Slashdot Mirror
KDE 3.1 Alpha1 is Here
navindra writes: "A brand new alpha of the breath-taking KDE 3.1 development branch has been announced. This release sports everything from wonderful new eye candy to tons of popular new features including new and exciting "easter eggs" (aka bugs) just waiting to be discovered. Remember, this is not a stable release -- those of you concerned with stability should use KDE 3.0.2, whereas those of you who want to help KDE 3.1 be the best KDE ever should use this alpha. Kudos to Dre for writing the announcement and to the tireless Dirk Mueller for coordinating this release. Party!" On a related note, pAlpha writes: "Over the past years a large amount of myths has built up around KDE. Recently Aaron J. Seigo released a page about the KDE myths and facts." Good for convincing the boss.
Can they improve upon the best? Honestly....can they?
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Now I'm no longer using mozilla, since it doesn't start quite as fast as konqueror and the tabs where the only thing better about it (that and the antialiased fonts in konqueror look much better).
There are lots of (small) improvements in the kde code that make the whole environment a real joy to use.
Kde 3.1 is a great thing to look forward for.
If only I could come up with a good sig
(drools)
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
...is Slashdot the place for alpha announcements?
i'm sure there are plenty of KDE fans here and all, but this isn't even beta yet. if Slashdot announced every alpha release of every decent-sized Open Source project... Oh wait, they do.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
"Over the past years a large amount of myths has built up around KDE..."
:P
Number one of which is: KDE does NOT stand for "Killer Dog Eaters"
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I looked at the screenshots, and the transparent menus and the drop shadows on the menu look really nice. I'm curious - are these KDE application things? Are they part of the windows manager that comes with KDE? Are they QT? And will they work over everything, or will they only work when QT menus are displayed over QT aps?
Just wondering if it is possible to have such nifty eyecandy work with my 95% GTK+/Sawfish environment, or if I would have to switch to the KDE environment to see this features.
_sig_ is away
Aaron J Siego also started up the KDE Usability Project, in order to spearhead work on improving the KDE UI. I was following the list for quite a few weeks, until the traffic grew too substantial to keep up with. But according to the 3.1 alpha release notes, some of their intial work, including work on Kicker, is going to be included in the new release.
This is a wonderful thing. From reading the list, I know that they've painstakingly thought through the work they've done, modeled and remodeled, discussed and argued all the little details to get things as good as they could. Progress has been slow for that reason, but it is substantial, and over time I think it'll bring KDE's usability to something we can all really be proud of.
Features are nice, but I think improving the usability of KDE will help everyone in the long run.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Unfortunately Aaron Seigo didn't make his KDE Myths a single FAQ style page but a cascading set of pages. Can someone mirror them before they are slashdotted out of creation?
Have been looking forward to this - thought it was going to be a while before we got it. Nice to see they are still making a lot of progress after the 3.0 release.
PS: keramik kicks a$$
Derek
How about a new /. feature that only provides links for people that are logged in and have posted at least one message in the last week.
Of course the screen shot is only of some new drop shadow support for menus. It's kinda funny that so many geeks are trying desperately to view a darkened border of a couple pixels around a menu.
KDE 1 - 2 were attempts to copy windows UI with some small differences.
It now appears that KDE 3.1 is going for the Appple OS X Aqua look. Look at the screen shots. The task bar looks like the OS X dock and they even called it Qwertz.
I love Linux on the desktop, and I love KDE, but unless it offers something original, something that Windows and Mac OS don't, then what's the point?
Right click on the clipboard icon and uncheck "Enable Actions"
I'm pretty new to linux, and I have no idea how to install this if I wanted to. Can some one point me to a site that would have a step-by-step for something like this?
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
From the 3.1 feature plan:
KRfb:
NEW IN KDE: VNC-compatible server to share KDE desktops
Remote Desktop Connection (KRdc):
NEW IN KDE: VNC-compatible client
Now you don't have to have a seperate instance of KDE running with the vncserver - you can share your CURRENT desktop just like you can with Windows and vnc. This is mucho cool - I will use it often!
Derek
I agree, I prefer KDE over GNOME (but I use both) installation is the one thing that GNOME does much better than KDE. I whish they'd make it easier to update, something on the order of RedCarpet.
The Klipboard manager (Klippy? I can't remember) is quite configurable... I got irritated with it doing that every tiem I was in Mozilla (very rarely, mind you) and looked around - there's a section of the configuration where you can define different window classes for it to ignore. I did that, and haven't been happier...
I'll agree that the new KDE *THEME* seen on the screenshots looks a lot like WinXP, but keep in mind that it can be made to look like almost anything you want.
Also, I disagree with "every body knows that XP was just a pretty GUI". Compared to Windows2000, perhaps it was; but most consumers weren't using Win2k, but Win9x. And WinXP is insistently aimed at home users too, touting new, unheard-of features like STABILITY (whoaaaaaa) and stuff like that. WinXP mixes all that stuff.
Finally, WinXP's prettyness can be argued with; i think it looks childish and dumb, but that's just me..
Is debian ever going to have an official package? Did I just miss something? Seems like I've been waiting forever.
After looking at the new screenshots, I can honestly say that this will be the first KDE which I will not have to alter the look of significantly from the default install. This will mean good things for people unaware of kde-look.org and other enhancements that are 3rd party to kde. KDE will finally look very polished and professional (if not a little bit over the top like XP .. but definately far more attractive than XP).
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
Yes, the project is called Kalypso. It is far from being usable though.
I've set up a mirror of the screenshots site:
/
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/users/tom/kde31alpha
Enjoy!
It is fully VNC compatible and supports the latest codecs.
I think he means like this.
I am already starting to see comments in this thread like "feature X is just a ripp-off of product Y", who decided to put in feature Z, I hate it", etc. I just finished reading Survival Is Not Enough, by Seth Godin, who is a former Executive at Yahoo, among other things. These complaints are features that really should be applauded instead. Which criticizm is good, just the fact that a feature is similar to something else another product has is not bad.
Much of the book has to do with the evolution of products suchs as web sites and software. Evolution happens in software just like in life forms. Much of the book pushes the idea of making as many "mutations" in a short time with as little money as possible. Let the bad ones die, keep the good ones. If another product has a feature that works well, why not use as much of the basic concept as possible. Image what the word processor world be like to day if none of the publishers used features other software had already implemented. Cross polination in evolutionary terms. This is along the lines of the tabbed browsing in Konquer, and the "Qwertz" toolbar thing.
The rant about the stupid KDE clipboard function? I admit, I don't use the feature either. Is it bad it was put in? No. As many "test" features as possible should be put into the public view to see which are good and which are bad. The good features will stay, the bad will be phased out. These "mutations" of the core are what helps create innovative features. Who knows, someday a desktop envirnment might be considered horrible if it doesn't have whatever the KDE clipboard thing does. (I don't even KNOW what it is supposed to do, which may be more the problem.)
These are not bad, and in my mind should be encouraged of both the Gnome team and the KDE team. As many people here know, innovation happens much faster when there are competing technologies, and not just a big monopoly in any given market.
-Pete
(Book link is an affiliate link...I read the book and liked it. I think you will too.)
Soccer Goal Plans
One thing that keeps from from giving KDE much attention is a small pet peeve of mine. The task list, I absolutely hate task lists, it's absolutely the the epitome of bad interface design. You have a horizontal list of application names, which are variable sizes, and the more you have the smaller they can be... ugg, disgusting.
So, my question is, does KDE have any type of drop down task switcher, a la MacOS Thanks
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
KAudioCreator is an audio file creation solution for kde. It allows you to use whatever encoder you wish to encode your audio files while providing a comfortable gui. KAudioCreator also provides a job control system so you can see what files have succeeded, failed and stop or cancel jobs as the application progresses.
Screenshots!
and for those kde 2 users I have back ported it to kde2 and put it on my webpage. -Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
If you are running Redhat just use apt-get (apt for rpm) have a look at http://freshrpms.net for instance, otherwise, there is urpmi for Mandrake, up2date for redhat and so on. Installing rpms with dependencies is now very easy thanks to these tools.
How much memory does it take to run KDE nowadays? It seems to be keeping pace with Winblows (NTM) as a prime example of bloatware.
Alpha Channel / Transparency
Genie effect or equally impressive effects.
They seriously need to get 4-5 developers working on a project with just THAT specific purpose, of improving the eyecandy in KDE. OR maybe someone like Lindows can fund development of xfree86's render extention.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We need more eyecandy if KDE is supposed to ever be better than OSX or even XP, better icon animation (its a good start but improve on it and make it more useful)
Alpha channel, so we can have a alpha channeled kicker and panel
Some cool special effects, like genie effect or even motion blur,
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you're just after the eye candy, you can download a srpm of the keramik theme here:
9 3
9 4
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=21
or a tarball here:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=21
The PaperKlip.
This is a software agent that determines what kind of task you're trying to do, pops up, and provides "helpful" advice. Like the MS Office Paperclip agent, the advice isn't that great, and it's a HUGE burden on resources. Unlike the MS Office Paperclip agent, it provides "helpful" advice for the ENTIRE KDE project.
Mandrake users will love it; Debian users will want to destroy the author on sight. The author will show up to LUG meetings with a fake beard and sunglasses.
Finding God in a Dog
I'm sorry but KDE has a long long way to go before impressing anyone with its eye candy.
why even bother showing off eye candy when its just drop shadows or anti aliased fonts,
The animated icons was a good start, they should improve that so for example you can take a gaim icon or instant message icon from your desktop and put it on your panel somewhere and when you get a msg it animates, or when its on your desktop and you get a msg it animates.
When you put a Cd in the CD drive, the CD icon should appear and begin to spin, to animate whats happenining. Basically they should let our actions influence the animations, more so than just a random animation when you put your mouse over it. Maybe an animation when you actually click it, or if you modify a folder somehow like lock or unlock it, the animation should occur with the lock being slapped on the folder.
Animations is something that OSX and XP does not do, so why not improve that?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
KDE stands for: (The) Kalle Dalheimer Experience ;)
ghobe' bIlughbe' ji-bIlugh Klingon Desktop Environment
naDev tlhInganpu' tu'lu' yaj'a' majQa'
First, we should be able to set the max framerate of the animations.
Second developers should be able to create animations so programs illustrate our actions.
You put a CD in your CD rom and its a game CD, you should see maybe a little light or flash on the desktop which turns into a little spinning CD, if the game programmers wrote an animation for their icon, the doom CD could have an animated icon of the devil or whatever.
Or you could set it up so when you run a program the icon animate.
When you burn a CD a spinning burning CD animation could appear, why would this be useful? someone who doesnt know a damn thing about computers could look at that burning spinning Cd icon and know what the computer is doing without opening up any programs.
Animation is what seperates OSX from linux, the genie effect, alpha channeling, that extra level of overkill eyecandy is what people want and need for ease of use.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I can only see glimpses of the backgrounds in the last 6 screenshots, but they rock! Any one have any idea where I can grab them (besides checking out the KDE tree...)????
IF you say its a video card issue, how about improving the animated icons, I'm not talking about going overboard, but allowing the user to decide the frame rate, allowing our actions to decide the animations of an icon, so an icon can have several diffrent animations, cd icon should have a music cd animation, a burning cd animation for burning, a game cd animation, a dvd movie animation, so anyone who doesnt know computers can understand what is going on by looking at the icon animate.
I'm talking about improving the animation in terms of frames per second,, doing that would do alot for eyecandy and ease of use, if its done right.
Xfree can support this, people have the ram to do it, and the cpu power but if they dont, they should be able to decide the frame rate just like the decide the icon sizes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Wasn't KDE 3.1 supposed to bring SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) icons / wigets? That'd be so shweeeet...
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
The server uses libvncserver which has a quite complex history, but supports TightVNC. The client is based on TightVNC's clients, but with many new goodies.
If you don't want to ride the cutting edge on your work desktop, I'd suggest those of you running Red Hat should install apt and add the following to your sources.list:
rpm http://www.math.unl.edu/linux/redhat/apt 7.2/i386 kde3
This guy has packaged KDE 3.02 for Red Hat 7.3, but more to the point, also a bunch of useful apps from apps.kde.com, including KRFB (the desktop sharing app) and, IIRC, the samba / nfs right-click file sharing Konqueror plugins.
Until you actually suggest a new paradigm yourself you are absolutely, most certainly, beyond a doubt, trolling.
Those in glass houses yada yada...
This seems to be another case of copying Microsoft again. They've bundled a remote desktop viewer tool, and now KDE has it. Why can't people integrate some of the cooler stuff before MS? Yes, you could do some of this before, with much setup, but it's going to be point-and-click, and MS beats people to 'point-and-click' implementations usually.
Here's something I've seen people BEGGING for in Konqueror and Mozilla - file upload progress bars in the browser. How much do we want to bet that MS will put that in IE7, THEN konqueror or mozilla will implement it poorly 6 months later?
creation science book
DON'T RAISE WINDOWS UNLESS THE USER CLICKS ON THE BORDER!!!!
By this I mean:
1. When the user clicks in a window, give it the focus, but DONT RAISE IT.
2. (less obvious but NO modern window managers do this) When the user raises a "child" window, DO NOT RAISE THE PARENT!!!! This is the real killer that makes it impossible to have overlapping windows of any substantial size.
3. Provide a way to move windows around without raising them. For instance, why not the way X window managers worked for a decade before people starting thinking copying MicroSoft was kool: if the user drags the border, move the window and DO NOT RAISE IT, if they click they can raise it. Modern window managers seem to be unable to do this correctly, the KDE I am using cannot do this unless you turn off all ability to raise the windows.
I really really wish some of these people would do this. I do not believe it will "confuse" the amateur user, and it would allow some user interface designs that cannot be done with Windows. Mostly it would allow a single object to be controlled by 2 or more large "views" that overlap on the screen in different windows.
On another point, please test everything under point-to-type. If a program grabs the focus it should warp the mouse to point at it (after first making absolutely positively sure you really really really want to grab the focus).
What really is happening is the window is somewhat larger than it looks, it includes a bottom and right edge that have been painted with an image that looks just like what is behind it plus a shadow.
Linux IS 2/3 superior to windows according to your criteria or rather KDE is.
All hints apply to KDE-3.0.2, KDE-3.1a1 is still a little too flaky (usable, but annoying at times).
To get number 1:
Kcontrol->LooknFeel->Window Settings
Set "Inactive inner Window": Left mouse button to "Activate and pass click". (Default is "Activate, Raise and pass click".)
OK I have no idea about number 2
To get number 3:
Alt+Leftclick on the window moves it in kwin without raising it.
Moritz
Don't know about the VNC client (if there is any, it would be cool to be able to enter "vnc://password@111.222.111.222" into Konqueror, for sure) but the VNC-server that's in KDE 3.1 was released for KDE2 and KDE 3.0 as "krfb", and it worked pretty well--I'm running it on my laptop right now. Google for "krfb" and you'll find it.
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
This exact feature was the reason why I switched from Windows to KDE1 back in 1998.
Now you have demonstrated that you have never used KDE, what was your point again?
Just because you are able to recompile the kernel doesn't mean you have to.
Just because you are able to update KDE/Linux every month, doesn't mean you have to.
Just because KDE can look like OSX doesn't mean it has to
Got my message? Well, probably not, whatever.
If you ignore changes, you could in theory allow the window to drag by remembering the entire screen initially and continuously redrawing the shadowed part. But I think the "real" edge would quickly become visible because the changing image would not be in sync with the window movement.
Here, I had my hopes up that something like CoolEdit had come to Linux. There are no professional wave editors for Linux.
KRipAudio would've been a nicer name.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I don't know if you're a developer, but maybe it's an idea which hasn't been discussed. .... it's been rehashed on a bunch of lists (KDE included) many times .... do you enable all the cool stuff (at least in the first release it's there) so that people can learn about it and start using it, or do you disable it by default and run the risk that 90% of the people who would be helped by it never find out that it exists.
e -that shit autocorrect functions of word and the same kind of annoying assistant stuff"
The developer's dilemma
Take a look at open office. When I first started the (beta) version of OO and wrote something just for getting the feel of it, it suddenly capitalized the first word I typed.
At the same time, a light bulb was shown down right on the screen.
"Arrgh,", I thought, "so the adapted the annoying everytime-I-have-to-search-half-an-hour-to-disabl
Wrong. When I klicked on the bulb, a help page was shown to explain what just happend (auto-correcting) and what it is. It also asked me if I wanted to use that in the future or not, and showed where to configure it at a later time.
That's great! Show all features on first use, but also explain them and make it easy to disable them right after the first occurance.
Didn't that start from a post by a KDE-developer where he complained Israels policy regarding palestinians? So disagreeing with Israel = Nazi?
And weren't there some anti-black comments found in Debian? They were put there by one of the devels. Does that mean that Debian is racist?
And what about socialism? It's just a political/economic system, just like capitalism is. It's not evil, just like capitalism is not evil.
Last time I checked, we still have freedom of speech
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Well I pretty much went to the library and grabbed the first 50 cd's that they had (the limit) and used them as test material. _A_my Grant as you can see would be in that pile.
But yes that is in fact one of the reasons why I wrote it. I wanted to be able to rip 30 cd's and have them just "encode" overnight. Encoding takes that longest time always. Thus I made a job control system where it will create jobs of ripping and encoding automaticly. So other then setting up the cd info you just have to click rip.
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I can distinguish between those two concepts just fine and I'm not a 'basher'.
I was commenting on the default theme and toolbar configuration - as displayed in the screenshot.
For many that will be "the look of KDE"
If the KDE developers wanted to establish a dramatically different look and feel from those other OS GUIs they would have done so in the default setup. They obviously didn't.
As I said - if that's what you like then fine.
And if you don't - that's fine too. There come several styles in the default configuration.
> Is it me or does this look too much like OS X Aqua??
It's you. Go buy a pair of glasses.
This new theme looks nothing like Aqua. It is finally a comprehensive window & widget theme that matches WinXP and Aqua for looks, but is uniquely identifiable as being KDE.