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No, no one is flaming (or should be flaming) people writing software in their own language. I don't know where you got that from. If you're talking about closed-source apps, I might agree that people might complain about English being the only choice. But with open source - no. The standard "do it yourself" often apply, interpreted as "translate it yourself". No need to rewrite the entire app, if the app was made cleverly. gettext will parse many c programs just fine.

No one expects you to translate your software into 11 zillion different languages. What you might do, however, is to make it easier for translators. This may be such things as not hard-coding US-ASCII everywhere. This may sound simple, but I've seen many programs not accept filenames with non-US-ASCII characters, or where such characters simply break the app.

It might also be to write the strings in your app so that they are easy understandable even out of their context. This helps translators a lot. Avoid TLAs when you can and write easy understandable sentences.

Also try to avoid assuming that all others whould like the same localization as you. Don't hard-code these settings in your application for example:

• AM/PM clock
• Legal paper format
• Weeks begin on Sunday
• Date formats and date strings
• Inches

As for american programmers writing in english: Don't assume that most programmers writing applications in English are american. If you look at the contributor list of many free software projects (like the GNOME and KDE ones) you'll see that a lot of them are not from the US, maybe even the majority. English just happens to be the default language that applications are written in, and then translated into as many other languages as possible.

Disclaimer: I am a Translation Project translator, translating GNU software.

More precisely, KOffice will use a documented XML based format. It should be a tared archive with the XML files and other data files referenced, like images and other. And if you put the link into an <a href tag>, it would have been better.

First beta (1.90, "Konfucious")in a week, gold (2.0, "Kopernicus") in September.

trying to get to ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/snapshots/ I discover that the server is down - has it been /.ed already?

Then there's K-Office, which, my sources assure me, be available RSN. Even then, as a fairly immature suite of programs, I doubt KOffice will stack up to WordPerfect Office, at least initially, which has had years and years of polishing to make it what it is today.

There are snapshots available now, if you want to try it out and hopefully make bug reports or feature requests. (Or contribute code!) Just remember that these are daily snapshots, not releases, and might or might not compile on any given day.

Look for GNOME-DB or wait for Katabase, included in KDE2 (release in July -personnal estimation). There are always linux solutions!

Who would have though it would end like this :)

I seem to recall a couple of months ago seeing a link off www.kde.org for an open source DVD player. Looked like a major hack to get it to work, and since I don't own a DVD player........

You mean, for instance, an operating system?

Or maybe a graphical desktop environment or two?

How terribly shortsighted. I'm sure there are many people out there who are up to the challenge.

Besides, what you're basically saying is that open source projects don't scale very well, and all of the above examples disprove that.
---

Linux has no Arabic, and I am using Windows 98 for that.

Well, funny you should mention that, since the coordinator for KDE translation mentioned to me recently that Arabic is high on the list of languages that still need to be translated to.

Your English seems to be very good, so why don't you head over to the KDE translation page and read the Translation HOWTO to see if you could help to change the situation (This would be a help to all KDE users, not just Linux).

Or, if KDE isn't your 'thing' you could look into other i18n projects in the free software community.

So we have to keep an open mind about this, and make the most out of it

Getting involved is the best way I know to 'make the most of something' :-)

Chris

Linux has no Arabic, and I am using Windows 98 for that.

Well, funny you should mention that, since the coordinator for KDE translation mentioned to me recently that Arabic is high on the list of languages that still need to be translated to.

Your English seems to be very good, so why don't you head over to the KDE translation page and read the Translation HOWTO to see if you could help to change the situation (This would be a help to all KDE users, not just Linux).

Or, if KDE isn't your 'thing' you could look into other i18n projects in the free software community.

So we have to keep an open mind about this, and make the most out of it

Getting involved is the best way I know to 'make the most of something' :-)

Chris

Why not just use Konqueror in KDE 2.0? It's fast, a KOM/KParts Embedabble object, HTML 4.0 compliant, has ECMAScript support, and can use the 1.2.2 Java VM if installled. Plus, KDE is generally cool too. Please don't judge KDE on RedHat's deeply borked default install - they're having a fit of NIH syndrome. Try Mandrake instead.

There is a HTML version of the KDE 2.0 Release plan up at http://deve loper.kde.org/development-versions/kde-2.0-release -plan.html.

Uhh, I thought the schedule said that kdelibs will be frozen by the end of this month, and the first beta is planned to be released around May.

Here's what I found on the KDE News Page: The schedule is very aggressive, with a true KDE 1.9 beta due out at the beginning of May. Looks like the final release is still a few months away!

• KDE
  
• Open Sound System (I think)
  
• DOSEmu
  
  All pretty cool/useful stuff

The other major factor I think of that favours Minix is that the codebase is completely stable, and has been for a long time. While it may have been at the root of the dispute between him and Torvalds, Tanenbaum's insistence on keeping the feature-set small enough to run on legacy hardware has made the code much more easily navigable and instructive. Having said that, comparing and contrasting the two would be valuable towards an overall understanding of the topic.

The only thing annoying about Minix is that it didn't run under VMware at the time (v1.0), so when programming kernel patches you had to resort to using bochs in the code-test-debug cycle. Setting up bochs at home was a real pain, and it still ran painfully slowly.

I don't think there is any book that fully documents in detail the workings of the Linux kernel like Tanenbaum does Minix; the rate that the kernel is evolving probably makes this a futile exercise. I do recall a thick book in the University library that covered the workings of a BSD kernel (NetBSD?), which would be handy in a course such as this, but not the title :(.

Just random thoughts :)

Plus, bugfixes come quite quickly (usually on the order of once a month or so), instead of in two service packs a year.

Sut mae'r project am cyfieithu KDE? Oes rhywun yma sy'n helpu?

From what information is available, what do you think of Eazel? Is this necessary, or are Gnome and KDE too geek-driven to ever meet consumer preference/demand? Do you think that Gnome or KDE could be modified to create a consumer-level GUI, or will it take a project like Eazel to start from scratch? How essential is all this to the success of Linux?

- KDevelop announcement

- KDK announcement

- Press release

- KDevelop announcement

- KDK announcement

- Press release

You have probably received 400 emails about this already, but just in case - here goes. Both Gnome and KDE already have graphical file managers, contrary to the article which said neither has a graphical file manager. Here is a screenshot of the Gnome file manager and here is one of KDE's.

Please issue a retraction so people are not misled. It is very important to the Linux community that people in the more general computing public become aware that Linux is becoming easier to use. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither has a graphical file manager. Instead of clicking on icons or menus to open and save documents, users must type file names into a command-line interface.

Not to mention: "We've never used either desktop, and if we have, then we didn't really know what we were doing! We're just talking out of our collective asses ... in an attempt to make this seem like bigger, more important news."

WHY?! Because they BOTH have graphical file managers and they BOTH offer cute little icons to click on, AND shortcuts, and much more...

However, there is some good stuff missing. First of all, it's not easy to do half of the stuff when it comes to icons and junk. In KDE, it's very difficult to chose an icon unless it's in one of the specified directories, and it also only supports XPM; GNOME supports a little more than that. So, yes, there is still work to be done.

I think that you have a good point BUT I do have to point out KOffice and the GNOME-Office suites. Now, they're not perfect by far and maybe they don't offer all of the features of MS-Office (yet) but they have the *ability* to do so via the OpenSource development model that they use. Not only are they nearly as functional, but in some cases they actually work *better* than their MS-equivalents.

Example: PowerPoint only creates presentations that will work correctly with IE4.x or higher; KPresenter creates (albeit static) presentations you can even view with G!zilla and/or KFM, Konqueror, mozilla, IEx.x, NSx.x... any web browser that supports images, basically. I like that.

Also, when was the last time that you saw Explorer embed a Word document? In a frame? How about PostScript or PDF? Spreadsheets? Microsoft is going to have to worry about people wanting these cool features- I already show them to my friends and they drool, because they want a desktop that can do what mine can.

Ctrl+P. Or... Alt-F, P... same as in KDE, generally...

- What's the key combination to close a window?

Ctrl+F4 to close a window in a multiple-document application. Alt+F4 to close the program itself.... same as in KDE.

- What's the key combination to save a file?

Ctrl+S... same as in KDE.

- Where does Game X install itself in the Start menu?

Any piece of software which has received a Microsoft Windows Windows-Logo certification, is required to ask you what location in the start folder to install. Incidentally, every game I've installed recently in Windows has asked me this (Ultima IX, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, The Sims, Alpha Centauri, Starcraft, and others). Oddly enough, the only recent game I've come across that -doesn't- let you choose, is a Microsoft game: Age of Empires II. Go figure...

Precious few KDE (or GNOME) apps, especially the non-KDE (or GNOME) ones, actually install themselves into your "menu" anyhow. Certainly there aren't nice, organized links to things like the software's web-page, the documentation, and so on... A lot of Windows programs do this. KDE (and GNOME) do not, except on initial install of the operating system.

Hopefully, -hopefully-, the good folks working on KDE 2.0 will address this issue, and come up with a really great system for installing/uninstalling software designed for their manager. It's about time we dump this text-based autoconf crap for GUI apps, and make install procedures "even your mother could use".

(And before anyone extolls the virtues of the various GUI package managers, I've yet to see one that provides icons... and certainly none of them will propogate said icons for multiple users, so that distributing a new app to all of a machine's users (or uninstalling) is easy.)

Daltorak.

Isn't that the slogan for KDE? I'm pretty sure it has been, since the day it came out.

http://www.kde.org

No, I don't personally use KDE or gnome as a windowing environment, my unix desktop is quite nice with my vanilla Window Maker window manager.

• Linux Internationalisation Initiative
• Linux i18n Project, which is at least loosely affiliated with Mandrake since one of their employees is the contact for the project
• Free Mulitilingual Platforms
• Gnome and KDE have also both been actively pursuing internationalization

I read the the kde-devel list and haven't seen anything about this there or in a search on kde-core-devel , except for a post about Kash moving there.

I'm sure there's something to this but it'd be news to me if the project were moving there.

Otter, who felt the need to correct a moderation injustice but still wanted to post

I read the the kde-devel list and haven't seen anything about this there or in a search on kde-core-devel , except for a post about Kash moving there.

I'm sure there's something to this but it'd be news to me if the project were moving there.

Otter, who felt the need to correct a moderation injustice but still wanted to post

These filesystems are not as simple to interface in as the "Amiga filesystem" or other such stuff, as these FSes have expectations to be able to control somewhat how the kernel manages caches. They're not merely "drop in a patch and all will be well."

As a result, while I agree that it's good to have some diversity now to allow some experimentation, I am far less sure that it will be wise to have four (or more, if rumors of Compaq contribution of AdvFS code turn out to be true...) filesystems integrated in to the "official" kernel stream. There may be merit to having a couple of them, but not likely all of them.

So while I agree that it's quite OK for there to be 5 of them (and that ignores GFS, NTFS, and other stranger options that may be of less direct relevance), I think that there will be, ultimately, a need for several of the "integration projects" to fail.

Otherwise, Linus and others won't have time to fix up NFS3, improve memory management, implement ACLs, implement capabilities, implement IA-64 support, and all the other sorts of things that need to occupy some of their time.

The GUI comparison was pretty good; I agree with Per that it is a Good Thing that we have GNOME and KDE, as this is sufficient diversity to ensure that there is some competition whilst not being so much as to be completely fragmenting. It is unfortunate that this leaves some potentially good toolkits like FLTK or Tk or Amulet or Garnet or InterViews "out in the cold."

The point is that variety is useful at the point in time at which you're not sure what the results should look like.

But after that point, variety comes at the cost of having to support additional "development streams," and while there is logic to "letting the best man win," this has the side effect that if you agree with this, you have to also agree with the notion that the "not quite best men" need to be able to lose.

I haven't figured out how to do similar dragging and dropping on the desktop or between applications with KDE or Gnome. I'm pretty sure it's there,

GTK+ 1.2[.x] (the toolkit for Gnome - as well as for many non-GNOME applications) has support for drag-and-drop, using both the Xdnd protocol and the Motif DnD protocol. Qt 2.0 (the toolkit for the under-development KDE 2.0) also supports drag-and-drop using Xdnd (but not, as far as I know, the Motif DnD protocol); I think Qt 1.x supported DnD on UNIX/X11, but not using Xdnd (unless one of the later 1.x's added support for it, which it might have).

Here's Troll Tech's documentation on DnD with Qt (probably for 2.0). There may be additional KDE APIs atop that; try plowing through the KDE developer's site.

Here's the GTK+ reference documentation section on DnD APIs; again, there may be additional GNOME APIs atop it - if you plow through the GNOME developer's site, you may find something.

I'm pretty sure it's there, but it doesn't seem as integrated as it did on Irix.

"Doesn't seem as integrated" in what sense? Presumably not in the API sense, as you haven't yet looked at the API; maybe fewer KDE and/or GNOME applications support DnD, but I'm not going to assume that's the case.

As an early promoter of fvwm, we came across many obstacles in the corporate world
to it - the reason was, usually, that CDE was the standard to which the corporation
had to adhere. However, the inception of KDE (and GNOME) has huge advantages
of the archaic systems that were Motif/CDE. For example, something as simple as
adding an application as a menu item into CDE used to have you looking up the
reference manual (which was not clear on the matter).

KDE and GNOME are a breath of fresh air - they will undoubtedly become the new
"standards" on the desktop for Unix platforms. Developers ignoring these
desktop systems are going to find they've missed the boat - big style.


Having seen some of the developments going on with KDE2 such as the
Neural network window placement policy I'd also stick my neck out and say that
they have a good chance in the next 3 years of making inroads into the NT-on-the-desktop market.

FYI, KDE is about to switch to Unicode. See http://developer.kde.org/kde 2arch/KDE-Unicode-Howto.html

Ktop and xosview are, last time I checked, the only graphical monitoring apps that give independent load graphs for each CPU on SMP systems. Which is good for proving to yourself that Q3Arena SMP support is broken.

Personally, as a former Windows 95b user, I prefer KDE over GNOME. However, I use tons of the GNOME apps that came with my RedHat 6.1 distro. I simply find the KDE interface more intuitive (or probably just closer to what I'm used to) and more stable. It's good to read things like:

The wm-spec team is almost ready with their new window manager specification which is unified across GNOME and KDE.

Anyways, I wish the GNOME team the best. If you're not a programmer, you can still help by sending in bug reports as you find the need to do so.

koffice looks extremely promising.

Note:

• GNOME Canvas ;
• It's not clear what there may be that is equivalent with KDE, but there will likely be something, whether in KDE or in Qt;
• GnuStep will support whatever the underlying infrastructure does, and it would make a lot of sense to get Display Ghostscript to do anti-aliasing...

Long and short is that it may be quite appropriate to have antialiasing managed within application libraries as opposed to directly in X.

There's a windows explorer clone for KDE called Kruiser. I has many great features, including samba browsing, and, oh yeah, it's GPL'd. Get it here .

KDE is the desktop environment. It runs on top of XFree86, which is what controls the overall graphics. When you say that KDE is better than XFree86, you must be confusing XFree86 with Gnome, another desktop environment available under and the X Window system.

KDE is the desktop environment. It runs on top of XFree86, which is what controls the overall graphics. When you say that KDE is better than XFree86, you must be confusing XFree86 with Gnome, another desktop environment available under and the X Window system.

According to the company history:

Prolog Development Center (PDC) was founded in 1984 with the development of a Prolog compiler - later to be known as Turbo Prolog, PDC Prolog and now Visual Prolog as its main activity. Since then PDC has established itself as a world leader in the development of Prolog and related products.

Today, PDC consists of an R&D and a consultancy division. The R&D Division is concerned with the development of the Visual Prolog compiler together with new methodologies and development tools.

Borland might be an evidence against the common contention that "Microsoft is the company that never produces anything, but merely buys out products from other companies that are creative," as many of Borland's products were not natively produced, but rather resold on behalf of other componies.

By the way, that was Ashton Tate that used to own the dBase trademark...

As for integration with DBM variants, I see little importance to that. InterBase is a relational database (or at least, as relational as they come), as opposed to merely being a data store. The value would be in sharing code between InterBase and PostgreSQL or MySQL, or maybe using InterBase as a "data store" for persistent data in KDE or GNOME.

6.14 Can I get rid of the Trash/Templates/Autostart icons?

Yes. Simply edit $KDEDIR/bin/startkde and replace 'kfm' with 'kfm -w'. If this doesn't work, here's another way. Add the following lines to $HOME/.kde/share/config/kfmrc:

[Paths]
Trash=/home/me/Trash/
Desktop=/home/me/Desktop
Templates=/home/me/Templates/
Autostart=/home/me/Autostart/

The effect is to take trash, templates, and autostart and put them into your home directory instead of your $HOME/Desktop directory. You will have to restart KDE, and you may have to delete the icons from the desktop the first time--be sure to move anything you have in autostart into $HOME/Autostart before deleting it from the desktop. And then you have a nice, clean desktop with no "My Computer" sort of look.

As an aside, posting anonymously when asking for help is not always the most sensible idea....

-- Craig

Interestingly enough, it's from kde.org's "Food for Thought" section. Go here.

If I were them, I'd put some serious cash into the following:

1. First and foremost, web browser development. Put some serious capital behind the Mozilla project, to make up for the lack of support from Netscape/AOL. As Dave Whitinger pointed out, losing the Browser battle could lose us the War. Mozilla has the potential to be a much better browser than Internet Explorer, especially once it becomes XML and SGML compliant. If you can build perl and python interpreters into Mozilla, you have an IE slayer.
2. Linux Laptop development. Linux is a pain in the rear when it comes to laptops; if VA could start selling them commercially, they would have a virtual lock on the market.
3. Start putting some major capital into open source office suites like KOffice or GNOME Office. This is much less necessary than (1) or (2) since there already exist excellent office suites for Linux (including StarOffice), but it may still be a very good idea just-in-case Sun decides to pull the plug on Linux support, in favor of (say) Solaris 8 for Intel.

We are a small Internet development shop, running a few servers and a mixed bag of development stations. Currently, there are three Linux boxen on our network, running the latest RedHat releases. We are looking to put in three more systems, for a total of 5 running some Linux/UNIX like OS.

• A MySQL server box
• A Firewall
• A Mail/Fileserver
• 2 Webservers running Apache / PHP(Zend)

When we perform this upgrade, we are willing to change operating systems if there is a demonstrable benefit. Due to recent slashdot postings we have started looking at OpenBSD as our server OS. Now, we do understand that RedHat is not the only Linux distribution available, but we don't really want to get into a Linux/Linux war here. We don;t mind changing if we should for technical reasons - but the Linux world seems more hip and vibrant, and we really like the penguin T-shirts we have... so if we can stay on Linux then we want to.

So far, we like what we hear about OpenBSD - but we don't know if the things we like are inherent in the relative designs of OpenBSD or if they are results of policy choices by the OpenBSD team. If they are the results of policy decisions, then with any luck a Linux distribution could be found that exhibited the same characteristics?

Features we like about OpenBSD:

• It seems like the release/testing cycle is extremely carefully controlled. While a freewheeling machine with lots of OpenSource code on the desktop is a good thing, for a server it seems that a smaller group exercising testing/release control is a more controlled system.
• The integrated crypto looks great, the one time use passwords look like a big winner here.
• There are a lot of references to OpenBSD's security and stability - but none with any specific examples or technical backing.
• The file layout on OpenBSD seems like a winner, it looks like things live in a well thought out and logical set up - not in a mishmash like RedHat.

Assumptions:

These systems will be running the server software they need, and X11 + (Gnome||KDE) for administration and so on. They will not be running the latest stuff from Linuxberg or a bunch of things that would be on a desktop OS. So we are going to try very hard not to introduce any instabilities. We aren't going to be compiling running games, sound drivers and the like that integrate directly into the kernel.

The questions are:

1. Is OpenBSD more secure in some fundamental way that a well maintained Linux distribution?
2. Is OpenBSD more stable than a well maintained Linux distribution?
3. Will the OpenSource software we normally need (firewall, Apache, PHP4, Perl, Python) and so on probably compile on OpenBSD?
4. Does OpenBSD have something like clustering support (Beowulf) and failover?
5. Is the performance of a well maintained OpenBSD system better than a well maintained Linux distribution?
6. Does Linux have anything like the one time use password system?
7. Does OpenBSD support multiple CPU's better then Linux?

Thanks for taking the time, and hopefully we can keep the flames down to nothing and talk about technical issues this time.

Hi Tom, If I seem trollish, its just a slashdot atmospheric thing and reading too many comments.

/* Once again we see the problem of doing nothing more than trying to copy Microsoft. That does not make sense to me, and it doesn't seem to make much sense to you, either. But you're doing it anyway, just because Microsoft does, even though it's easy to come up with something more sensible. This stuff is not easier to use than what we already have. It's just different, assuming a different set of prior knowledge. This means that the learning curve is very steep for non-Microsoft people. That's why it's annoying. */

Please replace every occurance of Microsoft in the above with Unix, and you'll see why KDE is the way it is. The target audience of KDE is more familiar with non Unix computing - you are the reverse. Unfortunately, this does put your needs slightly lower on the scale of things to do than the needs of one of potentially 200Million users who have used a Windows or a Windows like system. Or even systems unlike Windows, such as RiscOS, who can still adapt to KDE more than bare Unix. Oh, and the Alt,Ctrl, Menu and ShortCut standard was around before Windows took off, it became quite common in GEM, in character mode DOS applications, in OS/2, across the micro computer industry segment in fact. Like much else, MS copied it and got credit for innovation as a result. Sorry, just showing the historical background out of which the target users of KDE have come, and where it differs from Unix.

/* I don't know what this "minimize" jazz is. Sounds like xterm's mechanism for selecting either the "tiny" or the "unreadable" font. I can't see why close would ever mean something other than iconify. Please don't use this silly "close" word. Use "exit" when you mean exit, and use "iconify" when you mean iconify. Where is the configuration setting to fix this? */

Its a Windowsism, and a Netscapeism (KDE got the idea for toolbarslike it has from Netscape) but it may exist on Macs too. Its seen on a lot of X11 Windowmanagers these days, especially non fvwm based ones which don't put icons on the desktop, since thats where icons representing programs and files go. I regret that that ones probably hard coded, so you'd need to recompile.

/* First of all, I got the idea from one of the random menus down in the left corner. It's got the happycon with the words "rearrange icons" next to it. It looks like a "recycle" glyph. If you simply used words right from the get-go, you'd never have the problem of someone having to look up the meaning of a happycon, because you'd have a word.*/

The one that says, "refresh desktop", in the Utilities menu? Seems consistent usage to me. Its nice to have pictures and text.

/* You should make the default reasonable. */

It is, but just not for you. I think your outside the target audience for the default setting. When looking for a page up / down options, I'd be unpleasantly surprised if it wasn't mapped as it is.

/* Maybe you need to have a "Unix defaults"
meta-setup option. */

Create one, and post it the kde-users or kde-devel mailing list, asking for it to be integrated into the CVS version so it be released in Krash, or the betas to follow it.

/* But I'm not allowed to search the info stuff, which has always been my complain about it. And the searches that I can do don't bother to provide useful output. */

Perhaps KDE 2 can search info - I haven't checked that one. You could try Krash, the alpha release on Dec 15, and mail the author of kdehelps replacement with a feature request. Mailing the authors has always worked for me, they seem keen to implement stuff that users want.

/* First of all, it turns out that the program does correctly use my MANPATH if started from the command line. It does not do so when started from kdm(1). That's probably because my user environment wasn't loaded then. */

That may be it, but I'm sure its worked for me using kde or console to boot to. Its probably horribly vendor and release dependent across all the target platforms.

/* You've never heard of "standard part of the operating system" versus "add-on stuff"? What are you, an rpm(1) victim? :-) */

Oops, I'm just used to thinking of everything on the multiple CD's as part of the OS since I started uisng Linux.

/* What address do I send bug reports to? */

The authors email address from the help system should tell you ;-) All KDE apps should list the authors in the help file. There is also a centralised bug tracking system, possibly at

/* No, no, no, no, no, no! This is what I mean about being disrespectful to Unix users. We have already specified our editing preferences, just as we've specified our manpath, bin path, etc. ^W is one of the most commonly typed editing characters for many of us. And you've made it into something that destroys a program! That's just plain suicidal. Horrible. */

But also convenient, comfortable and changeable. The first two don't apply to you, but they do to me, and many others.

/* While I'm on the subject, you don't seem to pay attention to ^C to interrupt programs. Don't make me find stupid happicons. This is as bad as lynx. ^C means interrupt. */

It means copy, actually. Want a vote on it? ;-) Luckily, its changeable. What you want is probably Alt-F4, a direct Windows copy. Again, configurable. Ctrl-C seems to be accepted as a valid setting, though.

/* No, no, no. A THOUSAND TIMES, NO!. Control-C is interrupt current activity. Why would I ever use it be an alternative to the middle button? This is super nonintuitive. I know what ^C does, because I set it up with stty(1). This is so Unix-hostile! */

Middle button? What middle button? (I know ;-)) Most PC mice have two, Macs have one. Thats why I like Ctrl-C for Copy, since Emulate-Middle-Button isn't really too great. Its changeable, so its not Unix hostile, just different. You can set a KDE wide keybinding for copy and many others. Just that stty doesn't set KDE, same as KDE doesn't set console apps keybindings.

/* Wrong. If you have something in the space already, and something in your cut buffer, you need to clear it first before you paste. Look at Netscape's ALT-F find command. */

Um, in this case you paste in and then clear out the cruft that was there before, Its not nice, but if works. Just paste at the start, and then delete to the end after, since after the cursor is what was there before.

/* If the program isn't requiring keyboard input, it should use the regular keyboard for its actions, so a slash in kdehelp, etc. You could use Meta-/ or whatever if you were in keyboard input mode already. */

Modal applications seem a little, well, dated. Its why vi has a hard to learn rep, since people aren't used to modes to enter text as opposed to modes to enter commands, searches, and whatever else vi can do. I think Meta / or Ctrl / is the best option here unless you never type /

/* Where? Don't tell me "see the control center". I hate that. I have to search for everything. Why can't we be given a simple but discrete command to type in, or a discrete file name to edit? Why must we always poke around randomly till we find something? */

KWM has an rc file, its ~/.kde/share/config/kwmrc
The format is described in KDEhelp, under the section "Getting the most out of KDE" Window Manager (its linked on KDEhelps opening page), and then in the configuration section under the heading kwmrc. All KDE apps have rc files in text format. Its part of the app template, you get it by default.

/* This is completely Unix hostile. I've explained this to you before. I already told the system my preferences. Respect them. */

Sorry, you'll have to run through a final config change to tell KDE your preferences.

/* Sort your WM config to put them over the window that creates them. */

You could just choose manual placement, (in kwmrc ) and get any popup windows to place yourself. Or just replace KWM with WindowMaker, Enlightenment, BlackBox, wmx, flwm, xfwm or any other KDE complaint Window Manager. Or even non compliant, just tell kpanel not to expect KWM, and you can use your window manager of choice. KDE's quite flexible in that regard. If you like fvwm, well, use fvwm. You may have to edit startkde, its not hard to do.

/* This is extremely Unix-hostile. Can you really not make your Windows rewrite without kicking sand in the faces of Unix programmers? This makes no sense. */

Again, you say its hostile. It makes no sense to write another desktop for Unix programmers, already content with their X11 desktop or lack of one. It could be worse - KDE could be less configurable than it already is.

George Russell

abiword has a pretty good word importer, using the mswordview engine wv.

It doesn't provide 100% M$ Word support yet, and it doesn't do Excel. Still, it's something and it's here today, even though it's not at version 1 just yet.

I haven't checked out koffice yet, but those screen shots look really nice.

There already are; the Python/Qt bindings are very nice, for example, but few people seem to have started writing KDE applications in anything other than C++.

For internal formats, I think the koffice team has chosen an XML based system. See http://lists.kde.org/?l=kd e-koffice&m=93052296812210&w=2 for a long thread about the formats. Also, the FAQ talks about it a little.

I emailed one of the koffice guys a long while ago about MSOffice file format interoperability. He said that the framework was in place to allow modular file format conversions, so MSOffice file formats would be OK. This was a while ago though, so I would like your question answered by the developers, in case they changed their strategy/made progress on this subject.


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Your attention please everyone, if I could just say a few words... I would be a better public speaker.

For internal formats, I think the koffice team has chosen an XML based system. See http://lists.kde.org/?l=kd e-koffice&m=93052296812210&w=2 for a long thread about the formats. Also, the FAQ talks about it a little.

I emailed one of the koffice guys a long while ago about MSOffice file format interoperability. He said that the framework was in place to allow modular file format conversions, so MSOffice file formats would be OK. This was a while ago though, so I would like your question answered by the developers, in case they changed their strategy/made progress on this subject.


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Your attention please everyone, if I could just say a few words... I would be a better public speaker.