Ars Technica: Deep Inside KDE 3.2

binner writes "Ars Technica features an article 'Deep inside the K Desktop Environment 3.2' written by Datschge and Henrique Pinto. After introducing KDE and the project's structure the authors present some new applications of KDE 3.2. After that they explain the key KDE technologies KParts, DCOP, KIO, Kiosk and KXMLGUI and give examples for code reusage and an overview of efforts to integrate non-KDE applications. For developers Umbrello, Cervisia and Valgrind with KCachegrind are introduced and of course KDevelop 3.0. An examination of licenses precedes the positive conclusion."

Comments

Re:GUI Cleanliness

[stilborne]

since you brought up the button order issue, i'll continue the thought...

changing the button order was probably one of the most irresponsible things the GNOME usability team has done. why? the usability improvements are nascent at best, the sort of improvement that has good theory behind it but in the real world matters only a little at best.

what's more important than the GNOME's minor (if any) usability win is consistency, which you yourself mentioned. on the X11 platform those buttons have appeared in the same order in most apps for YEARS. and then, with one stroke of master-sillyness, the GNOME team decides to create massive INconsistency by putting their buttons in a different order.

now when people use a GNOME app next to a non-GNOME app things are not consistent and usability is damaged as the use can no longer simply learn where the buttons are in all dialogs: they actually have to read each one. this makes X11 look downright silly and stupid.

was the button order so broken as to warrant creating such a huge and obvious inconsistency? no, it wasn't.

so please, don't bring up the button ordering issue in public again, especially not as a benefit. it's embarrassing to everyone who develops for the X11 environment.

Re:GUI Cleanliness

[bonch]

This is why I prefer GNOME to KDE. KDE may have cool underlying technology, but GNOME is concentrating on actually creating a mainstream, accessible desktop.

KDE is about copying Windows, GNOME is about innovating and becoming its own.

Re:GUI Cleanliness

[Brandybuck]

Advanced users are still quite capable of changing a plethora of options, using advanced methods.

I would hardly call using GConf to edit undocumented keys and values an advanced method. "Arcane and hidden black art" would be closer to the truth. It also ignores the multitude of people between "newbie" and "expert" who want to have full control of their desktop, but don't have the fortitude to handle the raw guts that GConf exposes. A much better way is to use expandable dialogs (eg. an "advanced" button).

But this counters the received wisdom of Havoc, so of course is blasphemy...