Plasma 5 Release Candidate Announced 50
sfcrazy writes: The KDE Community has announced the first release of Plasma 5. It's a release candidate, so it's meant for testing and preview purposes, like the developer preview of Android L. The final release will be announced next week, so this is the last chance for testers and developers to find issues and get them fixed before the release.
XFCE (Score:3)
Anyone else notice its starting to look more like XFCE?
Gnome 3 (Score:4, Funny)
Would you have preferred that it looks more like Gnome3 ?!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No. I actually really like XFCE. Why not just use XFCE? Less bloat.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I use KDE in large part because it separates the window element/widget design (checkboxes, etc.) from the colors, and lets me control what color everything is -- the defaults that KDE, Xfce, etc. all pick tend to be so low-color & high/low-contrast that they give me headaches. I also generally prefer KDE because of the little useful touches like the easily-added/programmed extra context menu actions in the file manager, integration of KDE-Look, and things like that.
Re: Gnome 3 (Score:2)
Just want to point out Thunar (the XFCE file manager) also has easily added context menu actions.
I understand the desire for configurability, though. I use Gentoo/Funtoo personally. I have found XFCE to strike a great balance between configurable, stable, and lightweight. I'm not one for flashy, animated windows and effects though. That is in XFCE to a degree.
The last time I used KDE was 3.5(I think), so maybe I should revisit it when 5.0 is out.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Current devices have so much power and capacity that the average user is not concerned about bloat.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because I much prefer Qt to GTK?
Re: (Score:2)
But one can only use Qt from C++?
...and 16 other languages [wikipedia.org].
Re: Gnome 3 (Score:2)
Have you looked at or tried LXQt?
Re: (Score:2)
Would you have preferred that it looks more like Gnome3 ?!
Yes. Yes I would. But I think it's a good thing that KDE is doing their own thing first and foremost.
Re: (Score:2)
No way to distinguish which is the active window. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is the active window in the official screenshot:
http://kde.org/announcements/p... [kde.org]
It looks like usability took a back seat to "Apple-like" flat, monochromatic design on this one.
Re: (Score:2)
configurability (Score:3, Interesting)
And, this being KDE, by the time it's accepted in mainstream, it's going to be configurable, so you can make it paint the title bar of active application in neon pink, if you want.
Re: (Score:1)
Larger areas present easier targets to hit quickly and accurately. This is important with the mouse as well as touch, because making all your UI elements too small makes everything slower to use while you're trying to hit a tiny target.
See also: Fitts' Law.
"Fitts's law (often cited as Fitts' law) is a model of human movement primarily used in human–computer interaction and ergonomics that predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and
Re: (Score:1)
I knew something looked buggered about that image, but I couldn't figure out what -- I was too distracted by frustration at the equally user-hostile oversimplified flat outline icons.
What's worse is that it's so awful without even including the planned window decorations, which someone on the team posted to OpenDesktop in April [opendesktop.org]. Imagining the two put together...not pleasant.
Android L? (Score:1)
Who gives a shit about Android L? Are Slashdotters too dumb to know what a release candidate is now?
KDE announces releases... (Score:1)
....that are not releases. Really wish they would stop that. I went to XFCE with the great "4" announcement. that screwed up everything that I expect a finished window manager to do. Anyway, isn't this a dupe? [slashdot.org]
It's just a theme... (Score:1)
Odds are your distro will create it's own default theme if this one proves unpopular.
FFS, that's not what a release candidate is (Score:3)
If you label something as a release candidate, what you are saying is "we think this has been completely finished. Everybody check it out, and if we haven't screwed up, we'll rename it as the final version". Hence the name - it's a candidate for release. "Release candidate" is not another name for "preview" or "beta".
This is the kind of crap that gave KDE 4 such a bad reputation. Labelling things as done when they are still major works in progress. If you don't think it's finished, don't call it a release candidate. Don't label it as a new major version. If it's not finished, then it's neither of those things.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the kind of crap that gave KDE 4 such a bad reputation. Labelling things as done when they are still major works in progress. If you don't think it's finished, don't call it a release candidate. Don't label it as a new major version. If it's not finished, then it's neither of those things.
That's completely true. The worst part is that it isn't the fault of the KDE developers. Your quote isn't in the release announcement, it's in the writeup on some website that most likely doesn't have any connection to the KDE developers (or, apparently, a clue). The release announcement says, "This is one last chance to test for bugs and check for problems before the final release next week." That is what a release candidate is.
KDE 4.0 was pretty much the same way. The developers proclaimed quite loudly
Re: (Score:2)
There wasn't a single hint of this in the official release announcement [kde.org] and they were pushing it like crazy to end-users. Quote:
Re: (Score:1)
It was a release announcement, it wasn't out of context, and it was entirely relevant.
How could you debunk the point I'm making when all I have to do is link to their own release announcement and point out what it says directly disagrees with you?
Design (Score:1)