook and MS Office. Microsoft owns this market and will for the forseeable future.

      What markets are in flux?

      Web programmers. As we move for web servers, we need systems for people that program them. .NET programmers will need Win32 desktops, MS owns that.

      However, Java programmers, PHP programmers, etc., will likely want to consider Unix desktops. Linux can fill a niche here. They still need e-mail, word processing, and printing.

      Tablet PCs, open market. Linux based solutions can compete with Windows based solutions.

      Television computing... who wants to fight the Homestation? Tivo, you going to step up with Linux? AOL, what are you going to use? These are the markets to fight in.

      Sure, the KDE/GNOME desktop may not make it there... Microsoft's Explorer (the Win95 and up GUI) won't either. However, if it is Windows based, COM/DCOM/ActiveX/OLE will be used. If it is Linux/KDE/Qt based, then Kparts will be used.

      Developers need a desktop to develop for the target system. If you are doing a Kparts/Qt/KDE/Linux set top box, what makes more sense, a KDE Desktop, an OS X Desktop, a GNOME Desktop, or a Windows desktop?

      Welcome to the networked world. We can all pick our platform. The Microsoft monopoly will die... long live the Microsoft monopoly. Alternatives to Windows for the non-PC market is important to stopping the market.

      Sure Microsoft will be a player, but they don't need to be the only one.

      Alex

      • Riiight its all dead (Score:2, Insightful)

        by HanzoSan ( 251665 )

        Its impossible for anyone to compete with Microsoft, so lets all stop innovating and give up.

        STUPID!! This isnt about Microsoft and taking the desktop from them, this is about giving the Desktop to Linux users who want a nicer Desktop OS than Microsoft.

        Its not about Marketshare, its not about money, its about having a better product than the standard, a good alternative, CHOICE.

        As far as KDE, and Gnome, its not so much about marketshare, its about giving Linux a desktop GUI for people who want ease of use. If this ends up being people in Tokyo Japan, China, Africa, Korea, Mexico, and everywhere but the Microsoft controlled dead Desktop Market in the USA, so be it.

        You all seem to forget, just because theres no market for KDE in the USA doesnt mean there isnt one internationally.

        The Desktop Market internationally is bigger than the settop box / PDA market in the USA.

        The Choice of KDE is to target the markets outside of the USA
        • Relax, take a deep breath. Stop calling people stupid or morons. This isn't personal. I understand that you're stuck not being in America, but that is no reason to be angry (that was a joke, BTW, bring on the flames).

          This Slashdot dream of taking over people's computer desktops everywhere is a silly one. I'm suggesting that there are people that will have a need for a KDE Desktop, and it doesn't matter that it isn't your mother.

          You, however, choose to go ballistic. Relax, it isn't that important.

          The desktop PC wars are over. They were fought between Microsoft and Apple, Apple lost.

          We now have lots of processing power and lots to do with the machines. It doesn't all need to be general purpose. There is a role for KDE to play, even in a MS desktop dominated future.

          OTOH, keeping MS to 95% of the market (or even, joy, rolling them back to 90%) would be huge. Don't let them own the web browser market and you are okay. Keep open protocols. If we are constantly reverse engineering their stuff, we lose, .NET wins.

          Alex
    • You can be bored and tired. It's ok. Happens to everyone now and then.

      I won't even consider windows. Their recent licensing moves are too intolerable. And I prefer a nice GUI. Mind you, I thing that the visual design of the current KDE and even Gnome are already "good enough". The real problem is the applications. But this is mainly work on the underpinnings, which isn't visible. So when a new version of KDE or Gnome is announced, they put up pretty pictures. Because that can't showcase what the changes are really about. (At least I sure hope that's right. Sometimes reading the change log is like trying to read Etruscan: Pango? What does pango mean? Well, it does this kind of thing. This doesn't tell me why it's better than what went before, but it least it shows where the changes are.)
      • Sometimes reading the change log is like trying to read Etruscan: Pango? What does pango mean?

        Pango is the part of Gnome that lets you read Etruscan!

        Pango is a library that lets you display scripts, no matter how complex they are, including the much demanded Arabic and Indic scripts.
      • I won't even consider windows. Their recent licensing moves are too intolerable.

        Conformists will never understand that.

        "Windows is unstable" - But it owns the market!
        "Windows is virus-prone" - But it owns the market"
        "Windows is expensive" - But it owns the market!
        "Windows isn't flexible" - But it owns the market!

        It's called "herd mentality".

    • I like linux, I use it alot both for work and home use but I am getting tired of the chase for the desktop market. MS, like it or not it, are pretty secure on the desktop market. Where Linux scores is the server room and for that area I personally prefer reliablity, security etc over a fancy GUI front end. GUI's are nice but not the end of the world.

      Oh no, not another "use Linux on servers because everybody does it, but use Windows on desktop because everybody does it" - conformists.

      Weren't those the same people that said Linux was just a toy and not usable for servers 5 years ago?

      If everybody would do what "everybody" we would still be IN THE STONE AGE.

      Sometimes you got to do something not "everybody" does, it's called *progress*.

  • I love QT because of it's OOP nature and how easy it is to implement. But KDE is too much of a Windows knock off. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.
    • How is KDE any more like Windows that GNOME is? You can theme either one of them to look however you like, and run whatever windows manager etc you choose.

      Granted BOTH of them stick to the tried and true WIMP (Windows-Icons-Mouse-Pointer) and desktop paradigms, but that's not a bad thing - it's a proven and tried user interface.
    • But KDE is too much of a Windows knock off. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

      Why this?

      Because it uses windows and a mouse?

      Oh well, then pretty every environment is a "Windows knockoff".

      BTW, Windows XP copied the "often used apps" feature from KDE.

  • reasons not to use gnome (Score:1, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward

    gnomereport
    ===========

    oki what should i use ? kde ? gnome ? normal windowmanager ? these questions are comming up more and more and i am totally fed up listening to these things all the time.

    i think that gnome 2 will become a lot more mature than gnome 1 a lot more resource consuming and a lot more buggy not to mention that you all wait another year until the majority of your apps that you use today will be ported.

    gnome 2 will depend on MORE libraries than gnome 1, gnome 2 may be ready to use just in time but all your beloved apps won't be ready in time. e.g. evolution, still not yet started beeing ported, gnumeric still not yet started beeing ported, galeon cant be ported to gnome 2 right now because gtk embedded is not yet ported to gtk 2 (work is in progress) now think on all other gtk and gnome apps (some of them may be outdated too) when do you think these will ever be ported ? its not just replacing some lines of code and voila, theres a lot more things to do.

    you guys should look somehow behind the scenes, a tad more inside everything before deciding for one desktop. eyecandy is not everything it should also be quick, fast, less mature and simply operatinal. i am working with gnome for some years now and the past months i really feel that i need to get rid of it since i dont like the way it goes, the way things are beeing implemented and so on. i for my own am not willing to install gnome 1 and gnome 2 (which is far more mature) for a couple of time only to use my applications until someone decides to give it gnome 2 support.

    also seeing all these deamons running in the background only for one use who accesses the workstation is really unbelivable. also the new windows registry like system that got implemented into gnome 2 starts to suck, it consumes a lot of diskspace for one user than the way things got configured before.

    gnome 2 is nice but i dont belive that people who are realy aware of their systems gonna like it that much. even nautilus is still totally unusable even the gnome 2 converted one totally sucks, it takes ages to load and is not that userfriendly to use as e.g. konqueror e.g scanning a ftp tree takes hours with nautilus and only seconds for konqueror. its sad to say but this is simply a fact. i never found myself using nautilus. only started it up once in a time to see what happens but usability NO but thats what a system should be like... simply usable.

    not long ago i had a gconf crash for unknown reason while i was leeching some bigger files from the net. after this crash i wasnt able starting galeon and other apps that use gconf as preferences master, no matter what i did, either killing the processes etc. it wasnt possible to get that stuff back running so i was sticked on a nearly dead desktop with 2 decissions, either i reboot my system to get everything working properly again and cancel my download (over irc and in queue) or i continue the download until its finished. well i decided to continue until its finished. well its sure that these minor problems are beeing solved sooner or later but it doesnt make me happy using my system. its a lot of maintainance etc. a lot of things you need to care and you end in a permanent maintainance instead using your system. e.g. if you want to run games like quake, rtcw etc. you always need to keep in mind that a lot of stuff is running in the background. same for evolution e.g. losing passwords every now and then, preferences lost every now and then, long startup times, bad addressbook implementation etc. i belive it will continue and become better and better over time but yes TIME but we want to use the system NOW and not later.

    well every now and then i EYE over to KDE and look about all these apps they got. sure the eyecandy is not that nice and the CVS of KDE 3 that i tried every now and then isnt that beautifull (e.g. i also miss some other features that i was used on gnome) but KDE is not only the environment its more. i see the apps like konqueror more functional. more freedom, no need to compile mozilla with its ugly XUL widgetset all the time, no need to install stuff like GALEON and NAUTILUS to have things that i get with konqueror, its faster and more impressive. i thought wow the first time ive played with it. only big disadvantage on kde is, that the packages install things that i dont really want e.g. if i want the seat of a car only then why do need to purchase the whole car? but looking on 3rd party applications i see things that i really would like seeing on gnome but know that they are far away. e.g. cool professional burner software, cool query analyzer like program for sql, a whole complete office suite etc. more and more stuff from 3rd party coders specially programs that i need for daily work and wish to have on gnome myself.

    i am also a bit familar with the gnome developers and i came to this resume. gnome may be open source, but the whole community is totally closed. if you talk to them then they act like insane humans and piss you off really fast. well not everyone of them but a lot of them. holy jesus if someone comes into their channels or meet them on open air festivals etc. and one wrong word or misunderstood word. they piss you off to hell. i met a couple of them and well i dont like many of them. they actually are capable people but also kinda agressive people many of them cant decide anymore between trolling and normal arguing.

    well finally i say you dont need to keep my words for an end line agreement, please go install gnome see if you like it. look in your homedirectory and subdirectories and decide if you like what you see and then be happy. you really dont need gnome at all for your work and i for my own felt somekinda freedom after i tested a gnomefree environment for some weeks e.g. windowmaker and gtk+ apps only i feelt so much better i then really had the happy feeling to USE my system again. nice aterm, bitchx, xchat, sylpheed, mutt etc. no shit in the background. also a lot more memory for my own personal use and not wasted to e.g. gnomes core. i also ran mozilla on its own and got rid of galeon too (have you figured out recently that they add and remove stuff in one breathe). mozilla is so what faster than older versions now if they soon port it to gtk 2 then i dont see the usage of galeon anymore. its nice with tabs etc. but mozilla offers the same things now and i think over time mozilla will be better. not to mention all the problems caused during compile etc.

    besides, nothing has changed in gnome. a lot of new libraries, same utilities

    • Re:reasons not to use gnome (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      i think it is sad there there are 2 desktops well of course the people can choose and of course there is 'no war between desktops specially named gnome and kde' (who ever wants to belive this).

      i for my own think it was a wrong way, if both groups would work on ONE desktop then today we could be far ahead as we are today.

      you guys make it totally different that way for people no one can really decide what to use. should i go to kde, should i go to gnome. then 2 days later the people switch back to this and then to that again.

      because of these 2 splitting groups i think the DESKTOP for linux is almost dead. sure you can argue the way like 'if there was no kde, then development for gnome wouldnt go that fast. same for kde' but i think in reality everyone wants a nice desktop even those puritans who still think their BB owns all and in reality they still have a kde or gnome installation running. i think because of this ONE project would be better..

      • if both groups would work on ONE desktop then today we could be far ahead as we are today.


        You're not a programmer, are you? I'm a programmer by trade, and have lead a number of projects, and believe me you cannot simply throw more and more people at a project to get it finished quicker.

        Projects can only be broken down and parallelised so much. There comes a point where adding more people will cause it to take more time, not less.

        Cheers,

        Tim
        • i think in this case you still have lots of room to throw more resources at the desktop and it'll get better faster. one of the big issues with kde is the lack of applications. sure you can run gnome apps under kde, but they're not kde apps. what are some other areas for improvement on kde? general nuts and bolts type stuff maybe. those areas can probably withstand adding a few more engineers to the effort. how about testing? document writing? rpm builders (are there workable RH RPMS yet?) help out with koffice, maybe kdevelop. sure the core kde team handling the kdelibs or maybe kdebase doesn't need 100 people thrown in, but if you take 200 resources, and put them in usefull areas of the KDE project, i think we'll have a much nicer desktop much quicker.
        • Very true. However KDE really needs developers, quite badly in the case of KOffice. It is quite a small core of developers who do most of the work on KDE. Incredible...
    • Try them all, or at least all of the ones that sound interesting. Unless you are cramped for disk space, install all of the windowing environments. Then try them out, and see which ones you like. Different people have different preferences.

      Black box to keep things really, simple,
      etc. (there's a long list).

      I, personally, ended up keeping both KDE and Gnome installed. I switch between them occasionally for special purposes (or when I've been really stupid, and damaged one of them badly). And they don't have the same libraries or toolkits. You may find that you prefer one of the desktops, and another for development libraries.

      Keep your options open. Thinking of just two is thinking of too few.
      .

  • kioslaves (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nick255 ( 139962 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @11:09AM (#2894643)
    On area I think KDE really excels is with kioslaves, which allow *any* KDE application access 'files' by a wide variety of means.
    *audiocd*samba*filesystem*ftp*gopher*gzip*http*i ma p4*nntp*sftp*tar
    To list but afew in the CVS.
    Plus people's homebrewed slaves:
    *shell commands*Nomad Jukebox*Digital camera*deleted files*over ssh
    for example.

    This can give rise to many useful applicatons. All KDE graphics programs instantly able to grab pictures off digital camera. Ripping CD by just dragging icons in the file browser. Seemless network browsing, just like Network Neighbourhood in Windows (ok, takes abit of setting up to work properly).

    Does gnome do anything similar. I know there is gnome-vfs, although haven't looked into what it does in too much detail.
    • More new ioslaves coming in kde 3 are WebDAV and WebDAV over SSL.
    • the increasing use of kioslaves as an underlying KDE technology is great -- even if KDE developers don't use the word, it sounds to me just like Apple's lately hyped vision of computer as "digital lifestyle hub" (or however they phrase it).

      If the KDE stuff continues at current pace, it won't be lnog until anything with a USB or firewire jack (or any other port that my computer has or will sprout next year) should plug in and be recognized, transparently and as a regular-looking ("hey, there's a file!") entry in directories ...

      Any typical Linux distro comes with superior art tools already (GIMP, Kontour -- superior to anything that comes as part of a Windows or Mac OS install per se, though Photoshop is good for certain things that GIMP Is not), and with lots of tools for converting and listening to digital music. So music and 2-D art I think are pretty much down -- not finished or perfect or static, but already a compelling arguments for the family who wants to create pictures, edit digital photos, and stream music to baby's room.

      The big drawbacks now when it comes to the digital hub lifestyle thing to any free system I'm aware of is that both Windows and Apple have available superior codecs for video, and both now come with video editing software. (At least, that's what the silly XP commercials imply; is that true?).

      This really isn't a GNOME or KDE thing per se (hey, both are good, differences are wildly exaggerated, and they both live happily on the same machines), but kioslaves are impressive and tantalizing -- just wish there were video apps so I could one day open a window called "FIREWIRE VIDEO CAMERA" and be able to do the things that iMovie on a Mac provides.

      timothy
      • For Audio and Video:
        There is not yet a standard for Audio/Video.
        There are some codecs available, some players, but they all follow their own rules.
        Along with Gnome2 there will be a multimedia framework Gstreamer.
        It is not really aimed at Gnome, it is meant to be able to build apps on it, so Kde could use it too.

        There is discussion planned at Kde about how to deal with Multimedia. Somehow I hope they choose to build on Gstreamer, and support the building of one standard.
        • There are technical problems having to do with the interaction between GTK and QT that make it unlikely that KDE will be able to use GStreamer. Besides, KDE already has their own (non-kde-specific) media framework, aRts. Maybe GNOME should look into using aRts, since aRts came before GStreamer. I have a feeling, however, that KDE will continue using aRts and GNOME will continue using GStreamer.

    • Re:kioslaves (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      kioslaves: See Amiga device handlers in the 1990s...

    • Re:kioslaves (Score:2, Informative)

      by bshuttleworth ( 178787 )
      Gnome VFS is similar (IANADeveloper, though - this is from reading too many mailinglists). The basic idea is that it allows anything which can be shoehorned into the task to be a "filesystem" when using the library.

      From the gnome-vfs GNOME2 branch documentation:
      GnomeVFS is a filesystem abstraction library allowing applications plugable transparent access to a variety of "real" filesystems, from WebDAV to digital cameras, to the local filesystem. It also contains a number of other convenient file utilities such as a comphrehensive MIME database / Application registry, and a copy engine. Use of GnomeVFS ensures that an application or component will be usable by Nautilus or other GnomeVFS applications for handling the display of data from various URIs, as well.
      The idea goes slightly further too (if memory serves) - anything which can be treated as a tree with linking/unlinking a'la a filesystem can be hidden inside Gnome-VFS. I believe there were even mutterings about making the menu-system a part of this (with a menu:// URI)...

  • Gnome 2 vs KDE (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @11:09AM (#2894648) Homepage
    Who cares, isnt this a little like my kid can beat up your kid ????

    People bitch about all the libs with gnome , and QT with KDE, The folks over at KDE have a good team a good direction and a good system. I am a gnome user for many reasons, BUT, I wish success to the KDE team, a good plan is always the best start, even if you dont follow it at least it gives you a sense that you have a common goal :)

    We all in the *nix world of course know this not to be true, a common goal, Microsoft has one world domination, many of us *nix people are too worried about little things making it in, some out of ego some out of OUR neccesity.

    the KDE team has done a great job all along, whats good for KDE is good for GNOME, if they do it first we can say, well that works nice, or that suck lets not do it that way,

    Competition breeds the best, anything less is communism

    • I agree that most of what is expressed about the different desktops is couched in very opinionated language with little or no underlying rational basis. It would be nice if people could express themselves in a constructive way that would help both desktops proceed as directly as possible to the most usable state.

      So my question is this:

      Have the underlying object models of KDE and Gnome stabilized sufficiently and is it even possible to suggest that some day a semi-useful interobject communication layer could be constructed between the two systems?
      As a run of the mill Linux user that has used both KDE and Gnome, I'd really like it if client applications built under the two models would be as functional as possible if you happen to be running the "wrong" desktop.

      Also, as a developer, I'd like to be able to develop with either just Qt or GTK and have my application automatically be available to a larger audience, one of the KDE users and the Gnome users.

      I doubt I'm the only one that feels this way.

      • I run KDE apps under gnome all the time, Kchart, Kfile, Kfind, Konquerer

        I understand the question, dont get me wrong.

        But I dont see its implications, admittedly I havent tried running gnome stuff under KDE

        KDE stuff runs fine under Gnome, am I just one luck SOB here ?

        • No, there's nothing that prevents one from "running" those KDE apps under Gnome (and vice versa), but I'm wondering whether you might find that Kchart, Kfile, etc. work "better" under KDE because of the KParts object model connecting them underneath everything.

          Maybe even the mutual interactions between K* applications works pretty good under Gnome, but the ideal would be if those applications interacted in a full way with Gnome applications (that use Bonobo).

          So that you could perhaps embed a Kchart inside of a document you are writing with OpenOffice under GTK and have it be just as useful as if it were embedded inside a KOffice document.

          That's kind of what I'm thinking. (If I sound vague, it's because I'm no expert on this matter, in case you haven't guessed by now.)

  • Screenshots (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CanadaDave ( 544515 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @11:11AM (#2894657) Homepage
    Has everyone seen the new screeshots [kde.org] for KDE 3.0? It looks awesome. I like the new window style.

    One thing that I think really needs to improve with KDE is the speed. It is still much slower than Winblows if you ask me. But it's free, and very customizable, so I don't mind the trade-off.

    (I sure hope they've fixed the fonts system now. Whenever I try to change the fonts to anything other than default, all my fonts turn into A.D. Mono.) CanadaDave

    • Check out the time shown on the clock in this one: http://www.kde.org/screenshots/large/kde3-snapshot 3.jpg

      I've worked on projects like that :-)

      Cheers,

      Tim

    • Re:Screenshots (Score:2, Insightful)

      by joshstaiger ( 213677 )
      The new window style? The style looks pretty much identical to KDE 2.2 to me, which should be expected as the main purpose of this update is to get up to date with Qt 3.

    • Re:Screenshots (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cgleba ( 521624 )
      I've been using KDE3 beta for a while now and I'm impressed. The rate of radical change between KDE1 and KDE2 is not the same as between KDE2 and KDE3 -- the feature slope seems to be tapering off and speed and stability are improving.

      A few notes that I've noticed:

      * KDE3 is faster then KDE2, however it is still not as fast as Windows.

      * Konqueror has had some major improvments in HTML renedering. Very nice. No major new features. With this release Konqueror is becoming my favorite web browser.

      * The regular expression engine is AWESOME. I can search web pages (and anything KDE for that matter) with regular expressions now. Very very cool feature.

      * There were some changes in the clipboard that I haven't quite figured out. . .middle-mouse-button pasting no longer works but I'm sure there's a config for it somewhere I havn't found yet.

      * Tool-bars are rippable now. Very cool.

      * A few new GUI pretty things

      * A few app crashes -- that's expected in Beta, though.

      Nothing radically new, however I appreciate and am impressed by the increase of maturity in KDE3.

      The only thing I have to wait for now is to have a few KDE apps mature a little more. I still use many gnome apps under KDE because they're a little more mature.

      • Re:Clipboard (Score:4, Informative)

        by spitzak ( 4019 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @05:28PM (#2897480) Homepage
        I have not checked it yet but I believe the new Qt is using the seperate Clipboard/Selection that KDE and some versions of Motif used. The problem is it does not really work so well with older programs.

        There are two clipboards called "Clipboard" and "Selection". When you select a block of text it is immediately copied into "Selection". When you click with the middle mouse button it inserts the current contents of "Selection". When you cut/copy it with a command (such as Ctrl+C) it is copied to "Clipboard" but that is unchanged otherwise, and pasting commands (such as Ctrl+V) paste the contents of "Clipboard".

        This avoids confusing Windows users and still allows the drag&drop power of the older X selection and middle mouse click.

        However older applications did not know anything about "Clipboard". Instead both selecting text and copy commands changed the value of "Selection", and both middle mouse click and paste commands pasted the contents of "Selection".

        The result is that if you have program "New" and program "Old":

        Selecting text and pasting (dropping) it with the middle mouse button works both ways between the programs.

        If you "copy" in the New program, the Old program will not see it. Attempts to paste will get the last selection (this often is the same as the copied text but not always), the same as using the middle mouse.

        If you "copy" in the Old program, if you try to "Paste" in the New program you will not get it, instead you will get the last "copy" from a New program. You need to click the middle mouse button to "paste". This is by far the most annoying incompatability.

        Hopefully the "old" programs will vanish over time. I am trying to do my part...

  • Do you think it's coincidence that the proposed release of KDE 3 is set for a mere 3 days [gnome.org] after the Gnome 2 release?

  • All the same? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PoiBoy ( 525770 )
    I've noticed that both Gnome and KDE, while trying to differentiate themselves from Windows, begin to look more and more like it at every release. For example, both have a button at the bottom of the screen analogous to the M$ Start button, and many of their desktop icons are certainly similar to those found in Windows.

    I suppose if you find that type of environment most productive, there is nothing wrong with it. However, I've found that it actually takes a long time to navigate and get tasks done.

    At home I use an old FVWM2 configuration I brewed several years ago, and I see no reason to keep updating the look and feel every 6 months. It does what I want it to do, and I am comfortable using it. It is not flashy, and it does not get in the way.

    At work I have been using CDE, and I think that it is an excellent all-around desktop environment that is easy enough for newbies to use and yet allows more experienced users quick access to things they need without playing hide-and-seek games.


    • At work I have been using CDE, and I think that it is an excellent all-around desktop environment that is easy enough for newbies to use and yet allows more experienced users quick access to things they need without playing hide-and-seek games.

      You've gotta be kidding me. Easy for newbies to Solaris from another motif-style window manager, maybe.

      Having to write a shell script to add something to your quick-access menu does not equal ease of use for anyone other than people who already write shell scripts and find tinkering with this stuff easy. Get your head out before spewing...
    • I've noticed that both Gnome and KDE, while trying to differentiate themselves from Windows, begin to look more and more like it at every release. For example, both have a button at the bottom of the screen analogous to the M$ Start button, and many of their desktop icons are certainly similar to those found in Windows.


      Guess what, most new Linux users are used to working with Windows. They know how taksbars and start menus work so the default Gnome and KDE setups mae it easier for them to start working with their new desktop straight away instead of having to learn all new techniques. Can you imagine a windows user being comfortable with "Focus follows pointer" straight away when they've only ever been using "Focus follows mouse clicks" before?

      I've been using Gnome for about 3 years now and guess what? It doesn't look anything like the default. My main panel is at the top of the screen, there's no foot menu and there's no icons on the desktop. I have the focus policy set to raise windows when the pointer enters them and I have many many key bindings for sending and retrieving windows from a gazzilion other desktops.

      I love it, it works for me and I can be more productive in that environment than I am when using Windows, but would I be happy if I had only just started using Gnome after using Windows all my life up until now? I don't think so.

      • Actually people learn Point-to-type really fast. Here at work we have all Linux machines set to it and many NT machines (it can be done with a registry setting) and the users adapt to it almost immediatly. Often they don't even notice it is turned on.

        Going from point-to-type to click-to-type is almost impossible and causes severe errors when commands are typed to the wrong window.

        Granted everybody here is using a desktop mouse or trackball. There may be problems with adapting to point-to-type with an easily-moved thing like a pen tablet.

    • "I've noticed that both Gnome and KDE, while trying to differentiate themselves from Windows, begin to look more and more like it at every release. For example, both have a button at the bottom of the screen analogous to the M$ Start button, and many of their desktop icons are certainly similar to those found in Windows. "
      There are only so many ways to represent a hard drive or a folder.
    • At work I have been using CDE, and I think that it is an excellent all-around desktop environment that is easy enough for newbies to use and yet allows more experienced users quick access to things they need without playing hide-and-seek games.

      Yeah, I use OLVWM at home and I like it and my wife does too. Due to some kind of video problem on an old thinkpad 760LD, I made it the default window manager. It was the only one capable of giving me 16bpp. It was not so hard for my wife and I because we learned how to do things right under GNOME. This supprised me. I remembered my first expereinces at a Sun workstation and thought my wife would have a hard time. Nope, not at all. While it's hard to think back that far for myself, the comment I get when I show people a decent desktop, be it Window Maker or GNOME, is that it's "very windows like". I can tell them that it is, but better in many ways.

      "Windows like" can be helpful. GNOME was flexible enough for the Red Hat folks to make it look like the M$ junk I was used to. This was useful while I quickly learned to do things how I prefered. I also learned that good design is much more than skin deep. KDE does this too. M$ will have to make things very stupid indeed to make switching more difficult. Don't put it past the people who hide file extentions of "known types" but how far can they take that?

      There you have the power of free software. Peer reviewed design, encouraged inovation, multiple implimentations all growing stronger and building on the strengths of predecesors. Good traits are retained, flakey ones are around for people who want or need them. The KDE and GNOME people are doing great work. The folks at Red Hat have done some realy nice things with that work. The full impact of many small improvements is much larger than their sum, even over six months.

  • Font HOW-TO (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am a pretty unsophisticated desktop user. My entire reason to be is to program db apps, and the like.

    User interfaces were never a strong point of mine.

    In a nutshell, what are anti-aliased fonts? How do I use the million and one fonts that are installed in X, when all I can see are a few in the various apps that use them?

    Is there a top down reference for neophytes on fonts. I need a general discussion followed up by X implimentation issues.

    I am sure I would be more impressed with who supports anti-aliased fonts, if I'd just understand what they were, and how to show them on my system.

    I know it seems like a stupid problem, but I am sure I can't be the only one.
    • Anti-aliasing is the process of smoothing the hard, jagged edges of graphics. Graphics can mean images or fonts. Normally this is accomplished by taking the surrounding color values and blending them. In the case of a simple black line on a white background, the edges of the line would be interpolated as an intermediate shade of grey. This gives a softer visual effect that is generally more pleasing to the eye, though too much can render the graphic blurry.

      This can best be seen on websites that use GIF images placed over tiled backgrounds. The edges are hard -- you can see exactly where one graphic ends and the other begins. With fonts, which are usually vector based, the problem arises with diagonal lines. For a computer to render a diagonal line on the screen, it makes several smaller lines that are slighly offset. The point where this offset occurs looks like a hard edge. In real-world printing this isn't a problem, because the physical properties of ink bleed edges together. But in the digital world, you need extra software to simulate this softening effect.
      • Nice explanation. For a graphical representation of the difference, go to http://kstars.sourceforge.net/kde3-screens/

        The menu bar labeled "KDE2" has antialiased text, the menu bar labeled "KDE3" does not.

        (this page is actually to illustrate something else entirely, but this discussion reminded me that I had these side-by-side screenies...)
    • Fonts on X are a pretty huge mess. The main thing to know is that about 90% of the fonts you see in some lists are back-compatability fonts and programs ignore them. This is an unfortunate mess but I think keithp is doing the right thing now with Xft. For now you may see names like these:

      Names like "fixed10" or "lucidasans10" (ie with a number on the end) are very old X fonts, which were only useful for terminal programs. Most modern programs ignore these, but in a list of all fonts they make up at least 50%.

      Names like "-adobe-helvetica-p-a-crap-foo-*-*-*-more-crap-iso 8859-1" are the designed-by-committee attempt to make useful names for fonts and handle scaling fonts. It sucks but until Xft anybody programming X fonts had to deal with this.

      Most common now you will see lists that look rather nice like "Helvetica" with some check marks for bold, italic, and a font size. Unfortunately these are made by the program by finding all the fonts with the above ugly dash names and attemting to extract something usable by mortals from it. The main problem is that all the programs and toolkits made up their own rules about how to extract this, so "helvetica at size 10" in one program may produce something different than in another program.

      In modern programs you will also see "Helvetica" and you may see "Sans" and "Serif". These are names for Xft. Xft uses True-Type fonts and totally ignores the old X font mechanism, thus it is possible that the set of fonts is completely different than the "old" programs. In most cases however the fonts are shared by the old and new programs, so the "Helvetica" you see is the same one, but the "old" programs the "nice" name "Helvetica" has been translated into the "ugly" dash-name by X and then back-translated by the toolkit, so the names probably don't match very well. The big advantage is that Xft decides and controls the "nice" names so at least all programs using Xft will agree. I'm sure Xft will completely take over within a year so this horrid mess will be fixed.

  • True Type Fonts (Score:2, Informative)

    by nick13 ( 235886 )
    ...are working just fine for me with Debian unstable (my last dist-upgrade was last night).

    I'm actually posting this from konqueror, which is displaying anti-aliased True Type Fonts quite nicely.

    Niko

  • UI of KDE (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One thing that has allways irritated me is the inability of most systems to make use of some inherent methods to buid an efficient GUI. I am mostly thinking of Fitt's law [asktog.com] here. Do any of you know if there is work being done on this area in KDE now?

    Otherwise it's an exellent product, that's getting better. Thanks!
    • You're not the first one to point out of the GUI design shortcomings of KDE in regards to Fitts'Law. I've mentioned several times now on slashdot KDE discussions about how increasing the toolbar button size would give faster mouse access times, and how labeling the toolbar buttons we be even better, because it would make the toolbar button bigger and clarify what action the button is supposed to perform (which isn't usually very well clarified by most tiny ass KDE toolbar icons).

      Even after I say in the first paragraph of and every one of these posts "yes, I know you can select an option to label toolbar buttons in KDE, but it isn't done by default, and the majority of desktop end users are going to use the default installed on their machine. Just ask Netscape"
      I still get morons saying "You clearly have never used KDE. You can select an option to label toolbar buttons." Remind me to send those folks a pack of Ginko Biloba supplements. Some poster who was most likely a KDE developer who went by the username "Duley" (gee, I wonder who that could be...) retorted "That's what you want. That's not what I want" seemingly incapable of understanding that I'm not talking about my personal preference but about a well established human factors principles that has been proven in usability test after usability test.

      I get other people saying "the point of KDE is to be familiar to windows users, not to follow Fitts' Law".

      I get other people who just shut their ears, their eyes, and their minds and label me a troll for daring to suggest the KDE UI has any shortcomings that might be improved.

      I'm not really suprised by this. The linux community in general is extraordinarily hostile towards HCI people. There's this idea of "well, you don't write code. Your input is far less worthy than ours. All you really do is needlessly criticize other people's work."

      Gee, I wonder why linux has been having so much trouble getting onto the desktop...

  • New major distro release on horizon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @11:23AM (#2894765) Journal
    With the recent/upcoming releases of:

    XFree 4.2.0
    KDE 3.0
    Gnome 2.0
    glibc 2.2.5 (claimed compatible with GCC3)
    GCC 3.0.x
    2.4.x Kernel du jour

    I sense upcoming releases of next-rev-level distros.

    Now if it can only all be made to play nice together.

  • KDE is cool in general.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @12:10PM (#2895144)
    But they really need to get over the Not-Invented-Here syndrome in so many places. One thing that stands out to me is that noatun is a crappy media player compared to other applications out there. Only video files I managed to get to play with it were MPG video files, and even then it crashed 8 times out of 10 (And this was KDE 2.2.2). In it they use mpeglib, which now works, but I wonder why they didn't use smpeg, which was more mature, from the start, was it simply because the lib was written by the author of kmpg, an older KDE media player? I wonder why they didn't have avifile support, that would be an easy way to play a *lot* more files. Compare noatun to, say, mplayer, which plays avi/asf, mpg, viv, rm (few), and mov, not to mention others. Within a couple of days using smpeg and avifile you can write a better media player than noatun...

    On a positive note, it is good to see the widespread planned use of .ogg files.. In modern systems there is no reason to use wav anymore, and .ogg gives the KDE team a nice, perfectly legal way of reducing filesize (unlike mp3, which probably would be better for this except for legal reasons, since ogg takes more CPU time to decode still)
    • Revamping the arts/KDE video stuff is planned, in fact, there is an IRC meeting [kde.org] this Saturday.
    • smpeg is a good point, however the problem with avifile and mplayer is that they use Windows binaries. I haven't tried it but I would imagine that they're not very cross patform (and KDE is cross platform) and the windows binaries they use are not GPL meaning that distros such as Mandrake or RedHat may have an issue including them. In the future I guess both plan to roll their own rather then using Windows, but for now that is the case.

      Does avifile or mplayer work on a SPARC, PPC or Alpha without emulation? I don't think they would but I haven't tried it. . .
      • mplayer plays mpeg, etc. fine without the extra windows binaries. It just needs the binaries to use various proprietary codecs without a Linux version.

        Besides, Mandrake and Redhat have no problem with non-GPL'd code. It's Debian that wouldn't include it due to the licenses. However, no distro should include mplayer, since the authors make it quite clear that they strongly discourage distributing mplayer binaries.

  • I'll be impressed... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @12:10PM (#2895150) Homepage

    ...when someone begins to develop a truly original interface, instead of immitating Windows. Don't get me wrong -- Gnome and KDE are monumental achievements, and I congratulate their programmers. But what about all the really new and interesting ideas out there? Isn't creativity and exploration a goal of "free" software?

    How about:

    While chasing Microsoft, let's not forget to stop and smell the alternative roses...

    • Re:I'll be impressed... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @04:59PM (#2897190) Homepage Journal
      KDE and GNOME are *not* imitating Windows. They are imitating what works. It just so happens that Microsoft isn't staffed by idiots, so they tend to imitate what works as well.

      The first time I saw KDE (1.0) I thought "wow, it's my old OS/2 desktop!" You see, contrary to popular belief and the tripe they feed you in the press, Microsoft did not invent the GUI or the desktop. Xerox PARC did. It was copied by Apple Lisa then Apple Macintosh. OS/2 Warp had that style of desktop before Windows did. But Microsoft saw that the Mac and OS/2 Warp were *usable* interfaces and got worried. So they made a radical design change with the Win95 desktop.

      It's a pain in the butt creating a truly original interface. A major pain the arse. It's easy to come up with a concept, but making it usable is the hard part. I am glad that KDE and GNOME didn't decide to join the radical fringe and try to shove a new metaphor down people's throats. They stuck with what worked. The "computer as desktop" metaphor may not be the best metaphor, but it does work and people are used to it.

      If you don't like the default setup of KDE or GNOME, you can change it. Try that with Windows. If you don't like the main menu accessible from the panel, change it and make it a root menu. If you don't like the taskbar in the panel, make it a separate taskbar or use KasBar. Get rid of the panel entirely if you wish. If you don't like the file manager to be a plain window with icons representing files, then change it. Add a sidebar or/or shell to it. Use text view mode. Use a norton commander clone mode. Or use a different file manager completely. If you want menus to be on the top like in the Mac, just do it.

      This is the truly original interface that KDE and GNOME give you (original for Windows users, but not for Unix users): you are in complete control of your desktop. You get to decide how it will look, feel and work.

  • K-Menu - Clean up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mattscape ( 264484 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @12:49PM (#2895440) Journal
    Although this might be a minor problem to many of you, I think it is essential for the first impression ...

    What I mean is:
    You have to clean up the KMenu. If you hit the K-Button in most distributions you get tons of applications, utilities etc ... In addition to that you often have a gnome entry that has all the gnome menus, with again tons of entries.

    What about small arrows like Windo$ has, so that you see just the recently used? Or a small, medium, and regular menu?

    I mean KDE is THE way to get people from other platforms to Linux. Why show them that "mess" with all these entries ?
    Show them a clean menu and give them later the option to add / see more.
  • If you're wondering, CmdrTaco, why TrueType fonts are giving you fits in KDE apps, go yell at the package maintainers. It might urge them to do something other than make excuses such as "KDE is harder to maintain than GNOME" (Which is B.S., unless you do it the way Debian's package maintainers do it)



    Hell, I might move back to Debian if you'd help get something done about it.



    Or maybe some of us should just make packages of KDE that aren't split into a million pieces, and instead focus on putting together packages that work. :-P

  • Broken TrueType fonts in new distro versions (Score:5, Informative)

    by nomis80 ( 181676 ) <nomis80NO@SPAMnomis80.org> on Thursday January 24, 2002 @04:54PM (#2897133) Homepage

    As a reply to the comment on broken TrueType fonts on new Debian versions, I'd like to say that this happens on many other distros. The new RedHat 7.2 exhibited the same lower TrueType rendering quality over 7.1 as the new Debian. This is due to three patents [sourceforge.net] that Apple filed concerning interpretation of TrueType bytecodes that are used for hinting [microsoft.com] small size characters. The FreeType project introduced in a configuration header a directive to disable/enable the patented bytecode interpreter. It comes disabled by default. Turning it on and recompiling may be considered infringement of Apple's patents if you haven't licensed them.

    Anyway, for those who can legally use it (ie. you don't live in the USA or have licensed Apple's patents), I've compiled FreeType with the patented bytecode interpreter enabled and made a RedHat 7.2 RPM which is available right here [linuxquebec.com]. This drastically improves the readability of antialiased fonts. Enjoy!

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