KDE Gains Full Accessibility Support

Great For KDE by monkeyman_67156 · 2003-12-19 03:33 · Score: 2, Redundant

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 by ls+-lR · 2003-12-19 10:34 · Score: 1

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

Congrats! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 03:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

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! by Karma+Sucks · 2003-12-19 05:21 · Score: 1

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

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And hopefully by justsomebody · 2003-12-19 03:34 · Score: 2, Troll

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

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Re:And hopefully by nutshell42 · 2003-12-19 03:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

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)

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Re:And hopefully by nutshell42 · 2003-12-19 04:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Re:And hopefully by ninkendo84 · 2003-12-19 05:11 · Score: 1

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?

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Re:And hopefully by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 06:50 · Score: 4, Informative

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 by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 06:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

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 by Brandybuck · 2003-12-19 07:57 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:And hopefully by teprrr · 2003-12-20 02:02 · Score: 1

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 by leonardluen · 2003-12-19 03:35 · Score: 1

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

This may prove useful to ordinary people as well by sufehmi · 2003-12-19 03:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.. by frodo+from+middle+ea · 2003-12-19 03:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

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...

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by Planesdragon · 2003-12-19 03:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.. by mental_telepathy · 2003-12-19 03:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.. by be-fan · 2003-12-19 03:44 · Score: 2, Informative

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

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by teamhasnoi · 2003-12-19 03:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.. by xa0s · 2003-12-19 03:50 · Score: 1

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.. by geekster · 2003-12-19 03:59 · Score: 1

And I, at score 1, was overrated how? Dopehead...
Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by GigsVT · 2003-12-19 04:08 · Score: 1, Troll

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.

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by RealProgrammer · 2003-12-19 04:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
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.
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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by slashd'oh · 2003-12-19 04:41 · Score: 2

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.. by be-fan · 2003-12-19 04:47 · Score: 1

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

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by saudadelinux · 2003-12-19 05:56 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 07:21 · Score: 1

>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.. by GigsVT · 2003-12-19 07:22 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by mikelima · 2003-12-19 10:53 · Score: 1

... 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.. by CptPicard · 2003-12-20 03:57 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by CptPicard · 2003-12-20 04:02 · Score: 1

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 :)

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Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by geekster · 2003-12-20 08:26 · Score: 1

Oh, that explains it then, good bye.
Re:Without intention to TROLL.. by GigsVT · 2003-12-22 13:06 · Score: 1

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.

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I'll never get a date now! by pair-a-noyd · 2003-12-19 03:38 · Score: 5, Funny

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! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 03:58 · Score: 2, Funny

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:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by Dreadlord · 2003-12-19 03:42 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

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Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by hviezda14 · 2003-12-19 03:42 · Score: 5, Informative

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 by jfleck · 2003-12-19 03:44 · Score: 1

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 by be-fan · 2003-12-19 03:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 04:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

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 by be-fan · 2003-12-19 04:37 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by a_hofmann · 2003-12-19 05:39 · Score: 1

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 by be-fan · 2003-12-19 05:44 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by be-fan · 2003-12-19 05:51 · Score: 1

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).

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by stilborne · 2003-12-19 06:03 · Score: 1

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 by stilborne · 2003-12-19 06:12 · Score: 1

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 by be-fan · 2003-12-19 06:14 · Score: 1

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

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by asobala · 2003-12-19 06:15 · Score: 1

fwiw, the GNOME office website is at http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/.
Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by be-fan · 2003-12-19 06:21 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 07:14 · Score: 1

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 by ainsoph · 2003-12-19 08:27 · Score: 1

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 by a_hofmann · 2003-12-19 08:34 · Score: 1

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 by a_hofmann · 2003-12-19 08:40 · Score: 1

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 by be-fan · 2003-12-19 09:00 · Score: 1

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

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by be-fan · 2003-12-19 09:04 · Score: 1

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

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:More KDE-GNOME cooperation by bluGill · 2003-12-19 16:30 · Score: 1

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? by Mrs.+Neutron · 2003-12-19 03:45 · Score: 1

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.)

--

~~~~~

Pet Peeve: Perscription drug advertising to the general public.

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by Walterk · 2003-12-19 03:47 · Score: 1

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 ?

--

"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."

Not Relevent by brunes69 · 2003-12-19 03:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

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 by justsomebody · 2003-12-19 03:55 · Score: 1

GConf is XML architecture, KConfig is a software.

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

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Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Re:Not Relevent by nutshell42 · 2003-12-19 03:59 · Score: 1

You mix up KConfig and the control center
And Kcontrol is not monolithic it's nearly 100% modular

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:Not Relevent by justsomebody · 2003-12-19 04:05 · Score: 1

My bad! Sorry kcontrol yes.

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

--
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Re:Not Relevent by nutshell42 · 2003-12-19 04:25 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:Not Relevent by twener · 2003-12-19 04:37 · Score: 1

> 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 by justsomebody · 2003-12-19 05:08 · Score: 1

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

--
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Re:Not Relevent by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 06:55 · Score: 4, Informative

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 by elmegil · 2003-12-19 08:18 · Score: 1

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.

--
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Re:Not Relevent by fault0 · 2003-12-19 15:45 · Score: 1

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 by brunes69 · 2003-12-22 05:54 · Score: 1

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

The Dreaded Dot! by IAmRenegadeX · 2003-12-19 03:50 · Score: 1

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

OT - KDE as 'default' by mgkimsal2 · 2003-12-19 03:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

--
creation science book

Re:OT - KDE as 'default' by nutshell42 · 2003-12-19 04:05 · Score: 1

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

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:OT - KDE as 'default' by Otter · 2003-12-19 04:31 · Score: 1

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.

--
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Re:OT - KDE as 'default' by NTmatter · 2003-12-19 04:37 · Score: 3, Informative

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... by gamlidek · 2003-12-19 03:56 · Score: 1

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

-gam

--
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."

Re:QT, GTK+, KDE, ATK, ugh... by damiam · 2003-12-19 04:03 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

right on by powlow · 2003-12-19 03:58 · Score: 1

excellent news! wow! incredible!

no, serious now, good...

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by GigsVT · 2003-12-19 04:00 · Score: 1

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.

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

Re:KDE? Accessible? by unborn · 2003-12-19 04:01 · Score: 1

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! by Perl-Pusher · 2003-12-19 04:02 · Score: 1

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! by bach37 · 2003-12-19 04:02 · Score: 1

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 by mgkimsal2 · 2003-12-19 04:03 · Score: 1

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. :)

--
creation science book

From a user: Thank you! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 04:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

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

KDE 3.2 will NOT be accessibility-ready by unborn · 2003-12-19 04:06 · Score: 1

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 by Karma+Sucks · 2003-12-19 04:15 · Score: 2, Informative

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

--
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by boa13 · 2003-12-19 04:06 · Score: 1

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 by mamer-retrogamer · 2003-12-19 04:06 · Score: 2, Informative

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

--
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.

great, but... by ghettoreb · 2003-12-19 04:08 · Score: 1

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! by SphynxSR · 2003-12-19 04:11 · Score: 1

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.

--

I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic! by FuzzyBad-Mofo · 2003-12-19 04:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

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!)

Re:Please by sisukapalli1 · 2003-12-19 04:19 · Score: 1

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

Speaking of accessibility... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 04:20 · Score: 1, Funny

What is the opposite of Christopher Reeves?

Christopher Waulken

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by zerblat · 2003-12-19 04:25 · Score: 1

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.

--
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.

Re:Please by LMCBoy · 2003-12-19 04:35 · Score: 1

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

--
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.

I found KDE to have too much of everything by xutopia · 2003-12-19 04:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

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 by Joe+Tie. · 2003-12-19 07:24 · Score: 1

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.

--
Everything will be taken away from you.

Sun? by elmegil · 2003-12-19 04:40 · Score: 1, Funny

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.

--
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001

Re:Sun? by elmegil · 2003-12-19 05:22 · Score: 1

(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...)

--
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Re:Sun? by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 06:43 · Score: 1
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? by elmegil · 2003-12-19 08:05 · Score: 1

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).

--
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Re:Sun? by nitehorse · 2003-12-19 08:30 · Score: 1

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:Won't happen. by twener · 2003-12-19 04:41 · Score: 1

> 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:Please by palad1 · 2003-12-19 04:41 · Score: 1

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

Re:Stop abusing gconf-editor! by twener · 2003-12-19 04:46 · Score: 1

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

Not all give a choice by nurb432 · 2003-12-19 04:51 · Score: 1

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...

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

Re:KDE zealots Translate-o-matic! by be-fan · 2003-12-19 04:57 · Score: 1

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.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

Re:This may prove useful to ordinary people as wel by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2003-12-19 05:02 · Score: 1

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! by be-fan · 2003-12-19 05:03 · Score: 1

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

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

Disabled access by Alan+Cox · 2003-12-19 05:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

"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 by GigsVT · 2003-12-19 07:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

more direct links by Karma+Sucks · 2003-12-19 05:24 · Score: 1

Slashdot Mirror

KDE Gains Full Accessibility Support

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