Slashdot Mirror
KDE 3.0 beta 1 is out
From the development team who tries to break every development speed record (last month they released KDE 2.2.2) comes KDE 3.0 beta 1, with lots of new features, new QT (3.0.1). It is beta 1 so expect crashes. You can find release notes and download locations over . A full feature list of whats planned to be on KDE 3.0 is also available (hmm, quite a big list) and some screenshots are available here. Please read the README files for your favorite distribution before installing the files as those packages are not replacing the KDE 2.2.X binaries (if you have it installed).
I have been part of the KDE team for a few years now, and slow development is certainly not something which I have experienced.
Development is not always about graphical updates to the interface - and KDE 3.0 encompasses some architectural and some extended functionality.
We are all (KDE and GNOME) evolving fine, and if you are concerned about it, why not help?
--- Jono Bacon - http://www.jonobacon.org/ Writer - Web Developer - Musician
What did you expect? Animated icons? fancy colors? A new task bar?
... .If it aint broke, dont fix it!
There is this old saying
What is wrong with the GUI elements of KDE 2.2? And why should they be changed in 3.0?
Microsoft needs to change the visual appeal with each new version of Windows, because tahts the only thing that catches the user's attention. Its a pity you are comparing the 'eye candy' of every new release with the real work that is done in newer version of Gnome and KDE.
Think about it...
Don't Panic
Apple's interface hasn't changed for 10 years (until OS-X). It was just good, people were used to it. The interface doesn't need to change every year (like Windows seems to suggest). On the contrary.
I think the KDE interface is getting near perfect (as far as look&feel is concerned). Making changes just confuses users and adding ever more bloat (like the WinXP themes) is counterproductive.
As for myself, I have been using bare X11/twm for the past 15 years and have no reason to change that. It does the job (for me, admittedly not for everyone), I'm used to it.
It is sad to see how many people even in the Open Software camp seem to be infected by the Microsoft idea of never ending "upgrade" cycles.
I first used KDE in the pre version 1 betas, and the look and feel hasn't changed much since then. This is A Good Thing, because it means they got it right in the first place. When I first tried out KDE the current state of the art in unix desktops was CDE. When I first saw KDE my view (and that of my then colleagues) was "OK, that's the X desktop sorted, now let's move on". Since then most of the change has been under the bonnet (hood), enabling applications running under KDE to play nicely together, together with new applications which use this functionality (Konqueror, Koffice).
It is a true tribute to KDE that a major version change doesn't look or feel much different.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
OK, I checked out the screen shots. Looks just like my current KDE 2.2.1.
KDE is a good product, don't get me wrong. But why does it have to look just like MSFT's products?
I actually would like to work more on finding desktops/WM's that do not look like MSFT. It's interesting to see what other ideas are out there and to see who's got a fresh new paradigm on this desktop. After all, it's not really a desktop anymore.
I second that. And because the codebase does not change, it should be a lot more stable than KDE2.0.
I know a lot of people who have tried KDE2.0 and left it because it was quite buggy.
KDE3.0 will (hopefully) be stable from version.0 on, so the large audience trying the .0 version won't be scared away from it.
I think KDE3 will make inroads in the desktop-market.
I don't really know why you want Gecko so much. KHTML is just as fast, if not faster, than Gecko. For a comparison, try loading this page (which is just straight CSS, no images, so it's a good rendering test) in the latest Konqueror (2.2.2x) and the latest Mozilla/Galeon. You'll notice that it renders much faster in KHTML. Now, I'm not saying this would be true of every page (although it may be!), but I think it goes to show that KHTML can stnd on its own, and there is really no need to use Gecko in Konqueror.
Hmmm. Well, releasing screenshots certainly invites the user to view the 3.0 release as primarily visual. You can hardly fault the original post for that. But I would make two other points. First: yes, the GUI is lacking in some areas, and could stand some fixing. For example, whenever Gnome fans throw up a screenshot of Gnome and say "looky looky, we look lots better" -- well, as a KDE fan, I have to admit that Gnome does look better. But that's only the icons. Gnome has a better artist working for them somewhere, and KDE could stand to find a master artist of their own. That could be part of KDE 3. As an aside, I prefer KDE because KDE has better widgets. Ever looked at a row of checkboxes in KDE? It's obvious what's checked. Now try that with Gnome. It's not at all obvious to me. KDE has better scrollbars, too. Oh! And one other thing: KDE's default titlebars make great use of "grip" (the bumps that you can "grab" to move the object around), but the rest of KDE pretty much ignores grip. It shouldn't. When you resize a window, the bottom right corner should have grip bumps. Any area that you "grab" that has room for grib bumps should use it, it's a useful visual cue.
But there is another aspect to your post that could stand to be responded to. If 3.0 is not going to be about eye candy, and is instead about the underpinnings of the product, then what about the big criticisms that get lobbed at KDE? Will 3.0 find ways to seriously optimize its code for speed/performance gains? I just skimmed the to-do list, and didn't see speed getting much of a priority. What about reliability? I see that Qt 3 is supposed to deliver some of this. What about the built-in database that comes with 3.0? Can that be used to bring some of the BeOS file management features to Linux? And let's merge the GUI stuff with the speed issues: ever moved your mouse around the screen while an app was launching? Notice the very cool animated icon "attached" to your mouse arrow -- the icon of the app, to let you know it's launching. Well, aside from how cool that feature is, it's also slow -- you can move the mouse arrow all the way across the screen, and the poor animated launch icon will be halfway behind. I'd like to see that fixed. In fact, I'd like to see it completely integrated with the mouse arrow, transforming the arrow icon for those few seconds, to make it visually more cohesive.
To sum up: speed, reliability, speed, reliablity, icons, speed, reliability. That's what I'd like from KDE 3.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Seriously, what have you done? Have you sent the KDE team any ideas? Have you drawn up any ideas of what you think a superior UI is? Given them a detailed description of what you want and why you think it's better than what they're doing now? No, I doubt you have. But, being a board for geeks, it's all about bitching and not about doing.
;)
The KDE team has always seemed open minded for new ideas, and they're always saying that anyone can contribute. For everyone out there that doesn't like the UI, GET INVOLVED! Shees, people lavish the open source/free software culture and then turn around and show they have no idea what it's about. You don't have to be a programmer to contribute to projects. I mean, if all the supposed UI and human factors experts who post on Slashdot got together, we'd have the most perfect interface possible by next May
To the KDE team members who read Slashdot, I have an idea. Each time a story gets posted about KDE, and people complain about the UI, why don't you start tracking how many people actually submit ideas to you. I'm sure it would be some interesting statistics.
SVG Icons, SVG widgets, 60fps animation on widgets and icons, genie effect,motion blur, alpha channeling,morphing animation windows widgets and menus, full use of Gforce special effects on the GUI is how you can help the interface. Theres no excuse why we shouldnt take advantage of graphics cards that can render millions of polygons per second and do all of these effects i mentioned with ease. And when you have 1-2-3-4ghz CPUs and 512-1gig of ram it makes absolutely no sense why you should be worrying about your resources.
Its time to update the GUI, and make use of this new hardware. Why have 80s style GUI and software on 2000+ hardware? Really the GUI and software hasnt changed much since the 80s except for games, development tools and $10000 photoshop like tools.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Actually, KDE's icons are great in the sense of an icon designer. The key term is usability, not looks. GNOME2 appears to go the same route, and it is looking pretty similiar to KDE2's icons. Compare these two screenshots:
icons of gnome2:
here
icons of kde2:
here
Notice gnome2's new toolbar icons. I think this is a great step in terms of usability. GNOME 1.x's toolbar icons were photorealistic and therefore, quite horrible from an icon designer's perspective.