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KDE 3.0 Release Plan Updated
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 :)
KDE 3.0 has plenty of new features. 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.
The KDE release timing has absolutely nothing to do with Gnome. Take a look at the 3.0 release plan -- 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).
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
(win95,win98,winME,winXP - all bugfixes for win3.1)
Damn, you're a fucking moron.
Yeah, the AC is right - what the hell did they fix?? ;)
(the awesome power or the winking face should negate most of the flamebait effect)
sic transit gloria mundi
On area I think KDE really excels is with kioslaves, which allow *any* KDE application access 'files' by a wide variety of means.i ma p4*nntp*sftp*tar
*audiocd*samba*filesystem*ftp*gopher*gzip*http*
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.
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
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
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
WinXP has delivered, and is superior to Linux in everway.
It sure is. Especially XP's implementation of UPnP.
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.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
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.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
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.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
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.
...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
Xft fonts are broken with Qt 3 and certain combinations of XFree86... to solve this: remove the LD_BIND_NOW=true from in front of the kdeinit line in the file "startkde". There is a significant performance penalty though.
This is supposedly fixed in XFree86 4.2 but I am having problems getting it to work.
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I care. There's a lot of things going on behind the scenes for Gnome 2. Gnome 2 is a major redesign. If you noticed, the sheer number of compound document/corba/etc architectures that appeared and died in the 1.0->1.2->1.4 cycle could only result in chaos.
Gnome 2 is a big, big clean-up and for the first time Gnome will provide a stable, mature and reliable development architecture. KDE has had this since KDE 2, and just like KDE took off in terms of application and accessory development since the KDE 2 release, Gnome app development will take off once Gnome 2 is out.
Let me explain: The major part of an environment like Gnome or KDE is not what is visible to the user, but the framework. Things like DCOP or KIO in KDE, orbit and bonobo in Gnome. If you want a pretty desktop with nifty features, all you have to do is write some applications which is minor work compared to designing and implementing an application interoperation framework. What was done for Gnome 1.4->2.0 was a complete framework rehaul. What was done in KDE 2.0->3.0 was mostly application development.
I do agree that Gnome 2 is late. They should have ditched 1.4 and gone for 2.0 immediately after the 1.2 release, as the user-visible changes were minor. IMO.
BTW, Gtk 2 offers more than just AA. It's also a completely new text rendering engine (Pango) that kicks the ass of everything else out there.
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.
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
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Also on the dot is this discussion which talks about a way to get QT only apps to look and act like native KDE apps.
Compliant with what?
I'm using gcc 3.0.3 for large (100K+ lines of code) without any problems. And at least it's closer than 2.9x.x to ANSI C99 and Standard C++...
Of course, my code is 100% Standard C++, which may be why I'm not having a problem. The kernel and many other projects use gcc-unique features that may be broken in version 3.0.x.
Granted, gcc does have bugs and some code-generation problems on some platforms. But it's worked well for me, so I guess I haven't any complaints.
All about me
KDE's look is really easy to configure, so there's no reason to use the default setup if you find it too cartoony.
What is the cartoony part? The icons? You can get other icon sets at www.kde-look.org, as well as window decorations, color schemes and background images.
KDE even supports iceWM window decorations, so there are lots of possibilities...
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
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
It's official. Most of you are morons.
MS owns the desktop PC market. Who cares, we're all moving on.
.NET programmers will need Win32 desktops, MS owns that.
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.
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
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.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
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...
.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)
On a positive note, it is good to see the widespread planned use of
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
How about:
While chasing Microsoft, let's not forget to stop and smell the alternative roses...
All about me
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.
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.
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.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
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.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Although this might be a minor problem to many of you, I think it is essential for the first impression ...
... In addition to that you often have a gnome entry that has all the gnome menus, with again tons of entries.
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
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.
Thats odd you say that. In Windows i have complete transparency. Infact on my laptop no matter what network i pluginto my vpn logs me in to work and seemlessly integrates me with the directory server, allows me single signon with every custom application and database and then mounts my shares, printers, and synchronizes my Handheld with notes, email and more custom apps.
I also have the infamous Cygwin kit, which includes every GNU is not Unix application i could ever want to use. I run an XDisplay to two 6500's i manage and also use the kick ass SecureCRT all day long.
And then when i get home i play some UT, Surf the web, jam to Winamp, watch some videos, and enjoy life.
All of this is under WindowsXP. I don't have any less functionality, infact i have more. I have harnessed the best of both worlds.
And frankly, linux can do that just as well. You can boot windows inside linux to get your job done. Just in todays market linux isn't really linux when you can get all the benifet of linux within your exisitng platform (be it Windows, Solaris, HPUX and whatnot).
So in all reality, linux isn't an OS, it is a kernel. Everything that runs under that kernel seems to run great under every other kernel i have ran it under. (NT, Solaris, HPUX, BSDI, blah.. blah). There are ofcourse some exceptions to every "rule".
Windows for unix? havn't you ever seen everything from Wine, to the PC Plugins for Sparcs to Lindows and all the bazillions of variations of remote windows terminals?
What is the cartoony part? The icons? You can get other icon sets at www.kde-look.org, as well as window decorations, color schemes and background images.
The icons, especially. The thing is, GNOME looks better out of the box, and I've got things I'd rather do than play that nifty new "configure the window manager" game that everyone's talking about. Time was I loved that stuff, but not anymore - not enough hours in today's day.
Jeez, the way some of the AC's are posting, you'd think I insulted their children or something..
- Josh
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 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*.
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".
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.
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.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
libeel is private to Nautilus. The other three are documented if you download them from cvs and run gtk-doc on them. And, none of those are core gnome libraries so you still haven't said anything about gnome core documentation.
As far as Nautilus and gnumeric, those are huge apps and porting will take a while. Of course they aren't adding features. But the code is being cleaned up as they go.
Go and troll somewhere else.
I got rid on the cartoony feel by reducing the icons to minimal size (16), changing the style and getting new icons.
Give it a shot. You can completely change the look. I didn't like the default cartoony look either.
Results may vary.
in my original post I said that I liked KDE's apps. However, 'business' means working with other people, and KOffice still can't read Word 2000/XP formats..
An analogy: Britney Spears may be popular, but I'd rather have my daughters grow up to be scientists, thinkers, and engineers... do we really want Linux to grow up and be just like Windows? I hope not!
I use Linux because it's powerful, flexible, and customizable, not because some people desperately want to use it against Microsoft in the popularity wars.
All about me
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
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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...
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).
.NET wins.
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,
Alex
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.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
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 that Apple filed concerning interpretation of TrueType bytecodes that are used for hinting 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. This drastically improves the readability of antialiased fonts. Enjoy!
There is no reason Linux cannot be modified so that every program can access every object by name. It is the way Unix was designed (remember what /dev was for?) And there is no reason this basic functionality should be in a user interface toolkit, it should be in the system (or at least in libc) so I don't have to think about it when writing software!
Honestly I expected this sort of interface 12 years ago. Plan9 did it but it seemed to not conflict with Unix. What is taking so long?
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...
window decorations, yes...there are some gnomish iceWM decorations available (actually I haven't used gnome in a while, so the one I'm thinking of might be considered outdated among gnomes). Icons...I'm not aware of a Gnome-like icon set for KDE. Anyway, you couldn't really reproduce the gnome icons because they use SVG (AFAIK); KDE uses simpler bitmapped icons.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Isn't it hard enough going through life with the last name "Coward," without some slashdotter insulting KDE?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"The other three are documented if you download them from cvs and run gtk-doc on them."
Or not only are you wrong, but your reading comprehension skills are way below those of a first grader.
I'd say the easiest way is to get the ISOs and upgrade to Mandrake 8.1 - but that's just me.
sic transit gloria mundi
So, you work on parts of Gnome, but API references and thousands of lines of code using those API's isn't enough for you? I'm sorry, but what parts of Gnome do you work on? I've worked on parts of Gnome too, and yet, somehow, I've managed. Hell, back in the Gnome 0.30 days, there was no documentation to speak of at all. And if you're complaining, why aren't you complaining about extensive documentation about libraries like Bonobo and GConf? They're certainly used by more applications then eel and gtkhtml (gtkhtml2 is a bonobo component to boot). Even some docs on just writing Nautilus Views would be alot more useful then docs on eel or librsvg.
Btw, before claiming someone should get a clue and information, make sure they don't know what they're talking about.
Gstreamer has working aRts support now.
The Gstreamer guys would *like* to have more KDE integration and I really think that it would pay off big if both teams worked together.
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...
i totally agree, applications are the strength of the desktop in general. they make it overall more usefull. my point was that there's still lots of room in either KDE or GNOME to throw lots more resources at the project to make it "better". those resources may not be to the core development, but could contribute to the application development