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.

Comments

Maybe but I doubt it

[sheepab]

Can they improve upon the best? Honestly....can they?

Re:Maybe but I doubt it

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I just dont see how the best can get better.

At this point, at least for the 3.x series, it's mostly 'tweaks' for improved useability, more standards compliance, and so on.

I update my copies of the current KDE CVS a few times per week, though I only occasionally compile and install from there (once every few weeks). I just like to watch what's being updated.

Last few times I updated the core KDELIBS CVS, for example, I noticed more updates to the html and ecma/javascript code. KMail has had a lot of individual updates...you get the idea. I can't honestly say I know how SUBSTANTIAL the changes have been, but I can at least spot when a section that I use frequently has had updates. so that if I get curious or run into problems in that area (something that hasn't happened to me in some time) I know to try an update...

I notice a bunch of the less "core" utilities (e.g. K3B, the video transcoding utility) have been moved from the core libraries to a new area ("KDEEXTRAGEAR", if I remember correctly). I need to check out that module too, now...

KDE keeps getting better

[cxvx]

I've been using the cvs version ever since I heard that konqueror supported tabbed browsing :)
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.

not to be a wet blanket, but...

[krog]

...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.

Re:not to be a wet blanket, but...

[Soko]

Ummm... Hi there.

You do realise that /. is frequented by folks who know what "it's an Alpha version" means, yet will still download and try it? Ya, them "geek" types.

There's a lot of these folks here, too. This translates to lots of knowlegeable, quailty testers for the KDE team. Quality testers == a quality product for the rest of us. Knowlegeable testers == help for the KDE people in fixing bugs. /. therefore does the community a service when they announce new developments on major OSS projects, by pointing the right eyes to the source code.

BTW, I think it's cool that the only major browser without tabs after KDE3.1 is released will be IE. The Galeon folks should be proud.

Soko

Re:not to be a wet blanket, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Galeon folks should be proud.

Somewhere in Norway a man is crying.

Alpha menus & drop shadows

[Eagle7]

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.

Re:Alpha menus & drop shadows

[JabberWokky]

Yes, in other words it is bullshit fakery

Um. Pardon me, but how else are you supposed to render translucent objects? You always have to calculate the final result somewhere. If you have a card and driver combo that supports it in hardware via XRENDER, it does it there. If you don't, it emulates it in software (you can force it one way or the other via the Control Center). Other than hardware or software, where else is it supposed to be rendered? By amish stained glass sculptors sitting on a three legged stool next to your monitor?

--
Evan "Ya, Mister Godwin, that looks good. I'll have the next menu ready for you in about three hours, sure enough".

KDE Usability

[krmt]

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.

Re:Myths About KDE

[krmt]

I'm pretty sure that it originally stood for Kool Desktop Environment. I think now the official position is that the K doesn't stand for anything, but I think that they're just covering up the dumb idea to deliberately misspell cool :-)

I've also read that they chose K because it was the first letter after L, for Linux. I believe the former more than the latter though.

My favorite new things:

[friedmud]

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

Re:My favorite new things:

[aminorex]

You can do this with any X desktop, using x0rfbserver.

Re:This kind of reminds me of something.....

[Roadmaster]

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..

Re:Nothing original

[LMCBoy]

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?


What's the point? Freedom, for starters. You get a first-rate GUI without sacrificing Freedom. Isn't that worth celebrating, even if the GUI is not totally "original"?

Besides, why is it necessarily desireable for a GUI to be completely original? It's been said often before, but I guess it bears repeating. Most modern GUI systems look very similar. They all use "windows", "menus", "icons", "buttons", and "desktops". Does this mean that no one can think of anything new, and it's all about "A copied B copied C copied D! Shame on A, B and C!" ? Perhaps. But it's also possible that the Desktop metaphor just makes sense and it works well. Would you rather KDE make a completely new computing paradigm, even if it meant it was harder to use? Just for the sake of being "different"?

Besides, KDE offers plenty that Win/Mac don't, besides Freedom. Themability, for one. You claim to "love" KDE, and yet it seems you don't understand that the way your desktop looks is largely up to you in KDE. You can make it look very similar to WinXP, or very similar to OSX, or not really like either. The person who took those screenshots chose to have a panel that looks like the OSX dock. Others have an XP-like panel. Mine looks like neither. KDE gives you the freedom to build a desktop that suits your needs and style. How is that copying either OSX or XP?

I guess I shouldn't even bother...there will always be naysayers. I remember when they were saying "KDE will never be as good as Windows or Mac!". Now it's "Ok, KDE is just as good as Windows/Mac...but it's not BETTER, so what's the point?!"

Indeed, what's the point?

KAudioCreator

[IceFox]

As many of you know kde2->3 was not much for eye candy and was more underneith and even then was mainly bug fixes. 3.1 was the first time that developers got to put up new stuff. One of the least known new items is KAudioCreator which is a ogg/mp3/everything audio ripping tool. From the website:

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

Re:Copying Microsoft again

[rseuhs]

How come that everytime Microsoft copies a something it's OK, but if KDE copies something it's evil?

What about tabbed browsing?
What about multiple desktops?
What about opening new browser windows with the MMB?
What about themes!
What about scrollbar-jumping?
What about the Alt-modifier key for faster window-manipulation?

MSFT copied often enough and is now clearly lagging behind KDE in the GUI area because they still have a lot to copy to catch up.