KDE Gains Full Accessibility Support

kandalf writes "Together with some other interesting news about making KDE and Gtk apps interoperable as well as porting OpenOffice to Qt/KDE, KDE gained accessibility support through the ATK interface from Sun with Qt - so KDE 3.2 will be 'accessibility ready' for the end user once coming out in January. Got the dot?"

Comments

Great For KDE

[monkeyman_67156]

This is great news for KDE, I can see how this will enable it to gain a more diverse market share. By allowing for more users to interact with it, despite their physical limitations truely shows that KDE and GNU/Linux in general is ready for mainstream use. Oh, yeah, and FP!

Re:Great For KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original poster...but I'm curious how a first post can be redundant....just seems like a bunch of moron moderators to me.

Re:Great For KDE

[ls -lR]

because it was obviously a bad karma whoring attempt to get modded up for no good reason.

KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see them finally catching up with Gnome.

Congrats!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a big step onward. Anyone know how this assistive technology compares with gnopernicus ? Or do the separate softwares need to be made due to differences between Gnome & KDE?

Re:Congrats!

[Karma Sucks]

It's the same technology so gnopernicus should work fine. With GTK+ integration into KDE it gets even sweeter.

And hopefully

[justsomebody]

They will adopt desktop settings at freedesktop.org too and there will be one control panel to maintain both KDE and Gnome. Until then I'll be avoiding KDE.

I just don't want to tweak every single feature

Re:And hopefully

[nutshell42]

I just don't want to tweak every single feature

Then don't do it. Noone forces you to change everything, the defaults of KDE are at least as sensible as the ones of Gnome (although with a different focus)

Re:And hopefully

[justsomebody]

(different focus)? I must agree to that

While Gnome is defaulted to average Joe User, KDE is more tweaked to 3773t with all those buttons up and down and all menu functions. That's the reason why I don't wanna use KDE. The most dumbed down interface I ever used was MacOS, and it was quite usable.

Re:And hopefully

[nutshell42]

KDE is geared to the user who's already seen a PC once. As everyone using plain KDE managed to install Linux on his box I think that's a reasonable assumption.

Distributions can modify KDE as they want (the *modular* control center comes in handy here =P ) so it isn't overwhelming for newbies.

It's easy to choose defaults and hide functionality for newbies.

That said most newbies I know are more comfortable with KDE than with Gnome because KDE with its default settings is similar to Windows in look and feel.

Re:And hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Then leave them at their default. Did Gnome just suddenly become magic? No, I don't think so.

Admit the fact that you're a righteous prude, and let's all move on with our lives.

Re:And hopefully

[ninkendo84]

Kinda reminds me of a quote in an irc conversation. About the gnome 2.6 summit presentation, with a picture of an ATM running gnome.

Why does this ATM only give me fast cash and balance options?

The other choices would be too confusing for you, ya noob.

At least KDE gives you the options. With gnome, if you were truly "leet" and wanted an option that isn't available, you'd just edit the config file. Kinda defeats the purpose of a gui, eh?

Re:And hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

> That said most newbies I know are more comfortable
> with KDE than with Gnome because KDE with its
> default settings is similar to Windows in look and feel.

And that's the problem. It looks like Windows but when it doesn't behave like windows 10% of the time, users get confused.

With GNOME, they know it's different up front (just like the Mac). If the GUI is intuitive enough (GNOME is pretty good here but it still needs to catch up with the Mac), the learning curve in pretty shallow.

That's been my experience with newbie users anyway.

Re:And hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! I bet KDE is the first windowing environment to have a MODULAR control center!

Re:And hopefully

[nitehorse]

I know that I'm probably just feeding a troll here, but I just can't resist...

Look, KDE has been very involved with creating the specs at Freedesktop.org. Hell, I'm a KDE developer, and I'm also in the CVS commit list on the freedesktop server. The reason that you haven't seen Freedesktop standard support in KDE yet is because either A) You haven't tried a KDE 3.2 beta or B) You're obviously trolling.

KDE 3.2 will have support for all of the relevant standards that have moved out of the 'still in progress' stage and even some support for a few that haven't yet been finalized. KDE 3.1 was released almost a full year ago, when none of these standards was really done yet, so it isn't exactly a crime that it didn't support standards that didn't exist.

And KDE 3.3 will support even more of the specs that Freedesktop puts out, because we're involved in their creation (things that are currently pre-spec, even, like the shared MIME and Help systems).

Re:And hopefully

[nitehorse]

It's a very funny argument, that KDE looks too similar to Windows but doesn't act enough like it.

And really, Keramik looks nothing like any other graphical style I've ever seen. (Personally, I think that's probably good, as I can't stand the Keramik look myself, but to each his own). Using my Asteroid style, things look so Windows-like that it's frightening, but even the KDE2 default was designed to look more like BeOS than anything else, and KDE1 was designed and implemented by people who had more experience with OS/2 than with Windows.

So we've never really been into the whole "emulating Windows" thing except for places where it does make sense. The fact that our architecture is flexible enough to make things extremely Windows-like is a good thing, I think, because it also means that it's very easy to make things very unlike Windows.

Re:And hopefully

[Brandybuck]

You don't have to tweak every single feature, you nitwit! Do you have so little self control that you must twist and turn every little knob if they aren't hidden twenty layers deep?

Let's put it another way. If you're so damned concerned about this, then stop using GNOME as well, since it comes with GConf allowing you to tweak features you've never even heard of.

Re:And hopefully

[teprrr]

And you can create your own modular control center using "kcmshell " and so on. Try "kcmshell userinfo background language" for example. You can get the list of the modules using "kcmshell --list"

Re:typical

[leonardluen]

which just proves it isn't very accessible!!!

slashdotted?!

[Anonymous Coward]

No comments and yet dot.kde.org is slashdotted already?! Hey I mean it's not the first time they are on the homepage of /.! Ah well I think it's time to go to bed now (23h HKT), better try again later :-)

Wouter.

Re:slashdotted?!

[Karma Sucks]

Yes very curious. They seem to be up now, fortunately.

This may prove useful to ordinary people as well

[sufehmi]

For example, Windows' accessibility features has saved me many times when the mouse just doesn't want to work for various reason. It enable me to use the numpad to simulate the mouse, and troubleshoot the problem - instead of reinstalling it.

I welcome this addition to KDE even more for that reason.

Without intention to TROLL..

[frodo from middle ea]

What percent of windows users use the accessibility features ?

How does this make KDE any more useful to us , who don't really need accessibility. Making KDE more accessible to physically handicapped people is sure nice and appriciable, but shouldn't it come down the list of things like

consistent UI look and feel.
Better interoperability with non KDE applications
etc etc etc...

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Planesdragon]

How does this make KDE any more useful to us , who don't really need accessibility.

I'm sure you can find a use for screen magnification, improved typing commands, and keyboard-mouse-control.

So it is more useful--about as "more useful" as that handicapped ramp you never appreciated until you have to roll a heavy desk up it.

Making KDE more accessible to physically handicapped people is sure nice and appriciable, but shouldn't it come down the list of things like

No. You can use KDE as-is. Others cannot use it without handicapped accessability at all.

'sides which, this is OSS "scratch an itch" software.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[mental_telepathy]

From what I understand, people with disabilities want to access everything everyone else does. I know, it sounds crazy.

So, if I am a partially deaf or blind kernel developer, why should I have to wait for fucntionaility everyone else already has?

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, apart from the fact that it's a bit greedy to put KDE being a bit nicer for you to use ahead of 'possible to use at all' for disabled people. ;-) there is the fact that a lot of government agencies have to use software with accessiblity features (pretty sure that was a 'big win' for Gnome earlier this year)

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[be-fan]

Accessibility is a huge issue. Without it, KDE cannot be used for many government purposes.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[geekster]

Your list of things... not that I'm handicapped but I think from that perspective being able to actually use the computer is a little more important than a dialog being a little misplaced.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[justsomebody]

What percent of windows users use the accessibility features ?

Ever questioned their quality maybe?

How does this make KDE any more useful to us , who don't really need accessibility. Making KDE more accessible to physically handicapped people is sure nice and appriciable, but shouldn't it come down the list of things like

Yep, let's ignore them. Nicer icons should get in the first plan.

Your comment made me feel that you're mentaly handicapped, and you deserve some special atk settings for brain damaged people

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[smcn]

As another poster stated, accessibility options are very useful in a pinch.

Just because bomb shelters aren't used every day doesn't mean we don't need them.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[teamhasnoi]

Let's say it happens to you. You get in a car accident and lose an arm. Or find out that you have a degenerative eye disease. Then where will 'Sticky Keys' and 'Magnifier' be on your list?

It's easy to discount stuff that doesn't immediately apply, but this is only a good thing for lots of people.

I agree that UI consistency is something that needs work, but thinking about how *everyone* uses KDE can only help the UI design.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[xa0s]

I think what makes this significant is the fact that now that KDE has full accessibility it can be more easily adopted into public/government domains where accessibility features are mandatory.

This lack of accessibility has kept KDE out of consideration from a lot of places for a long time, but now... prepare for total world domination:)

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Mrs. Neutron]

I tend to enable "keytones". That way, the thing beeps at me whenever I hit CAPS instead of shift.

(Can't wait til I've fully transitioned to Slack. I want to kill the windoz keys once and for all. Please no Happy Hacker keyboard comments!)

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[geekster]

And I, at score 1, was overrated how? Dopehead...

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

What percent of windows users use the accessibility features?

There is this one machine at work that doesn't have a mouse (someone managed to break the mouse). Remote access works for most things except Java apps (e.g. Oracle installer). Mousekeys helped me out in that case. Other than that, I don't use anything.

But in any case, why do you think "consistent UI look and feel" is more important than making it possible for everyone to use the IE?

Some of the developers themselves might be physically handicapped. Give them what they need to use the UI, then they can help improve it.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is pretty much a LEGAL requirement for software apps that want government business in many places. So I'd say it's a lot higher on the list than "consistent UI look and feel." Also, don't assume that everyone on /. is 100% handicap free. Asshole.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Frodo's a hobbit not a troll.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[GigsVT]

So, if I am a partially deaf or blind kernel developer, why should I have to wait for fucntionaility everyone else already has?

Maybe because you are partially deaf or blind? You'll never have the functionality everyone else has.

It's irrational to think that someone in a tiny minority should be able to dictate how the majority behaves.

If that were true, then cars should accomodate both midgets and huge basketball players. They generally don't, not very well at least.

People with special needs have to pay more, because special needs cost more.

In this case, it's a little different since it's open source software, and people are free to work on whatever floats their boat. I do think that the desktop environments should try to get the level of GUI consistancy that Windows has, with regard to keyboard shortcuts though. That would be the biggest accessibility feature.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[RealProgrammer]

So it is more useful--about as "more useful" as that handicapped ramp you never appreciated until you have to roll a heavy desk up it.

There are many other settings where making something accessible also makes it easier to use for the rest of us:

• I always use the handicapped stall in public restrooms. Spacious, well-lit heads are better.
• I really appreciate wheelchair buttons on the doors to public buildings when what I'm carrying won't let me open the door otherwise. Powered doors are better.
• We're doing some remodelling on our house. Part of that will be 36", wheelchair-friendly doors. Big doors are better.

It's really just about being user-friendly, making your edge cases disappear.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[slashd'oh]

You make a great argument. I would expand it by adding that all too often, when people think of "accessibility," they picture a person in a wheelchair, or a person who is completely disabled in some way. Even the post at KDE.news (linked-to in this post) is in the category "accessibility" and the logo is a wheelchair.

But accessibility has advantages to all, in ways not necessarily pre-conceived by the authors/designers of software. For the web, different devices emerged in the past few years - mobile phones, PDAs, toilets :) - that had different boundaries for even fully-sighted, mouse-pointing folk, namely small screen sizes and limited/no Javascript. The "accessible" sites still worked, though.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[be-fan]

Read DeTocqueville's Democracy in America chapter 15, subsection titled "Tyranny of the Majority."

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

I always use the handicapped stall in public restrooms. Spacious, well-lit heads are better.

I sure hope you make sure first that there isn't going to be anyone with an actual disability coming along while you're in there hogging the facilities that aren't meant for you.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[saudadelinux]

This is true. Electronic/IT stuff must be accessible to people with disabilities, especially computers. Check out this page for an overview.

One huge advantage of a fully accessible KDE (or GNOME), is cost. Screenreading software like JAWS costs about $700 a seat. An open source one solution would save the government a bundle. And it could be a huge benefit for blind/visually private citizens, 75% or so of whom are severely underemployed, and can't easily afford $700 software.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

>How does this make KDE any more useful to us , who
>don't really need accessibility...

From:
http://accessibility.kde.org/about/

Why KDE Accessibility Matters

KDE accessibility matters for a number of reasons. There are legal and financial reasons: in many countries, including the United States and many nations in the EU, in order for the government to use technology (free or otherwise), it must be accessible to the disabled. There are also what one might categorize as "moral" reasons: free software should not just be free for all, but also usable at a basic level by all. And accessible to all. For yet others making KDE accessible matters because of their love for KDE an desire to share "the KDE experience" with all or because it is a programming challenge.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[GigsVT]

Our current condition in the US is more aptly described as a Tyranny of the Minorities.

I recommend another book, I forget the name, since I haven't read it since I was 7 or 8. It was about a mother making soup, and as each family member passed by, each asked her not to use a certain ingrediant they didn't like. The family wound up having warm water for dinner that night.

Maybe not as intellectual a book, but the message is clear enough.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're the kind of person who uses terms like "Dopehead" against anyone who disagrees with you.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but in the book you are describing people were subtracting ingredients from the soup. Here we are talking about adding something to the soup to make it better and more enjoyable for everybody. Even beter think of it as a buffet instead than as a soup, many dishes, eat what you want, leave the rest for somebody else.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[mikelima]

... for example, for accessibility, the option to increase the window border size has been added to most of the decorations. I think this feature will be appreciated also by those who have high resolution monitors.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[CptPicard]

Actually, I am a guy in a wheelchair and need those handicapped toilets... and I don't really mind it if others use them too. It would be a little bit too politically correct to go all militant over it. In most places disabled people are quite rare... as long as they aren't queuing to use that particular toilet while the others are free, it's fine with me.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[CptPicard]

It's irrational to think that someone in a tiny minority should be allowed to dictate how the majority behaves. Ah, a fine attempt at demonizing the weak among our midst. Look out! We're headed for a dictatorship of the disabled where everyone has to use wheelchair ramps instead of steps! Your choice of words conveniently forgets that in a democracy, a tiny minority is not going to dictate anything, never ever. However, the majority can decide that the needs of a minority are important enough to be protected through action of the majority. It's not dictation, it's choice. (Yes, I do realize libertarians would not agree with the idea... but I'm not a libertarian :)

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[geekster]

Oh, that explains it then, good bye.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[GigsVT]

Then you are basically supporting the tyranny of the majority, ironically!

If I had a business, especially one that would be likely to have disabled or elderly customers, I'd damn sure put in a wheelchair ramp, or large type on price tags, or whatever was necessary.

I'm really not a person that likes to see people struggling. I used to tutor a nearly blind guy with computers, I know how some people have a real hard time using a computer.

I don't think the current level of legal requirements are particularly heavy or burdonsome, but it's just another thing a small business owner must cut through just to operate, even if there isn't a disabled person for miles around.

Legislation doesn't take the place of empathy or courtesy. If a disabled guy is having trouble navigating my store, I'd probably rearrange things to help him. It's that personal level that's lost, and resentment fostered isntead, when the federal and state governments hand down regulations that everyone must deal with.

Re:Without intention to TROLL..

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are basically supporting the tyranny of the majority, ironically!

Like it or not, a degree of tyranny of the majority will always be with us while we excercise democracy. To take an extreme example, it is tyranny of the majority that in most western democracies things like rape, murder and arson are punishable offenses. We use majority decisions to make value judgements. Making collective value judgements is what the parliaments are there for.

If some values become important enough, they simply will be enshrined in law. I, for one, consider many things to be important enough to warrant this. Many people might disagree, but I demand that we bring the issue to a vote instead of instituting a system that is permamently skewed to one side because of blind principle.

Why am I capable of such cruelty as to "deny people their liberty"? Simply because of a sense of proportion. In cases like disability, we are often talking about the complete destruction of an individual's chances in life versus the enforcement of enabling measures... seems like a reasonably easy choice. The ones who whine are probably so petty they deserve all the pain they're getting.

If I had a business, especially one that would be likely to have disabled or elderly customers, I'd damn sure put in a wheelchair ramp, or large type on price tags, or whatever was necessary.

The thing is, in general there is no such special category of store that disabled/elderly people are more likely to visit than others... they come from all walks of life, I and I would suppose statistically speaking any two stores have about the same probability of getting a disabled/elderly customer... in any case, they will never be a profitable customer segment on their own, if you consider the amount of money you spend providing for them and the amount of money you will be able to lure away from them.

I don't think the current level of legal requirements are particularly heavy or burdonsome, but it's just another thing a small business owner must cut through just to operate, even if there isn't a disabled person for miles around.

I think especially when speaking of legislation, there definitely has to be understanding both ways. There are always some militant disability groups around who ruin their own case by being too loud and too brash. I am not saying that disability advocacy is not a good thing, it is crucial work for an important cause (in particular, see below!), but it's good to have a reality check every now and then. Ramps in every single building? Not likely, and unwise and unrealistic as a demand. Accessibility in public buildings, educational institutions, etc? A great start and actually makes a huge difference in the ability of, say, those with mobility impairments to participate and contribute to society.

Legislation doesn't take the place of empathy or courtesy.

You are correct, but it is equally true that empathy or courtesy do not take the place of legislation. They complement each other, and legislation even stems from the empathy and courtesy of the significant portion of the population.

Legislation establishes a firm norm that disabled people can truly lean on in courts when defending their ability to, well, simply live in general. While it is nice to, for example, open a door to a person who uses a wheelchair, I hate to say that... it is still peanuts in the grand scheme of things, no matter how commendable the individual's action is.

I have never understood why this valiant, wonderful, charitable spirit of apparently most of the people of the world may not -- in the view of certain political groups -- translate itself into anything concrete or substantial that would actually count when push comes to shove. Perhaps it's just because they aren't really willing to do anything about it...

It's that personal level that's lost, and resentment fostered isntead, when the federal and state governments hand down regulati

I'll never get a date now!

[pair-a-noyd]

2.6.0, 3.2 and R.o.T.K. all about the same time?!

Where will I ever find the time to get a life!

Re:I'll never get a date now!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's really sad is that any of us on this Board knows instantly what you are referring to when you simply state "2.6.0, 3.2, and R.o.T.K."

Show that list to the man on the street and he'll say, "Huh?"

Re:I'll never get a date now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just get drunk while you do it all!
I did this while doing something as trivial as installing windows 98, and somehow discovered the FAT12 filesystem.

(woke up the next day, and saw I had somehow put that on his computer. Needless to say, I never got windows on there.. but it was fun ;)

Re:I'll never get a date now!

[Anonymous Coward]

"woke up the next day, and saw I had somehow put that on his computer. Needless to say, I never got windows on there.. but it was fun ;)"

Oh well, no loss there. No windows is a good thing.

Re:I'll never get a date now!

[pair-a-noyd]

mod parent "insightful"

Re:Gnome Translate-o-matic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, I have found more and more KDE zealots who must advocate KDE at every corner.

There are numerous factual errors in your rant. I'd say 90% of what you posted is completely incorrect.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Dreadlord]

You have a valid point, but actually you don't need a mouse to fix Linux software problems, one of the features I like about Linux, when the GUI fails, you can always use the command line and edit some config files, and voila, it's back to normal, OSes that rely heavily on the GUI are vulnerable to being completely inaccessible when the GUI fails, and you know, the command line is more likely to be still working when problems occur that the GUI system.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[hviezda14]

This is already included in X server (on which KDE is running), if you press SHIFT+NumLock, you can navigate mouse cursor with arrows on numpad.

More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[jfleck]

Despite what seems to be a widespread misapprehension of conflict between the GNOME and KDE camps, KDE's adoption of ATK, originally developed for GNOME, is another great example of the cooperation that actually is more the norm.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

Its also another example of the KDE side having to wrap GNOME C APIs because the technology transfer is going GNOME -> KDE rather than the other way around. In this case, its perfectly fine (since ATK is superior to anything KDE had), but hopefully, a lot of the superior technology of KDE will make it into GNOME. My biggest fear is that the fact that GNOME is C and C is easier to wrap will make GNOME technologies more prevalent in standards even when the KDE versions are greatly superior.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, ATK was developed by Sun and depends mainly on glib, which I find overexagreated to name a "Gnome technology".

In that case, it makes sense to use the Sun, hum, Gnome technology because it is mature supported in major applications (Gnome, OpenOffice, Mozilla and Java) and is adapted to the task.

However, the technologies also fly in the other way. D-BUS is modeled after KDE's dcop. And if you see the discussion on freedesktop, you will see a lot of technical contribution from KDE hackers. So, it is hard to map a KDE technology directly into Gnome, usually because of languages and depandancies issues (Qt or glib ?).

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

Like I said, I don't think that ATK was a bad choice, since it was clearly the superior and most widely support technology in this case.

However, while D-BUS is modeled on KDE, its still a different technology and the KDE folks will have to go to a lot of work to integrate it. For GNOME, ATK was already integrated.

Of course, Qt-core (like glib) is being split-out in Qt4. If I don't see a Qt-core dependency in GNOME at that time, I'm going to be a pissed-off KDE user.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up with the "superior technology" nonsense. I realise lots of KDE fans like to wank off to the stuff like this (hence the upmodding), but it isn't true... and hasn't been true for at least 18 months. GNOME is now way ahead on all the infrastructure things that matter: components, a10y, i18n, and media for some examples.

As for why technology doesn't flow the other way -- it's mainly beause the GNOME project designs its software in a modular way, and modules depend only on the parts they need. KDE software isn't so much designed, as thown into a big mud pool to congeal... it's also *forces* linking with Qt even when not needed. Do you really think any code which requires Qt (with the full GPL, and consequently the Trolltech developer tax) would be allowed into GNOME?

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[a_hofmann]

you are right that the c code base of gnome might influence decisions where kde c++ code would be more difficult to incooperate into existing software.

but this is just one reason. the kde crew generally ignores widely accepted standards for reasons of quality (just see orbit vs. dcop, gtk signals vs. qt c++ extensions, ...). these people like to look innovative... :) that they mainly distribute as huge monolithic packages doesn't help either. what many users dislike about gnome, it's dozens of lib dependencies is a holy grail of (often) lightweight service providers for every developer.

this is not a gnome vs. kde rant, i rather want to point out that while kde provides (imho) an easier development model it suffers the former 'mozilla' disease - be everything at once to keep things simple. gnome, on the other hand, follows the unix tradition of maximum flexibility and inter-operatibility - which may sometimes make things a little bit more difficult to understand, but pay out in the long run.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

Don't kid yourself. Take look at the feature list of GTK+ 2.6. Its basically just stuff KDE has had for years. Even GNOME 2.4 can't handle a candle to KDE in terms of integration and power. Usability, yes, GNOME is definately more polished and streamlined, but the underlying technology just doesn't measure up. Examples:

- GnomeVFS vs KIO: How come I can't open files from remote directories in Abiword-GNOME? Or pretty much any app except Nautilus? Supposedly, this feature is coming with the new GTK+ file selector. So in another year (6 months for GNOME 2.6, plus another 6 for all the major apps to be recoded to use the new file selector API), GNOME will be up to KDE 2.0. Wonderful.

- GConf vs KConfig: The API's are similarly powerful, but what apps use GConf? Every KDE app uses KConfig, but only the standard GNOME ones use GConf.

- GTK+ vs Qt: Qt is faster, has more features, better documentation, and better supporting tools (Designer, Linguist, KDevelop).

- GNOME API vs KDE API: The KDE API is tightly integrated, while the GNOME API is loosely integrated. If Linux wants to compete with the app-frameworks available for other OSs (.NET for Windows, Cocoa for MacOS), it needs the former.

- KParts vs Bonobo: Read Miguel's comments on the failure of Bonobo. Do this day, the fact that AbiWord can embed a Gnumeric sheet is big news, while in KDE land its been old-hat since 2.0.

- DCOP vs ?: Eventually, GNOME will get D-BUS (which is modeled on DCOP, btw) integration but KDE has the same features *now*. That means integrated scripting for every KDE app.

- aRts vs ?: Gstreamer is not yet stable, nor widely used. aRts, flawed as it may be, is at least universally used by KDE apps. Which means that they have transparent access to all aRts-support audio and video formats. Yep, another year for GStreamer support to become universal, and for GNOME to catch up to KDE 2.0.

Then there are just all the little things. Unified toolbar and menu handling via XML-GUI. Universal mouse gestures support via KHotkeys and DCOP. Support for putting the menubar in a panel (tremendously useful on laptop screens). GNOME can't *touch* KDE on the technology front.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

While KDE may be *distributed* in a monolithic manner, it certainly is not coded that way. The KDE code is highly flexible and modular. Pretty much everything is broken into components with well-defined interfaces between them.

On the other hand, the KDE folks do have a habit of reinventing the wheel when existing wheels are insufficient. In some ways that's a good thing (the lightweight KHTML fits KDE much better than Gecko), and in some ways that's a bad thing (GNOME basically just adopted OpenOffice as GNOME Office, and now everyone things that OOo is a GNOME app).

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[stilborne]

GNOME is not ahead on a10y and i18n. if anything, it's behind, as KDE has more translations. both support virtually all script types and have full a10y support. this is something that GNOME actually caught up on, as KDE used to be ahead on it until GNOME gained a minor advantage for a few months with the ability to properly display Hindic scripts, though now both KDE and GNOME can do that.

as for infrastructure, i suggest you look into the power and pervasiveness of KParts, DCOP, Kiosk and XMLUI just for starters and then revisit the topic.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME doesn't want to depend on a GPL library.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[stilborne]

widely accepted standards? since when was CORBA, and specifically ORBIT, ever a desktop standard, let alone widely accepted as such? when KDE decided not to use CORBA themselves, and for very good reasons, GNOME's adoption of CORBA was still in its infancy as well. and Qt's signal/slot architecture was the innovator in that design pattern...

KDE is not a non-cooperating group riddled with NIH. if it was, why adopt ATK? take a look at FreeDesktop.org for many other examples of KDE cooperation, or the use of libxml, tightvnc, libsmb and many, many other libraries in core KDE applications and technologies...

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

Oh the irony! The GNU Network Object Model Environment avoiding the GNU Public License. I can barely stand it...

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[asobala]

fwiw, the GNOME office website is at http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

I was referring to this. Also, OpenOffice was a much more touted member before the GTK2 ports of Abiword and Gnumeric. I remember the previous website, anyway, had much more prominent references to OO.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

The KDE API is tightly integrated, while the GNOME API is loosely integrated.

What does integrated mean? I love it when zealots throw around buzzwords.

How come I can't open files from remote directories in Abiword-GNOME?

Because ABIWORD doesn't use GNOME-VFS, whereas Ximian's version of OpenOffice does... what's your point? That Abiword isn't too clued up? Are we comparing apps or infrastructure.

GTK+ vs Qt: Qt is faster,

No, it is not.

has more features,

WTF? GTK is a graphics toolkit, not a bloated attempt to make all platforms look alike, unlike Qt. Compare like with like... or crawl back into your zealot hole.

DCOP vs ?: Eventually, GNOME will get D-BUS (which is modeled on DCOP, btw)

No, it's not... no more than DCOP is modelled on the dozens of other simple component systems that went before. D-BUS is not for componentising GNOME, it is mainly for signalling events (most importantly, those from within kernal space). DCOP itself is far to simpleminded to be considered as a decent component system, and I confidently predict that it will be replaced if ever KDE succeeds in the marketplace (which is looking increasingly less likely thse days).

GConf vs KConfig: The API's are similarly powerful, but what apps use GConf?

Well, a good way to check would be to run GNOME and then take a look at Gconf's app schema. But then, you've never actually run GNOME, have you.

KParts vs Bonobo: Read Miguel's comments on the failure of Bonobo. Do this day, the fact that AbiWord can embed a Gnumeric sheet is big news, while in KDE land its been old-hat since 2.0.

I suggest *YOU* read Miguel's comments on Bonobo, you clearly haven't and are just repeating what another zealot told you. Just the same way we always get "Red Hat says Linux not ready for desktop", or "Red Hat broke KDE and removed credits". Just fuck off with your nonsense.

aRts vs ?: Gstreamer is not yet stable, nor widely used. aRts, flawed as it may be, is at least universally used by KDE apps. Which means that they have transparent access to all aRts-support audio and video formats. Yep, another year for GStreamer support to become universal, and for GNOME to catch up to KDE 2.0

Show me an Arts app that doesn't suck ass? Gstreamer is already in use, and it outclasses Art in every way. GNOME always took the view that a media subsystem was a low priority for a desktop system aimed at business use, and preferred to wait until an excellent one was specced up and implemented. KDE shoved in the first attempt at one. That should tell you something about the different methodologies involved here... and it's not kind to KDE.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

power and pervasiveness

Were you wanking while you wrote that? Whenever KDE fans post, they always sound like they are stroking themselves off while banging on about "Kiosk" (which is just about the only thing KDE has over GNOME these days -- but not for long).

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[nitehorse]

Actually, GNOME isn't "ahead" in any of the areas that you've listed except for _perhaps_ a11y (not a10y as you wrote, btw).

KDE has been about components since Day 1. KDE2 introduced the first real component-based architecture, and it took us a while to make it fast and to make it as stable as it is today, but the design that we had originally (with KParts, DCOP, KIO, and KHTML) is pretty much the same thing that we had from an API standpoint back then. Design it right first, and implement it better every chance you get - it's the same thing that Apple's been doing with OS X, and they've had nothing but praise for it. (well, except that they cheated since 10.0 was so slow that it could _only_ get faster :)

But GNOME isn't ahead in any of the areas that really matters. KDE has always had a head start (what with us being around for well over a year before GNOME even started), and we've maintained that lead for quite some time. GNOME-VFS was obviously inspired by KIO, and GTKHTML was based on our OLD (as in KDE1) KHTMLW code. The "GNOME" technology to compare with KHTML is Gecko, which is C++ anyway for one, and not even developed by anyone working on GNOME anyway for two.

Other areas where GNOME still has a long way to go: API documentation. Programming tutorials. A development environment that works for real developers and not just people writing a 'Hello, world!' app in C with GTK2. Integration of the technology that they finally DO have (Bonobo, GNOME-VFS) into the rest of the desktop. And, while GNOME still holds on tight to ORBit and CORBA in general, the whole point of _using_ CORBA is lost really. I have yet to see pervasive use of embedding different Bonobo parts into applications, and GNOME still has zero D-BUS integration. DCOP, on the other hand, has been around since KDE 2.0, and it's extremely widely used in KDE.

Not that KDE is perfect. We "suffer" from the fact that our toolkit and libraries are so easy to use that applications have started to get too many features, but it's not an insurmountable problem.

And, for the record, the Qt license does not require a "Trolltech developer tax" if you are in fact using it under the GPL. If you want to develop GPL software, you have a gorgeous, amazing GPL toolkit to do it with. If you want a free ride so that you can make money off of the work that other people have been doing without contributing anything back, then you can suffer with GTK and forget about using Qt.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[ainsoph]

Ya know, its nice that you had all sorts of seemingly intelligent rebuttels to his arguments. But in the end, they are meaningless, since you are a coward. An anonymous one at that.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[a_hofmann]

KDE is not a non-cooperating group riddled with NIH.

that's not what i've talked about. still i think that gnome focuses on widespread compatibility, more so than kde does.

corba is a widely accepted standard for developing distributed componenents, which include desktop components. a lot of developers that know and use corba can easily adapt to orbit.

same goes for the signal/slot design. i appreciate the way the qt c++ extension integrate into the language, but why develop another preprocessor when there are macros and templates? that adds a dependency to the qt tools (i.e. moc).

by the way, that is exactly what icaza's mono project is about - language independent = maximum compatibility. i like that general focus in the gnome project.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[a_hofmann]

reinventing the wheel is never the best choice. it's far more efficient to improve existing wheels... khtml may still be superiour to gecko in terms of footprint, but gecko is part of a massive project with much support and is constantly improving, with or without gnome. resources can be used better than rewriting existing code...

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

What does integrated mean? I love it when zealots throw around buzzwords.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Integrated means that its all designed in one way, with one set of conventions, documented in one place. The GNOME API is built out of different components that are different in origin, and thus do not always behave the same.

Because ABIWORD doesn't use GNOME-VFS, whereas Ximian's version of OpenOffice does... what's your point?
>>>>>>>>>>
What use is GNOME-VFS if nothing uses it? GEdit doesn't appear to use it either, and its an app released by the GNOME project! In KDE, all KDE apps use KIO, because its basically a requirement for using the file dialog.

That Abiword isn't too clued up? Are we comparing apps or infrastructure.
>>>>>>>>>
The apps are a function of the infrastructure. If the infrastructure is high quality and easy to use, apps will use it. GNOME has more developers than KDE, yet KDE apps are far more likely to use niceties like KIO. Tell me why that is, if not because the KDE technologies are better/easier? This was basically the problem with Bonobo. It was so complex and overengineered, that no apps really wanted to use it. If apps don't want to use the infrastructure you provide, that infrastructure is flawed.

No, it is not.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes it is. Aside from application load time, Qt's handling of redraw is a lot better than GTK+'s. Check out the gnomedesktop.org thread on the Dec. 7 GNOME summary. There are a lot of GNOME'ers complaining about GTK+'s performance. Also check the gnomedesktop.org thread about the interview with Owen Taylor, he gets a question about GTK+'s performance. Also, the guy who wrote Sylpheed complained about the huge performance drop from GTK 1.x to GTK 2.x, and was reluctant to port Sylpheed to 2.x because of it.

I've also written about it several times:

Here (last comment on page)

And here (search for 21:26:30 on the page)

WTF? GTK is a graphics toolkit, not a bloated attempt to make all platforms look alike, unlike Qt. Compare like with like... or crawl back into your zealot hole.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Qt has more GUI-related features too. Just take a look at the GTK+ 2.4 feature plan. Qt + KDE has pretty much all of these already! Stuff like (edits mine):

File selector (we have to get this one) (#29087)
Combo widget (#50554)
New action-based menu API (#55393)
Toolbar improvements (#55393) (ed. editable)
Autocompletion and history for GtkEntry(#69613)
XCursor support for GDK. (#69436)

No, it's not... no more than DCOP is modelled on the dozens of other simple component systems that went before.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Geez. Learn what you're talking about! Neither DCOP nor D-BUS are component systems. They're IPC mechanisms. And D-BUS was modeled closely after DCOP because a lot of KDE people had hand in D-BUS, and since KDE was the only desktop that used IPC to any significant degree, to make it easy to switch over from DCOP. Havoc Pennington said on a mailing list message that D-BUS was so similar to DCOP that it would be harder to get the GNOME developer onboard than the KDE ones. And if you believe that DCOP is simplistic, than don't hold any hope for D-BUS, because D-BUS's functionality is just an extension of DCOP.

Well, a good way to check would be to run GNOME and then take a look at Gconf's app schema. But then, you've never actually run GNOME, have you.
>>>>>>>>>
I have it installed right now. I check it out every time a new release comes out to see how it has improved. For a moment with 2.4, I thought the speed issues had been fixed, until I realized that they were only mas

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[be-fan]

No matter how hard you try, you'll never "improve" an SUV tire to fit on a Porsche. Sometimes, you just gotta start over.

Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation

[bluGill]

Wrong, sometimes re-inventing the wheel is the best choice. Mind you that doesn't mean you start with nothing. However by starting over you get rid of a lot of choices. The wheel from an old buggy worked just fine until the car came along and forced a re-thinking of the wheel because the buggy wheel didn't work right.

In this case though, there is pleny of room for both khtml and gecko (which btw were more concurent develpoment, when khtml first started gecko was a long ways from being useful). Both work on completely different models, and shoe-horning the one into the other makes for ugly code.

When everyone runs the came code, everyone is vulnerable to the same bugs. If a serious bug exists in one you can use the other. And because there are two it forces web designers to give some thought to the right way to design their pages instead of exploiting bugs in one. (which also means that you can't fix bugs because someone is using them)

Don't try to claim that one is taking developers from the other. There are only so many developers that can work on any project before developer communication becomes too much work. In addition the languages and the way things are implimented result in compromises that make some things easy and others hard, so a developer wanting to add some feature may find that one system is better.

Compition is not bad, it is good. Monopolies are bad, and it doesn't matter if it is a web browser that is stagnating, train service, or operating systems.

Re:KDE? Accessible?

[Mrs. Neutron]

yeah, i know this is a troll... but it's true. OOffice takes forever to boot in KDE. Of course, it doesn't help that my box decided to try to use OO Math to open all the text documents. (tried changing file associations. slack can be a pain at times.)

Stop abusing gconf-editor!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome's gconf-editor is a great tool for developers to easily debug their programs, unfortunatley some have decided to abuse it and FORCE END USERS to use it instead of writing a configuaration dialog for that option. See how KDE kicks gnomes ass by its configuarabillity.

1)Enable Menu Shadows
KDE : Go to "Control Center, Appearance and Themes, Style, Effects, click enable shadows under menus, and apply"
Gnome : Download 3rd party patch, recompile the gtk libraries.

2)Change order of Window Buttons.
KDE : Right click a window, select "Configure Window Behaviour", Go to buttons tab, DRAG and drop to your liking, click apply.
Gnome : Launch gconf-editor, go deep into a mysterious folder called metacity, edit a scary txt syntax.

3) Enable Tear off menus
KDE, same as 1, but select Tear off menus in the Effects tab.
Gnome : You guessed it, gconf-editor.

And it goes on. In terms of ease of use and configurabillity, gnome is poor performance. I will probably get a gnome fanboy reply to me "oh I love the lack of options, I like using Windows 95's retarded brother". Also see Sodipodi, Galeon two very powerful apps, both have retarded forks known as Epiphany and Inkscape.

If Qt was LGPL then people would give up on the gnome crap and let it die for the piece of (Score : 5, insightful) SHIT it is!

Re:Stop abusing gconf-editor!

[twener]

3) is wrong, KDE has no real support for tear off menus.

Re:Stop abusing gconf-editor!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can enable tear-off menus in Gnome via the "menus and toolbars" icon in the control panel. This has been there *at least* since 2.2.

Re:Stop abusing gconf-editor!

[asobala]

fwiw, gnome doesn't have menu shadows because it doesn't work in the general case. KDE just grabs a single snapshot of the desktop and uses a darkened version of that as the shadow; if a window updates behind the shadow, it won't show properly.

When shadows and transparency are supported by the X server, you will probably see the features appearing in Gtk.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Walterk]

I find the mouse to be an increasing bother. I mostly use the keyboard, even in Windows. It's just so much quicker then wiggeling around with the mouse. Who needs to position a cursor to a certain point of the screen to click, and then another, when they can just do a WinKey+R -> cmd ?

Not Relevent

[brunes69]

XSettings and the Desktop Color Scheme specs only refers to things like mouse curosr movement, drag and drop timeouts, and color schemes, trivial things of that nature. None of the more advanced types of configuration, like positions of panels, menu types, etc, are included in there.

All it is is a standard spec for controlling how happs behave in a fundamental fashion.

KDE and Gnome are so different and have such totally different config architectures (GConf vs. KConfig ) that you'll never be able to manage both with one single spec, unless either one desktop ditches their system and adopts the other (not going to happen ), or someone makes a huge monolithic app that can do both ( would be hideous ).

Re:Not Relevent

[justsomebody]

GConf is XML architecture, KConfig is a software.

And if you ask me KConfig is already a huge monolithic app that is hideous

Re:Not Relevent

[nutshell42]

You mix up KConfig and the control center

And Kcontrol is not monolithic it's nearly 100% modular

Re:Not Relevent

[justsomebody]

My bad! Sorry kcontrol yes.

As for modular, probably yes, but usable and nice, NO. kcontrol is the main reason I left for Gnome

Re:Not Relevent

[nutshell42]

Yeah, Gconf is *so* superior. I always miss the registry when I'm away from Windows, too.

SCNR, really =), cleaning up kcontrol would be a *very good* idea I'm not arguing with you here. I'd really like to see simple and advanced profiles with all the stuff of the Gnome control center plus some essentials (language selection for example) as standard and a seperate section/a big red button for people who want all the settings.

That said one thing I'd like Gnome to reverse is the decision to abolish the apply/ok button in the settings. That's outright dangerous imho.

Re:Not Relevent

[twener]

> Yeah, Gconf is *so* superior. I always miss the registry when I'm away from Windows, too.

At least the Windows registry editor has a search function.

Re:Not Relevent

[justsomebody]

Yes, it is *so* superior, it's not one big file, thus access time won't get slowed down if more settings would be in it.

That said one thing I'd like Gnome to reverse is the decision to abolish the apply/ok button in the settings.

Yep, that I agree

Re:Not Relevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony 101: When replying to irony please try to express yourself in a similar way. Like this:

"Yeah, and they got rid of the search function too. Good riddance."

Re:Not Relevent

[nitehorse]

FWIW, even though I don't work on GNOME (and I have worked on KConfig and KControl, so I have some idea what I'm talking about in that area at least), GConf is really nothing like the Windows registry. The fact that the GConf editor _looks_ somewhat similar to Regedit is really bad for the GNOME guys because it gives the wrong impression (IMHO), but the underlying system is really absolutely nothing like the evil that is the Windows Registry.

And as far as KControl goes... trust me, work is being done to clean up the mess. :) KDE 3.2 is a pretty big step towards it, but it's not done yet, and there will be much more work to clean things up for KDE 3.3, and KDE4 will likely feature a very different configuration application altogether.

But KDE 3.3 is at least a year away, and KDE4 is (to quote Havoc Pennington) something for the Star-Trek future.

Re:Not Relevent

[elmegil]

the underlying system is really absolutely nothing like the evil that is the Windows Registry.

I can't say I like it any better though. It may not be similar, but it's easily as confusing.

Re:Not Relevent

[fault0]

I think that kcontrol most has an appearance of being unusable. KDE 3.2 has "settings:/", which has the same content as kcontrol, but presents it in a much better way (akin to GNOME, Windows, MacOS before OSX).. and to me, it feels a lot more usable.

Re:Not Relevent

[brunes69]

settings:/ is just KControl presented in a drill-down instead of a tree view.

The Dreaded Dot!

[IAmRenegadeX]

"Got the dot". All I can think of, now, is a pinball game with a malfunction...does KDE use a switch matrix? :)

Re:KDE? Accessible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaat?!? I'm sure there is something wrong with your configuration. On my system a konq window takes less than a second to open up. Try to preload konq instances. There is a setting for this in the Control-Center under KDE performance.

Interoperability

[maxdamage]

This is the one thing I truly dislike about linux. This, in my opinion, is the only place microsoft has you. It should have been thought about from the start. Microsoft has know since the start with ole that interoperability is one of the most important features of a gui, but here we are will linux zealots still debating gtk and qt...

OT - KDE as 'default'

[mgkimsal2]

I've been reading this for months, people saying that 'distro X has KDE as the default desktop' or 'distro Y uses Gnome by default'.

EVERY distro I've installed over the last 3 years *asks* me which desktop managers I want to install. Although this decision is generally put on par with choosing whether you want to install 'games' or 'server software' or 'scientific' software, it's still a decision you're expected to make. I don't think any distro I've ever installed just puts a desktop on by default with no choice (save for Knoppix).

What have I missed in these wars where certain distros make the choice for you? I've installed mandrake, redhat, suse, plain debian, knoppix and and caldera over the years.

Re:OT - KDE as 'default'

[nutshell42]

Perhaps they offer you the other DE but the support is often lackluster at best.

Red Hat KDE is ridiculous and Bluecurve (I think that's what it's called) was practically maiming KDE. Gnome on SuSE otoh always lacked the polish their KDE had. Similar things can be said for a lot of distributions

Re:OT - KDE as 'default'

[Otter]

EVERY distro I've installed over the last 3 years *asks* me which desktop managers I want to install...What have I missed in these wars where certain distros make the choice for you?

1) I think the newer desktop-targeted distros (Lindows, Lycoris, those guys) do push a particular desktop on you.

2) Also, with other distros, if you install both they often still default to booting to gdm/GNOME or kdm/KDE without asking you for a preference.

3) As someone else said, the non-default, like KDE in Red Hat, is poorly configured.

Re:OT - KDE as 'default'

[NTmatter]

Knoppix actually does give you some choice as to the desktop you use - it's just slightly hidden. When you boot the CD, hit F2 (I think) and it'll give you a list of options that you can pass to the initialization scripts. Among these options is "desktop=foo". I prefer Fluxbox, as it loads significantly faster than KDE does from a CD. There's about 8 other WM's to try, so you've got your pick of the litter.

So, just type the following when you reach the Knoppix splash screen:

knoppix desktop=fluxbox

QT, GTK+, KDE, ATK, ugh...

[gamlidek]

Which one does what again? It's all so confusing.

-gam

Re:QT, GTK+, KDE, ATK, ugh...

[damiam]

QT and GTK are toolkits - libraries that display stuff (windows, toolbars, buttons, text boxes, etc.) on the screen. KDE is a desktop environment - a set of programs that use the QT toolkit to create a user interface. ATK is a set of accessability standards, which are now supported by KDE and GNOME, the two majro desktop environments.

Re:QT, GTK+, KDE, ATK, ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

QT = QuickTime
Qt = Trolltech's toolkit (pronounced "Cute")

Re:QT, GTK+, KDE, ATK, ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's pronounced "Que-tee" as in Qt.

Cute is incorrect.

Also, GNOME is pronounced like 'garden gnome' not 'guh-nome'. Ditto GNU.

right on

[powlow]

excellent news! wow! incredible!

no, serious now, good...

Re:Gnome Translate-o-matic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please enlighten us as to what's factually incorrect.

Please

[palad1]

Pressing ALT-F , Q, Enter : 1 second Pressing Shift num + UP, UP, Up, UP, DOWN, LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, SPACE to open the file menu, then DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, space for 'quit' ... 15 seconds, 45 swearing words... This ain't the same level of functionnality :)

Re:Please

[sisukapalli1]

I noticed on my machine just now... the speed of the cursor is adaptive, so if I hold the arrow key for a little while, it moves much faster.

So, it is not actually a pain.

S

Re:Please

[LMCBoy]

Guess what, troll? You can do "Alt-F, Q" in KDE too. Back to your cave, try again.

Re:Please

[palad1]

Read the parent again, he was talkinag about X support, not KDE.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[GigsVT]

That's really neat, but the cursor moves SO SLOW!

It'd be a real bitch to do anything with this. I mean it takes a full 2 minutes to cross the screen.

Re:KDE? Accessible?

[unborn]

Yes, it says it tries to use OO Math, however OO automatically recognizes your ( .doc ? ) file and opens it with OO Writer.

Re:Gnome Translate-o-matic!

[Perl-Pusher]

I am a long time gnome user, I wrote several themes for gnome 1.x. And there is alot more truth their than I care to admit. There are alot of things that KDE does right. And to me, Gnome 2 has been a disappointment, I keep waiting for it to catch up. Especially the apps, I find myself using alot of kde apps in gnome.

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic!

[bach37]

Likewise, I have found more and more KDE zealots who must advocate KDE at every corner.

AMEN!

Some of us don't like our desktops to look like Fisher-Price, and eat up all the memory doing so. I use Gnome because I like it: it's fast, clean, and simple. Nothing to do with GPL, or whatever else the KDE folks keep fussing about.

Scott

before the debian flames start

[mgkimsal2]

I actually don't remember now if debian offered a choice or not - it was a joint install with someone else and I don't recall exactly how that went, except that I didn't keep it on longer than a week. :)

From a user: Thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

I lost most of the use of my fingers and 40 percent of my vision in a chemical accident 15 years ago. I am so glad to see linux taking steps to make things more usable for people like me. I truly feel linux will soon take the lead in accessibility (not to mention stability and performance) from Microsoft very soon. Thank you linux hackers!

--Berry

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello and welcome to when every one of us finished the books, cuntmuffin.

KDE 3.2 will NOT be accessibility-ready

[unborn]

KDE is in feature freeze and will not be accessibility ready. This may, however, come in a minor release. Nowhere in the article does it mention 3.2.

Re:KDE 3.2 will NOT be accessibility-ready

[Karma Sucks]

It's been backported and will likely be in Qt 3.3. That's what makes KDE 3.2 accessibility ready.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[boa13]

Mouse emulation has been available in XFree86 for a long time (don't remember how much, but long it is). Use Shift+NumLock to enable it (you will hear a beep), use the 1234 6789 number pad keys to move the cursor around, use the /*- number pad keys to select the active mouse button, use the 5 number pad key to click the active mouse button, use Shift+NumLock to disable it (you will hear a beep).

Maybe KDE provides a better interface to that facility, but the functionnality was there already.

KDE OpenOffice Link

[mamer-retrogamer]

Slashdotted.

Only the KDE/Qt OpenOffice port link at dot.kde.org was in Google's cache: porting OpenOffice to Qt/KDE

Direct link to kde.openoffice.org

-Mike

Is it possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am impressed seeing Sodipodi using the KDE file dialog, which is currently undisputedly better than the GTK one, it has me wondering if we should go all the way by merging the two toolkits.

I think that GTK/Gnome should throw out their current legacy pix-map based drawing API and wrap itself around the QT drawing engine (just like Qt wraps itself around Windows/Mac OS X engines.)

This has the advantage of being consistant with the KDE desktop. It will eliminate the need for a seperate gnome desktop, so there will only be KDE from now on. It will also have the best of both worlds. GTK developers will be able to keep their legacy apps until they can port it to the newer QT standards and one unified desktop will be able to Konquer the Desktop market.

I think both sides should co-operate and deprecate gnome and use this transition tool to unify the code bases.

Re:Is it possible?

[asobala]

It's not possible. Look at gtk, try to do the port, then come to that conclusion :) GTK wants to be able to draw things to the screen. Different GDK backends can draw to different "screens" - X, pixbuf, framebuffer, even curses/terminal (!!!) but you can't tell something to "draw a line in a Qt style." Only to "Draw a button in a Qt style." This is actually how themes work, so all you need is a theme engine that will mirror the Qt look. Aaaaaaah, that must be easier :) Alternatively you could make a theme for Qt and Gtk, but then people would flame you for crippling one or the other.

great, but...

[ghettoreb]

that's real great for disabled people, but do i really have to get excited about this???

i mean it's kinda hard to relate to an issue so far and obscure to the average user

Re:Gnome Translate-o-matic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Choosing a WM for X is like choosing how you want to die

I have already chosen how I want to die.

Whorehouse Heart Attack!

Trolling here

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent, now if only Copy-Paste would work consistently.

Re:Gnome Translate-o-matic!

[SphynxSR]

Are you happy yet? I use KDE and GNOME. I don't care which one I run. I learned them both and moved onto bigger and better things. Learning everything I can.

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic!

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I currently use Blackbox because it's more lightweight than either KDE or Gnome, it loads almost instantly. It can run GTK+ or QT apps just fine, too. So what are these "desktop environments" doing that takes so much resources? (honestly!)

Speaking of accessibility...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the opposite of Christopher Reeves?

Christopher Waulken

Won't happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see more cross-pollination too. It won't happen. GNOME was started for ideological reasons (Qt wasn't GPL at the time), and then run into the ground for ideological reasons (refusal to do the right thing because KDE was already doing it, and this even after their own leader admitted that their own approach was faulty!).

Remember that there are people in this world who refuse to use 'make xconfig' in kernel 2.6 because it's Qt-based, and actually wasted time hacking up a GTK clone (one that keeps crashing at that).

There is probably some poetic justice to the fact that this mix of blind ideologism and idiocy would have been what ran GNOME into the ground until it had to resort to becoming a commercial product to simply survive, but I'd much rather live in a world where people aren't so dumb. :/

Re:Won't happen.

[twener]

> Remember that there are people in this world who refuse to use 'make xconfig' in kernel 2.6 because it's Qt-based

Funny. "No, I want to configure my GPL kernel with a LGPL based tool!" Sad.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[zerblat]

Actually, that's one of the few things I like about Windows (and most MS software): it has always been possible to access almost everything using your keyboard. Although it's often neither convenient nor efficient (press TAB 42 times until the correct widget is focused and then press Enter), but at least it's possible. With many X apps, especially older ones, you basically can't do anything without a mouse (e.g. xdvi). Focus-follows-mouse isn't very convenient if you don't have a mouse.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Anonymous Coward]

I am disabled and have no arms and legs to press those keys, you insensitive clod!

I found KDE to have too much of everything

[xutopia]

I'm glad they have this accessibility thing but unless they do some usability efforts people like me will go for the unKluttered look of Gnome.

Re:I found KDE to have too much of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, usability efforts. Right. Like gconf, that wonderful registry-like database that will eventually come in quite handy when companies wish to hide away application settings. It'll also be useful for things like lost settings and corruption.

Gnome. BrinGing Windows to Linux for Gaylords.

Re:I found KDE to have too much of everything

[Joe Tie.]

Good. I don't understand this attitude many people seem to have that all window managers should behave in a manner perfect to their own prefrence. I like most things in KDE, I have a mild dislike for a lot of aspects of Gnome. I'm thrilled that Gnome exists, because obviously it scratchs the itch of a lot of people, and prevents that same behavior being implemented in an environment where it would only annoy most users - not help them. I love the fact that there's so much choice in Linux, and I think it'd be a shame if some people got their wish of everything, everywhere, looking and acting the same.

Sun?

[elmegil]

Sun? Aren't they dead yet? Don't they just suck all around and pollute Linux by their very existence?

Oh wait, Sun is Goood this time. Sorry, wrong knee jerk.

Re:Sun?

[elmegil]

(not that I expected anything but troll mods, but just to let you in on the joke: I work for Sun. I think all the BS about how Sun is dead is tired, done, stupid, pointless. Funny how none of the morons posting things that boil down to the same comments on threads about JDS never or rarely seem to get modded as trolls...)

Re:Sun?

[nitehorse]

Well, I have a lot of respect for Sun, and I think the work that they've put into GNOME for accessibility and documentation and everything else that they've done has been (no doubt) a huge boon to the project.

But the JDS is terrible, IMHO, and there are quite a few reasons why.

1. Nothing is "integrated" or even pretends to be.
2. Default choices for applications don't seem to make much sense.
3. The GTK engine that Sun wrote is atrocious. Menubar items aren't smooth, and there is an obvious and distinct visual difference between apps that use it and apps that don't.
4. Startup times for the different apps, since they all seem to be using different toolkits, is absolutely terrible.

I'm sure that there are more reasons to like the desktop and such, but... for a few examples - Why go with a GNOME2 desktop, and still ship GTK1 applications? Especially big applications - the JDS demo CD that I have uses a GTK1 version of Evolution. Why Mozilla, instead of something else using Gecko (like, say, Galeon, or Epiphany?) I understand why Epiphany would not have been the default choice - hey, it's not like it's been around very long, and it probably wasn't even announced before Sun started working on the JDS, but it's not like Galeon is exactly "new" and it's always been at least as stable as Mozilla whenever I've tried it. And, for more toolkit fun, RealPlayer _still_ uses Motif. Not to mention the fact that some of the actual Java apps are written using the Metal look'n'feel, _some_ of them seem to use some sort of GTK1 wrapper around their GUI, and one of them actually appears to be using GTK2.

One of the benefits of having a standard desktop environment is that your applications all follow the same interface guidelines - it's a nice feature of the GNOME2 series, and something that we've always had in KDE. But you absolutely destroy that whenever you break the metaphor - once you break it, users have to start building much more complicated mental models in their heads about where things are located in the menus on their different applications, etc.

The JDS has some nice ideas, and Looking Glass will be an absolutely killer feature once it's actually in a shipping product, but the current implementation is so disturbing that I'm absolutely shocked that I haven't heard some backlash from the GNOME community - users OR developers - about all of the things that Sun has done wrong to their GNOME desktop.

And this is coming from a KDE developer. (One who didn't actually care much about Bluecurve in RH8, but did mind the fact that they used non-standard patches to give Xft support to Qt and a few other little niggles that resulted in bugs that we couldn't reproduce with our sources. But that's another story entirely.)

Re:Sun?

[elmegil]

See, a well thought out criticism is GOOD for all of us, and I appreciate it. Personally, I like JDS better than stock SuSE because I don't have to hunt and peck (in most cases anyway) to figure out where they've put a given function in the overbloated menu structure. JDS isn't perfect, but it's a first release; I fully expect that the next release will be much better. I realize that's pretty weak as a response, but since I'm not in JDS engineering, I can't say I know the nitty-gritty details to reply with (and I'd probably be in legal trouble if I tried anyway).

But the real point is, what you wrote isn't a troll, it's a reasoned criticism. My complaints are about the people who think any mention of JDS is reason to trot out the whole "Sun is dead. Sun is no better than Microsoft. Sun is taking advantage of the Linux community." canards. Criticism like yours is, as I said, good for us, and hopefully someone who can fix those things will see what you said (and I'll do my part to see that they do).

Re:Sun?

[nitehorse]

Well, I'm glad my post wasn't interpreted as a troll :)

I have friends who work for Sun, both locally and in other countries, so like I said - I have a lot of respect for everyone who does work there. It's just that I'm not personally too impressed with the JDS yet.

Of course, if you want to take this conversation private or just have an email address to forward to your coworkers (especially any who might be on the JDS team, as I'd love to chat with them) please, feel free to send anything relevant to clee@kde.org.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth pointing out that the so-called "full accessibility" is a lie. It takes a bit more than just copying GNOME's toolkit support (ATK -- yes, KDE had to use the work done by the GNOME project) to manage it... applications also have to be auditied, and the "support" has to extend to custom widgets and those people who design GUIs; it's policy as much as code... none of which is true of KDE. It's typical to see them blowing their own trumpet with little to back it up but other than people's code.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what? It takes me about 2.5 seconds to cross the screen.

If you hold the key down, it accelerates. Maybe you weren't doing that.

Btw note that diagonals work as well.

Not all give a choice

[nurb432]

Try installing some of the newer debian based 'live' cds..

Your choice is made when you download the distribution.. Not at run time..

Not saying this is bad.. just an observation...

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic!

[be-fan]

They're complete application frameworks. They provide numerous APIs to applications in an easy to use manner for things like networking, XML parsing, inter-app communication, etc. At the user level, you get (KDE 3.2-biased, because I'm a KDE user):

- Integration: System-wide spellechecking, system-wide password handling, system-wide toolbar and menu customization, system-wide preferences handling, system-wide contacts management, etc.

- Consistency: KDevelop (a full IDE), Kate (a programmer's editor like BBEdit), and KWrite (a notepad replacement) all use the same editor widget, so you only have to learn one. Any app can embed KHTML with a few lines of code, so all apps that need to display HTML (say KMail) use the same renderer. All apps look and behave the same, and respond to the same shortcuts.

- Shared power: All KDE apps can access remote resources through KIO. Can save and load files from a remote SSH server, for example, even through a simple app like KSnapshot. All KDE apps can use mouse gestures. All KDE apps apps can be scripted with the same language. Scripting languages like Python and Javascript can access the entire KDE framework and all its modules. This means that any KDE app can easily embed a scripting program to provide more functionality.

Re:KDE? Accessible?

[Mrs. Neutron]

usually opens both writer and math. it's .swx, though. not sure why it's doing it in the first place.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I would think using the keyboard without the numlock "acessability feature" mouse would do just as well. ctrl-esc pulls down the start menu, alt-tab, shift-tab and ctrl-tab does a lot of stuff too, often quicker than a keypad-mouse. This is all my opinion. The only exception might be controlling stuff in the system tray.

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic!

[be-fan]

Actually, I've found KDE to be much faster in all areas except application load time. It does take more memory, though, but GNOME is hardly svelte. And my desktop does not look like Fisher-Price

Disabled access

[Alan Cox]

"eople with special needs have to pay more, because special needs cost more."

Except that disabilities often make it hard for them to pay at all. Think of it as an investment instead. If you make something accessible to the disabled it means they can contribute more to society and you won't be paying their unemployment instead. It means they'll be productive and more importantly happier and more empowered.

A lot of disabled access tools are also the same tools people that you often don't think of as disabled need - older people tend to lose their ability to focus well and benefit from maginfiers and chunky displays. People with arthtritis benefit from some of the other control features and so on.

And for the totally selfish: Its always worth remembering that by the time you are 70 you too will probably have poor eyesight, poor mobility and poor motion control.

Because accessibility tools exist there are a lot of productive people out there, including people writing Linux kernel code that most of the world doesn't even know are blind or otherwise disabled.

Re:Disabled access

[GigsVT]

I'm by no means against accessibility tools.

What I am against is a sense of entitlement (which I was getting from the original post), and any government interference and legislation that forces the majority to do things to accmodate a tiny minority.

I'm all for businesses and projects keeping accessibility in mind. Good UI design and accessibility go hand in hand often.

more direct links

[Karma Sucks]

More direct links:

accessibility
GTK integration

Windows relies on a mouse

[IshanCaspian]

Linux can operate just fine without a mouse...in fact, there are console tools that allow you to do just about whatever you need...it's surprisingly pleasant to code in vi, play music with mp3blaster, and browse the web with lynx. Besides, if you screw something up in windows, you NEED a mouse just to load / remove drivers, change your GUI config, etc. In linux, all of those things can be done from the console.

Re:From a user: Thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

I lost most of the use of my fingers and 40 percent of my vision in a chemical accident

"Chemical accident"? :)

Moral of the story:
Don't try to relight your crackpipe after already having puffed it for a while! Else you might try to set fire to the butane lighter itself.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[dspeyer]

Speed (and acceleration) are settings which can be changed. This can be done while X is running. I've seen a nice GUI app for it, but I can't remember where. Google is probably your friend. Otherwise, it's probably in xset somewhere.

Oddly, IIRC, Slackware and Debian ship with really nice defaults here, but Redhat and Mandrake go way to slow. Weird.

Missleading announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

The announcement is quite missleading, the integration with ATK will eventually happen, but that does not mean that applications are accessible.

The Gnome folks went through at least a year adding accessibility to every dialog box in their applications.

GUI's almost can't be accessible

[gmhowell]

It's almost impossible for a GUI to be accessible. Until KDE can *easily* support the work by the brltty folks, it ain't accessible as far as I'm concerned. The command line is the best bet. Simple, straightforward, easily interfaced with screen readers, text to speech, etc. Yes, I've seen JAWS and other workarounds. They suck compared to a brltty hooked up to a good CLI.

Re:Major inroads need to be make

[asobala]

If you actually use Window's accessibility features, you will find them sadly lacking. Actually trying to navigate the desktop just using ATs is very difficult, lots of apps take no notice of the system settings, etc.

I am not an accessibility expert, but there have been some studies to suggest ATK is ahead of Windows here.

Re:Missleading announcement (mod parent up)

[asobala]

Precisely. The infrastructure now exists in KDE, which is a tremendous step to getting it "accessibility ready", but if you look at screenshots like this screeshot you'll find that the applications aren't giving very much accessibility information to ATK yet :)

Still, lets not underplay this announcement. Linux is on the way to becoming "The desktop that cares" and usable by people who can't use non-accessibility-ready desktops.

Re:Major inroads need to be make

[TheeAlien]

Sure, Microsoft even admits it's core accessability features suck. To quote from Microsoft's own mouth:

"The accessibility tools that ship with Windows are intended to provide a minimum level of functionality for users with special needs. Most users with disabilities will need utility programs with more advanced functionality for daily use."

I was primarly refering to 3rd party softwarre avaibility allowing Windows to be very accessable. Linux simply dosnt have the tools/utilities/libraries avaible be it from the community OR from commercial 3rd parties.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Karma Sucks]

ATK was actually done by Sun in a toolkit independent manner. So there's nothing GNOME about it.

GNOME has also been claiming "full accessibility" for years when that has been every much a lie and probably still is. Why else is JDS not accessible today? Sun even admits to it.

These features showcase the future of I/O

[Anonymous Coward]

A screen reader is great for the blind, but it is also the way we will all use certain computers. Imagine a computer in your car that could read slashdot stories to you as you drive. This is really about alternate forms of user input and output. Not all systems should require a screen and keyboard.

what's involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we need to recompile every KDE application now?

Re:what's involved

[Karma Sucks]

Read the page. Assuming Qt 3.3 gets it, you'll need Qt 3.3 which will dynamically load accessibility support if it's requested. Otherwise you'll see no difference or penalty at all. Not even glib.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[GigsVT]

Most likely no one thought to ever test it, or file a bug!

It's probably been set that way since before 'drake forked from RH.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Enucite]

If by "really nice defaults" you mean being able to cross the monitor (horizontally at 1280x1024) in 52 seconds. ;) This is on Debian Sid, btw.

Any idea where you change these settings?

MOD PARENT DOWN: REPOST

[the man with the pla]

This post is ripped off from this post

Accessibility Features useful to all

[dlinder]

Many of the input accessibility features also exist in the X server itself, and can be adjusted via a tool like AccessX. Many of our users are not disabled, but use MouseKeys for convenience, or BounceKeys to compensate for their overly sensitive laptop keyboards.

QT rehash

[Dr. Evil]

So does using QT mean that free QT developers cannot have their contributions adopted into StarOffice by Sun?

Re:QT rehash

[Karma Sucks]

Your question is unclear.

Sun has no intention of switching to Qt, but if they wanted to for proprietary purposes they'd need to negotiate with Trolltech.

Re:QT rehash

[Dr. Evil]

http://kde.openoffice.org/ooo-qt/index.html

...The second step in my KDE integration plans was to replace the OOo's VCL layer (GUI toolkit) with its Qt implementation....

...You should have signed Sun's JCA and release your patches both under LGPL and SISSL...

But from TT:

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/free.html, it gets a lot more complex.

Sun seems to say "DO WHAT YOU WILL IT MUST BE OURS!!!", and Troll Tech is saying "PAY US OR IT IS OPEN!!!"

Which to a shrewd person, maybe the answer simply is OO is dual licensed, so it is both Troll Tech's "open" and Sun's posession.

I need more coffee... or more sleep.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Anonymous Coward]

1. ATK was initiated and developed for the GNOME project. It also had a view towards Mozilla and OpenOffice, because they realised that those applications are/will be pivotal in Linux desktop acceptance. KDE is having to rely on GNOME tech because they were too short-sighted and incompetent to see the importance of accessibility... get over it.

2. JDS is not *fully* accessible for the simple reason that it is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve. Sun/GNOME is being perfectly honest -- it is 99.9% accessible... and that is after a great deal of work. As was stated originally, accessiblity is more than just toolkit support -- it takes work, something the KDE project has not done. It will not even reach 90% coverage for another 6-8 months minimum (and if my experience of KDE code is anything to go by, probably longer). So the claims made by the KDE developers are just lies... the same kind of PR hyped up bullshit that always infects every slashdot KDE story.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Anonymous Coward]

And BTW: I'd suggest a look here for a Ximian employee's view on the inflated KDE claims.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN: REPOST

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? How did you type that?

Aren't you that guy who can't use his fingers?!

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[teprrr]

You can set this in KDE, try "kcmshell mouse" or select mouse module from kcontrol..

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel

[Hannes Eriksson]

xdvi actually isn't that good as an example. It has an expert mode (press x) that hides the GUI. All keyboard shortcuts are used as before. From the manual:
q: quit
n: next page (synonyms: f, return)
space: move down 2/3 of a window-full or to next page if at bottom of page
p: previous page (synonyms: b, backspace)
g: goto numbered page

Well, I don't think this is much use here. Why not just RTFM? There are lots of 'em there.