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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."
This series of articles I wrote with a friend might also be of interest.
:-)
It outlines some practical nicities that are a result of the technologies like KIO slaves mentioned in the Ars Technica piece, including:
Managing web sites (handling content without an FTP application, web gallery creation)
Extending Konqueror with view profiles (replace FTP/Samba applications with Konq, and browse Google easily)
Using KPrinter in any app
Enjoy
fan of gnome who always stayed away from kde and then evanutally dropped gnome in favor of fluxbox. I have to admit, that I tried the 3.2 release an I'm hooked. I will still run flux on machines that just can't hand;e KDE's needs but KDE has come a *very* long way. My suggestion to others now is to run kde if their machines are fast and flux if it is slow (like my old p3 500).
One of the nicer things about KDE is the plethora of language bindings.
There's another pointer to the Ruby bindings - and a place for feedback and such-like - here.
The Army reading list
Deep inside KDE sounds very TRONish. I was hoping for a detailed look at Master Control Program. Oh well, the article must have been posted by a NULL unit.
Are you Corn Fed?
The best thing about KDE is not the window manager/panel, but the application framework, like the technologies discussed in the articles. If you don't like the feel of KDE, you can always run fluxbox, but use KDE apps like Quanta, Konqueror, KDevelop and the likes. I've done that with Afterstep and WindowMaker as I'm not a fan of KWin.
The biggest thing for me is that KDE doesn't treat users like idiots. All the configuration options are out there if I want them, easily accessible via the menus. The GNOME people seem to have decided that ordinary users are too moronic to be allowed to configure the look and feel of their own desktops. That and all the gratuitous UI changes like exchanging the places of the OK and Cancel buttons.
Besides, with the theme set to plastik/plastig I get the same look and feel in gtk apps even when I do need to use them. At last, a consistent unix desktop.
I used the unofficial debs from kde.org to upgrade from 3.1.4 to 3.2. Some of my favorite changes:
- Konqueror now has sane tabs - before they would have a scroll bar of sorts. I still sometimes instinctively keep only 3 or 4 tabs in Konqueror, while I'm used to several times that many in Mozilla.
- KDEwallet, once I get it properly set up, could prove quite useful for managing passwords.
- The ability to make one's taskbar transparent (I don't use this at the moment) and not the entire width of the screen (I do use this). Kicker as a whole is becoming more and more refined
- The debs I got have some nice icons, making me want to keep my taskbar bigger instead of ~Win2k sized
- I seem to notice a marginal speed increase. It's a nice trend that continues for recent KDE releases.
And now for the bad news. Some things that appear broken with my Debian setup, but I will wait to confirm with a Fedora-based install to determine if it's a packaging or KDE problem.
- One website that formerly rendered fine in Konqueror now doesn't use its pull down menus correctly. Probably a javascript issue that I haven't looked too closely at
- KMail has been a little flakey with one of my higher-traffic POP accounts, but this may not be KMails fault, just a coincidence.
- For whatever reason, my desktop occasionally gets switched to a Firefox virtual desktop I often keep open. Probably due to some javascript/focus thing with Firefox, but I hadn't noticed it before. Of course, somewhere along the line I upgraded Firefox, but I don't have the problem on a RH 8 system.
- I was really looking forward to Juk. Unfortunately, while it appears to work fine for mp3/ogg files, my install will simply not play FLACs until I try playing an OGG or mp3 first. Even then the application has crashed on me, and I stopped trying to use it and went back to xmms. I'm _really_ trying to be rid of xmms (and use something semi-full screen, preferably qt based). noatun has also been somewhat unstable for me, but that's true of every version (I think it was a problem with one of the "skins" this time). I haven't spent enough time with these to really track things down, so YMMV.
For me, the tabs in konqueror alone were worth the upgrade. The problems I listed above may very well be other applications or the packages, and none are showstoppers. After I get my new desktop set up (still haven't finalized a distro, could be Debian, Fedora, or Gentoo), I hope to be able to report any reproducible bugs.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I'm wondering if maybe kde might be or might become the killer app for Linux? I know that anyone who happens to glance at my 3.2 desktop always asks, "Wow, what's that?". It's no longer, "Hey is that a mac?" or "How did you get XP to look like that?". I think KDE has something going that no other desktop has. It has features that are all it's own, that aren't simply attempts at copying features of other desktops.
As a long time Gnome user, and as someone who will go on record as disliking Trolltech and their business model, I must say I am extremely impressed with KDE 3.2. Whilst I still think there is some tidying to go WRT options dialog boxes, this release strikes me as a massive leap forward. The new features and the improvements to Konqueror and the Kicker and so forth are really impressive. So much so, for the first time ever I spent the day working in KDE instead of Gnome and actually enjoyed it, rather than being constantly frustrated by inconsistencies and the general looks of the desktop.
Plastik is the first theme I've seen that makes KDE really start to look like a professional desktop rather than a mish-mash of poorly concieved applications. The underlying framework (KParts, kioslaves) and QT have always been superior to Gnome's, that much I'll admit. I still think it's a shame that QT is licensed under the GPL rather than a BSD-style license, but I guess I'll live.
I might even switch permanently if KDE 3.3 brings as many improvements.
Is it me, or are there way too many links in that article. Do we really need seperate links to the source code download, binaries download, release notes and system requirements pages?
If someone has done a study on the most effective text to link ratio, I'm sure they'd find that this Ars article is about 10x higher.
The GNOME changes have nothing to do with assuming users are idiots. They have to do with cleanliness. I'm a developer, and I understand what just about any GUI option you throw at me does, or am quite capable of figuring it out. That doesn't mean I want to wade thru page after page after page of options which have no relation to what I want to do to find the one option I'm looking for.
:)
The GNOME changes are not dumbed down, they're cleaner. Advanced users are still quite capable of changing a plethora of options, using advanced methods. Only the very commonly changed options are placed in the menues and config panels, which makes it dead easy for both novices *and* experienced users to tweak the common things.
So far as the gatuitious UI changes, there are clear advantages to the way GNOME has chosen to do things. The dialog button order is a favorite thing of people who wish to bash GNOME, and thus serve as an excellent example. The new button order is *easier* on people both physically and mentally. (location of button wrt mouse movements, location wrt eye movements, etc.)
Additionally, there are no "OK" buttons. If you find one, it's a bug. Which is great. If you see a dialog, what the hell does "OK" mean? You have to read the whole dialog. And deal with the fact that in some cases, "OK" is the safe option, while in others it's the dangerous option. Different apps would pop up dialogs with different OK/Cancel meanings for the same dialog action. (like quit without saving - does OK mean "OK, Save" or "OK, Quit" ?) GNOME solves the problem by mandating that you don't use OK, but put the actual action as the button label. "Save" or "Quit". Much, much harder to accidently click OK when you meant Cancel because the meanings for two apps are different.
Granted, the last bit can be done even with the Windows/KDE button order (i.e. [Save] [Cancel] vs [Cancel] [Save]), which is something I really wish both Windows/KDE would do. The GNOME/Mac ordering however makes for consistent button location, however, since the "positive" (most commonly used) button is always in the same location in the dialog, which (as mentioned above) is both easier and more efficient physically and mentally, for both novice and experienced users. KDE having the ability to change button orders (as I've been told it does) is definitely cool; it would be great if they defaulted to the more human-friendly GNOME/Mac order, and let users who refused to learn switch back to the classic order.
Lots of users and developers think the GNOME/Mac button order is "weird" because they're used to the Windows' way, but that kind of thinking doesn't ever foster improvements. Thankfully, GNOME, OS X, KDE, and most other modern desktops are willing to break the mold and do things differently, even at the risk of "confusing" users, for the sake of moving the GUI experience forward, and not keeping us all locked into Microsoft's (and others') design mistakes made a decade or more ago.
I don't claim that GNOME has things perfect. Far from it. Simply explaining the reasoning behind certain 'controversial' changes. Hopefully useful.
Oh you mean instead of new features like the wallet, which saves passwords for websites and kopete, providing the same functionality of Mozilla? Or perhaps you mean instead of new features like Kontact, which has your mail, addressbook, calendar and user-set rdf news feeds all in one place, and opens so fast you don't have time to view the splashscreen? Perhaps its just me, but I am quite pleased with new features, not to mention the speed.
One of the best and most unappreciated features of KDE is it's inherit troll value.
I'm sorry to post such a blatantly inflammatory gripe, and please don't reply to it in kind. Just be aware that the whole KDE vs. Gnome conversation is quickly degrading to the same sort of drivel that existed in the vi vs. emacs, gui vs. cli, X vs. Y debates.
Both KDE and Gnome are reasonably good programming environments (meaning I can program in both without requiring corrective surgery or extreme pain) and they both do a good job of managing, unifying, homogenizing, and (whatever) of the desktop.
If they come from two licensing lineages, so be it. I'm not worried about the environment / license you are going to choose, I'm going to choose the one I feel most comfortable with and has licensing (at cost or otherwise) that allows me to use it as I need. I'll assume you will do the same.
Less "better than Gnome!" or "worse than Gnome!" and more "it's really great that it has cleaned up feature X" please.
I apologize for such a rant, thank you for putting up with it.
imo the KDE people should take a step back and see what they're doing. all those pretty menus and shiny lights and a multitude of buttons and applets. neat, but useless. instead of new features (which KDE has enough already) they should focus more on the interface and how to make it more efficient.
:-)
If you were to read the article, and read the press announcements that came with KDE 3.2, and indeed try KDE 3.2, you'd find that they have done just that, as well as provide interesting new features. For example:
- KWallet, a new feature but one that makes using passwords and secure form data anywhere in the system much more efficient
- Cleaning up of lots of right click menus
- Cleaning up and improving kmenu
- Improving tabs in Konqueror
- A new universal side bar, which apparently is a lot more efficient for some people
- Even better integration of existing KDE technologies like klipper and kio_slaves into many KDE applications
The list goes on and on, but mostly they are small changes so you either have to use it to notice, or read through CVS changelogs. Next time I suggest you check before making loud statements like that
KDE is not slow. Only those who have not yet tried 3.2.0 could make such a statement. I understand why this meme is out there, since I myself wouldn't touch KDE with a 10 foot pole in the 2.x days. It was slow as molasses then. Do remember, Apple distributed the changes they made in KHTML back to Konqueror. The difference in speed is amazing.
As far as bloat, KDE is as bloated or as svelte as you make it. DO_NOT_COMPILE is your friend. For those on binary distributions, try Debian, which lets you pick and choose exactly which KDE apps are installed, allowing just as much choice as DO_NOT_COMPILE.
i've been using kde3.2 for a while...
..
Today this rather wonderful dialog popped up just after I clicked to send an email in Kmail...
Attachments?
Often its the little things that really make the difference.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
You can run KDE even with other window manager than KWin, as long as that window manager has decent support for the EWMH (aka NETWM) specification. Which I'm afraid AfterStep or WindowMaker don't.