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KDE 3.0 Alpha1 Available for Developers
Dre writes: "Just a few weeks after the release of the rock-solid KDE 2.2.1, the KDE Project today announced the release of KDE 3.0 Alpha1. Targeted at developers who want to get a head start on porting or writing applications to KDE 3, the release is pretty much a straight port of the KDE 2.2 branch to Qt 3. However, for developers this brings an impressive array of new features to KDE, including new database classes, new data-aware widgets, improved RAD development with a much-enhanced Qt Designer, a new powerful regular expression class (with full Unicode support), improved internationalization support (including the ability to mix different character sets in the same text), bi-directional language support (for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew), multi-monitor (Xinerama and multi-screen) support, better integration of pure Qt applications into KDE, and hardware-accelerated alpha blending. With the Qt port out of the way, the KDE developers can now focus on the planned
KDE improvements. Read the full announcement here, or go straight to the source
(alternative
link)."
The planned features list seems a little unambitious to me. I know that many of the programmers working on KDE are top-notch, but there needs to be some other talent in there as well. In my opinion the KDE developers need to be concentrating on productivity features. They have the opportunity to be at the forefront of that kind of thing. Microsoft wastes plenty of money in researching that kind of thing, but they lack the flexibility to be cutting edge.
Or did they just not made into press release? Kde 2.2.1 rocks but a bit more speed & responsiveness would be nice. I hope kde guys can achive something like the speed change from 2.1 to 2.2.1.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
They NEED large version number jumps.
But I wish they would start releasing two different product lines: "commercial" and "geek".
Actually I think he meant the 3.0 Alpha was probably unstable, not KDE in general. :P
It sounds like a fine thing to do, to me. Why would a user want their files shared while they were logged out? KDE is meant for desktop systems, not file-servers. Most users turn off their computer while they're not logged in. I like the idea of an easy-to-use filesharing mechanism that works over the Internet integrated with the desktop, it is something MS hasn't done yet but is really logical.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Well.. I beg to differ.
If you are speaking of the average techie.. sure, go use another piece of software.
To a windows convert, being able to select a file/folder and hit 'share' would be great.
"and hardware-accelerated alpha blending"
buzzword or actually implemented in the new KDE/Qt? Alpha blending IMHO increases elegance (not to be confused with usability) of an interface when used properly. Any KDE developer(s) care to explain how and what this actually means? e.g. Render calls, which components use this, etc?
Thanks,
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
they state that they will have C bindings
well that's new I wonder if they are going to anything like GTK C bindings ?
and I think that a web server applet is a bad idea
(although implemeting a control function for apache DAV would be good)
and the really good news is
Remapping/Naming of Modifier Keys: emulation of traditional Mac keyboard, where Ctrl is called "Command", Meta "Alt", and Alt "Apple", and "Apple" has the function of Ctrl. Let Meta be called "Win" for MS Windows users. Let a user without a Meta key easily select another modifier (e.g. CTRL_R) to act as Meta.
that is a blessing, I hope that others follow the example and provide an alternitive mapping
(RISCOS had it like this and I got on well with it, same as the mac I use)
regards
john jones
I'm currious from anyone who has used Gnome and switched to KDE: what do you think the advantages are? I'm open minded enough to consider KDE, but want to know what people feel is better. (Please be more specific than Gnome sucks. That's not going to sway me very much.)
Also, anyone reading this who has left KDE for Gnome tell me what made you switch.
I've always thought this Gnome vs. KDE thing was about as dumb as vi vs. emacs.
So Microsoft throws in IIS, and it's a huge security hole. KDE does it, and it's a 'fine thing to do.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
In OO design, you have the eternal war between cohesion and coupling. High cohesion is good (classes to only one thing). Low coupling is good (classes are independent). But high cohesion leads to high coupling, and vice versa.
MVC is a good design and has a nice balance between cohesion and coupling. Unfortunately, like all good designs, templates and patterns, once you overlay it with a real application it's not so perfect anymore.
Data aware widgets have high coupling. But in turn they get high cohesion. If that level of cohesion is desired (a component, for example), then there's not much you can do about it, MVC or otherwise.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
No, actually almost all cards in XFree 4.1 have xrender support. And so has the closed-src NVIDIA driver for almost 8 months now.
Mac OS X has a web sharing feature, but it simply fires up Apache (with some nice reasonable defaults). That's probably the best approach.
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> KDE programs are ./configure --enable-final
> very slow to compile
use
this reduces compile times by more than half, in my experience
> and load.
Use objprelink.
> but the point is that KDE is a hell of a lot slower than GNOME.
From what? Load times? Look at other big applications written in C++ and compiled in g++, like Mozilla and OpenOffice. They tend to load slow too. If you actually look at speed of applications, KDE wins hands down. Konqueror versus Nautilus. Konqueror wins. KOffice versus StarOffice/OO, KOffice wins. Other components tend to be around the same speed.
> So, from my perspective, which is not that of a compiler designer, GNOME is a lot freaking faster than KDE.
Yeah, "ordinary users" don't even compile KDE or GNOME.
I'm the author of kpf.
It's not supposed to be a fully-fledged webserver. As the comment says, it's designed for sharing files (e.g. with people you are chatting to on IRC.) It just happens to speak HTTP, because firstly that makes it easy to grab files (kfmclient copy http://some.server/some.file file:/tmp/, or wget if you fancy) and the HTTP protocol is a lot simpler to implement than e.g. FTP.
Simplicity of implementation was a major factor in choosing a protocol because kpf must be secure. The less code, the easier to audit.
Note also that the 'real' web servers are not easy to monitor and control in realtime. Because kpf runs as a panel applet, you can watch the connections and the traffic, and even kill off connections if you don't like what they're doing.
You would be surprised how much traffic kpf can handle without threads, subprocesses, etc. - and running within the same process as kicker - all without slowing down kicker.
The home page is here if you'd like to take a look at the current version (which is for KDE 2.x)
RikAfter all, if there's sufficient differences, you're going to end up with two totally different versions of the app's source tree to maintain. I don't know about you, but I don't have that much time on my hands and I suspect that it's the same for them too.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In terms of "getting more out of" my PC... it's a desktop machine. Its entire purpose in life is to provide me with a decent set of apps in a nice, convenient, featureful interfce. "Getting more" does not involve stripping down the UI to bare minimum so I can encode the occasional vorbis file a little bit faster. That's what nice(1) and renice(8) are for.
Maybe it's just me, but the "just to be cool" factor seems to be more prevalent among people who use Blackbox, Enlightenment, and Windowmaker than among those who use a full Gnome or (especially) KDE desktop.
KDE isn't leet, I'm told. Oh well.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I thought they decided Woody was going to be 3.0.
"The code name for the next major Debian release after
potato is ``woody''. This release will be
numbered ``3.0''."
http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/
It's amazing how far KDE has gotten in a few years. But the industry is moving on to different technologies, technologies that greatly simplify applications programming. What is KDE doing?
You sir, are one of three things: ignorant, a troll, or an idiot. KDE is entirely built on components, and I can swap them in and out and upgrade them and advance functionality without upgrading the whole.
Which brings up an important point - 3.0 should look just like the existing 2.2.1, with no new (user) features. The major number bumped up *because* of the component nature of KDE - the new version is the exact same (on the front end), but is binarily incompatable with 2.x. The back end gives advances that will allow the 3.x line to advance quickly on the front end.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The main reason for two different APIs is because they are both, most likely, architectured completely differently from each other. One is OO while the other is procedural.
A simple wrapper around one would only lead to a mess similar to Microsoft's MFC, which started out as a wrapper around old procedural windows APIs. Anyone who has used MFC knows the evils of such wrapper APIs.
KDE should consider using a interpreted language for desktop productivity apps exactly one year after Microsoft does. Try again in 2005.
That means that it is a lot harder to build component-based applications in the KDE environment than in an environment based on a language that has such support.
But, sadly, your response seems pretty typical of the KDE crowd: you don't even appreciate the issue and label anybody who disagrees with you a "troll".
Sounds like my probloems when I used onjprelink to compile kde and qt. Much faster app and kde starts, but unfortunately a little unstable. W/the SuSE RPMS that don't use onjprelink, KDE 2.2.1 is a bit slower (though still faster than any other 2.x) and rock-stable.
Greets,
Anno.
Hi Rik,
do you plan to implement webdav and do you know if there's a corresponding client for kde? Can konqui handle it?
Exactly; on Linux, it's 'justified' to have a web server running for no good reason. On Microsoft it's 'inexcusable' and 'stupid.' Want to share files on UNIX? NFS. Samba. FTP. Want to do it automatically? Then screw Morpheous, I'll just troll the @home subnets for open kpf shares.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Yes, I fully agree with both your premise and your conclusion: it is a lot harder to build object-based applications in the Gnome environment than in KDE. And your point is?
That may be your list. In fact, Java is succeeding so spectacularly because it makes reuse and componentization much easier than C++. And, yes, Microsoft copied Java for just that reason. Now, why is KDE still mucking around with C++?
Not at all. On some problems, manual storage management is faster, on many GC is faster.
the run time of a program that uses it becomes less predictable,
The only real-time, predictable dynamic memory management systems I have ever seen have been based on garbage collection. Theoretically, it's possible to implement real-time, predictable manual storage allocators, but nobody ever seems to.
and because it blurs the point at which an object is destructed releasing other resources (like files) becomes problematic.
Resources whose release has externally visible effects should be released manually, with safety checks. Unreferenced memory is a special case because it can be freed without any effect on the program and because checking access to it is too expensive.
Oh, and C++ has had reflection (aka RTI) for some years. It is an add on - just like it is for Java
C++ RTTI only gives you "instanceof". Java reflection gives you access to fields and methods (and it's not an "add on").