KDE 3.2 'Rudi' Beta Released

An anonymous reader writes "The beta of the next version of KDE, billed as 'the premiere Open Source desktop', has been released. Read the announcement at KDE.org. Notable features include a big clean up of the interface and menus, Improvements to KHTML from Apple, better accessibility and hardware support. There are also new applications such as JuK (a music player similar to iTunes), KDevelop (a graphical IDE), Kontact (an integrated communications package like Outlook) and more. Download it here and since this is a beta, report any problems or bugs you have." Also, nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."

Comments

KDevelop has been around for a while.

[Captain Tenille]

Maybe it should be more clear and say that the beta of KDevelop 3.0 is out now, perhaps?

Re:KDevelop has been around for a while.

[fmileto]

Not sure if they are talking about "gideon". More importantly Gideon rocks, I love this thing just pick your app(kde, embedded(qtopia),etc..) and code. cvs built in, konsole built in (so I can run strace/gdb), your a click away from autoconf...automake and a number of other functions that make time for me to write more bugs^H^H^H^Hcode. Anyway I'm still running 3.1.2 and beta of KDevelop(Gideon) but imho this is the killer app. Thank Linus^H^H^H^H^Hgod for the KDevelop team.

Re:superkaramba

[GweeDo]

I highly doubt it. SuperKaramba is a very buggie application that was written on a whim and not with much structure. Though it is very cool, it sure isn't ready for any form of the spot light yet.

KMidi is Dropped

[robbyjo]

It's good to notice that KMidi is dropped from KMultimedia. It's a pain because of the old Timidity engine (which is KMidi's back-end) still uses the old ALSA 0.5. It causes compilation problems if you compile KMultimedia with ALSA yourself. And KDE people decided to get rid of it at the moment and cited that it's not an easy fix.

It's too bad because AFAIK that's the simplest program for MIDI playing using synthesizers (albeit not that good). Other programs are geared toward compositions... Any suggestions?

iTunes clone?

[jared_hanson]

I'm seriously beginning to question the ability of any open source project to challenge Apple on the user experience front. Come on, look at these JuK screen shots and compare to iTunes screen shots.

Now, I will fully admit to never actually using JuK, but just from its appearance, I don't want to. I do use iTunes extensively (on a Mac, I only use UNIX-based OSs). So, on iTunes, I have 3 control buttons, a pretty status meter, and a search field. That is it. Now look at JuK. There is a crapload of buttons making the interface completely suck. Why is there a save button? I never save in iTunes, when changes get made, they automatically are propagated through the library. Easy. Why are there cut and paste butttons? Do they need to take up screen space. Leave them buried in a menu. How often are they used in the main interface screen? In iTunes, I rarely go to the menu's. About the only time is when I want to create a new smart playlist. The three buttons and the search field take care of 98% of what I want to do on the interface. This is what makes Apple user friendly and pretty to look at.

If open source wants to be the peoples' desktop, they have to start considering the interfaces they design. There is a reason why people like to use Macs and proclaim the interface as the superior solution: it is. There are things to be learned here, but time and time again, with each new release of a new program, the user interfaces continue to suck.

Re:iTunes clone?

[be-fan]

JuK is cluttered? Unlike iTunes, JuK actually looks and behaves like all the other apps on its desktop. Besides, the correct button count is 10 for iTunes (you didn't count the ones at the bottom) and 14 for JuK. The extra buttons on the juk toolbar are there in the interest of consistency with other KDE apps. Almost all KDE apps have those buttons in the same place. The screenshot you posted is terrible, take a look at the JuK screenshot here. Looks much nicer doesn it?

Re:Where I'd like to see KDE improve

[p2sam]

Interstingly, one CAN run KDE on Windows...

http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

Re:mirror of KDE on 24 link

[oscarcar]

I have a suspicion my old "C Programming Teacher" is behind this.

I had a teacher by the name of "Michael Loceff". That's the same name of the guy who's the producer/writer of the show.

When I took an online class from him years ago, he said he did screen-writing on his spare time. He even let his class know when a show aired on "Le Femme Nikita" that he wrote. Kudos to him for bringing real tech to the screen.

Re:How long until KDE-SVGUI?

[jd]

NURBS! SVG's ok, but you really want a fully NURBS-based interface, with a decent photon-mapping rendering engine.

(Well, assuming you've a spare Altix 3000 or two, for a graphics processor. :)

Seriously, the graphics processing code for the UI is getting silly. If I want raw speed, but with a decent widget set, I invariably turn to Open Look. I use KDE and Gnome when non-geeks are around, so that they can be suitably impressed and indoctrinated in the Ways Of The Penguin.

The best GUI engine developed, IMHO, was InterViews, which used a version of Postscript for everything. Postscript gave you the benefit of totally scalable graphics, so you could enlarge or shrink with zero loss. It was standard. It was also the same language other devices used, so translation from device to device was unnecessary. And it supported more than simple vectors.

The problem, as I see it, is that we've wound up with a bazillion amazingly powerful GUI front-ends, none of which do appreciably more than InterViews, all of which are amazingly heavyweight, and none of which enforce scalability.

If I get twice the resolution, I want to be able to choose four times the clarity or four times the content, or anywhere inbetween, but not have the choice imposed on me by the system. That's not an advance, that's just stupid.

KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[KojakBang]

The progress that these guys have made in 5 years and the sheer volume of quality code is simply amazing. What are these guys doing right as compared to all the other projects? They even stick to their development and release schedules better than most commercial companies. And despite everyone calling for the death of C++, KDE is the shining example of what can be accomplished in that language. I seriously doubt it could have been constructed in any other language and produce as quick and relatively error-free code as these guys have produced.