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Preview of KDE 3.5
tr_x_data writes "There is a quite interesting KDE 3.5 preview with screenshots on JLP's Blog. I thought there wouldn't be so much improvement to KDE 3.4 since everyone is working on porting KDE4 to QT4, but obviously there are quite a few changes. Look forward to "Storage Media Notification", "Adblock" for Konqueror, new Tooltips, better Workspace-Pager, and so on. Read for yourself."
No.... This post of yours is dumber!
8 25840
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152845&cid=12
ac.
The new KDE looks good. Except for the one pet peeve of mine-->the taskbar is way too huge. It would be much better at half or even a quarter of it's size. The real highlight is storage media reconizing. This is a whyI have loathed KDE-->the lack of such.
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
The storage medium notification is not untuitive the way XP (and now KDE 3.5) does it. Basically, the user puts in a disc and then some time later, gets a notification that interrupts whatever is being performed.
A better way to do it would be to stick a little message notification bubble above the system tray. This would also prevent movies from auto-running.
A big problem with XP is that DVD movies often have crap software that auto-installs on the computers of people who don't know any better. If OSS wants to become a widely used desktop, then it needs to be better than the status quo, rather than a copy. This means that it has to protect users rather than facilitate spyware and junk.
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I haven't been this excited since the preview for KDE 3.4!!!
I'm a big tall mofo.
KDE's default theme is a little XP-esque, but there are plenty of alternatives to choose from. Sadly, the clutteredness (is that a word?) seems to be inevitable: the consequence of squeezing in many good ideas, without really thinking hard about how to organise things so that the environment becomes intuitive.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Personally, I've always found the resemblance to Windows to be entirely superficial, and KDE's excellent integration across a wide-range of apps and its nifty kio_slaves (along with a whole bunch of other reasons) made me fall in love with it. I'll let a GNOME fan argue the other side :)
Personally, I've noticed an interesting trend in KDE. When KDE started, it was something of a Mac/Windows Fusion design that tended to make both users comfortable. After stumbling around on design for awhile, KDE has decided to be more XP-like. The newer the version of KDE, the more it feels like XP. 3.4 is especially guilty, as the window frames are damn near an exact copy.
Not that I'm complaining. 3.4 is an awesome release, and makes KDE feel a lot more solid.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You don't really expect that people will do that work for you? For an overview what is going on right now, check out "this month in SVN": http://www.hoult.org/~canllaith/svn-features/14-07 -05.html
It appears the KKK has a serious interest in KDE, I have to wonder if they think it stands for Klan Desktop Environment.
Windows NT was at version 3.51 like what, 11 years ago ?
Google Search of KDE Change Logs
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Seriously... I do.
It was light, fast, stable, and pretty enough. Using wmaker right now because XFCE4 has a few drawbacks. While I might look at KDE 3.5 just to see, i still might cobble together all the 1.0 code and try to run it on my fbsd 5.4/athlon system. It oughta fly balls!
do() || do_not();
People who say that Gnome or KDE are bloated need to be slapped, because they invariably have no idea what "bloat" means.
Both DEs are designed around a functional, reusable framework. In essence, every single thing you see is like a shared library. This allows the end-user applications to have a huge amount of functionality with little work, and is almost the antithesis of bloat.
If KMyMoney had code to allow me to load and save my accounts over an SFTP (or IMAP or webdav) connection, I'd agree with you. However, it simply uses the kio-slave features of KDE to support that automatically (as does almost every other KDE application). It's not bloat to include an excellent programmer's editor in every application when that editor is written as an embeddable object. It's not bloat when Konqueror can view PDFs because KPDF is written as an embeddable object.
I really don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. Writing the same code individually for each application would be a tremendous waste of resources. Designing the system from the ground up to lean heavily on reusable objects and a featureful core system is nothing but good.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Have the KDE people figured out how to make the desktop icons line up properly yet? I'm sorry if this sounds like another "Why can't KDE be like Windoze?" whine, but when I turn on icon auto-arrangement in Windoze, I get nice, neat vertical columns of icons. Do the same in KDE and I get some quasi-random scattering of icons. I have no idea why that is. If I right-click the desktop and select Icons > Sort Icons > By Type, it works fine. But the auto-arrange seems to use some completely different arrangement algorithm that creates multiple columns, some of which aren't even full, and some of which only have one icon. WTF?
When my sister in law's kids com over and want to play with the computer I load up Mr. Potatoe. After all, one of them is OCD and my copy of Civ or Sim City is a bit too much for him, and the other one gets hyper if allowed action games. Mr. P. keeps them happy during computer time (20 min each)
We are the Borg...
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde- 3.5-features.html#finished
I think it's too bad we'll have to wait until 4.0 to see an improvement in the default setup. Everyone agrees that it's ugly and not very useful, but there's been so little done to change it. If they start the process with 3.5, then they can get some feedback for 4.0.
More than that, the unchangable UI things need some improvement. KDE has really bad right-click menus in almost all cases. The options availible there need to be pruned down, moved into sub-menus, or "hidden" as accelerators attached to clicks.
I'm a big fan of the "hermetic interface", where simple commands are availible from the menus, buttons, and so forth, but really powerful commands are "hidden". They don't clutter the UI, the newbie doesn't care about them, and the old-hands will find out how to use these features.
An example from gnome is the hidden type-in box in the file selector. It's extreme (type-in isn't that ugly a thing to have in a selector!), but once you know you can hit "/" and just enter a path, it is really cool.
Gnome's new "three top-level" menus is also pretty cool, if you've used it. It helps to take the clutter out of the menu.
(Not to say I love everything gnome. The KDE apps are much better in general. Konqueror is more useful than nautilus to me. Konsole is worlds better than gnome-terminal. KDVI is without peer.)
Oh, I should say something nice about 3.5. The changes to konqueror are great! It cuts the fat out of the menus. Technically, it makes sense to make a file-browser and a web-browser use the same code, but the UI should be different in each mode. This is a very positive change for konqueror.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Why?
:)
;) The Mac is quite pretty and quite nice to use, but whenever I use it I always find myself wishing I was back on one of my Linux machines.
1. You are locked into a single vendor
2. Want to upgrade your desktop? That'll cost you. Thanks very much
3. What if someone produces a better desktop GUI? I switch GUI's every few months as improvements are made. Sometimes I just want something small and sweet like Fluxbox, othertimes KDE for some eye candy
4. Not all development work requires a GUI. Even if it does, the logic should be seperate, not built into the GUI itself (Visual Basic anyone?). This allow the choice of GUI to become a seperate issue. You can use web, cli, GUI.... whatever
5. Your window manager won't start? Thats a tradgedy under MS Windows as well as a Mac (OK, not as bad on the Mac). Under Linux I can just choose another window manager until I sort my problem out.
6. Bah... thats enough for now.
I encouraged my Fiance to get an iBook as her latest machine, mainly so there wasn't a MS machine in the house. We still don't have *any* MS machines
You might like the Mac, thats fine by me. Choice is good thing as it helps drive improvement. Competition improves the breed. Myself... I like the flexibility to have my machines the way I want them, not the way some company wants them.
Who cares?
I do. If you like MacOS X, want to pay for it, make Jobs even richer and use it, great. I OTOH really like the ability to "tune them to world's end", plus the overall flexibility of Linux.
I would agree that the Linux GUIs (kde, gnome, whatever...) are not perfect - probably not as good as the MacOS X GUI, but they are constantly changing and improving. If you don't like it, don't use it, but don't disparage those of us that still value freedom and choice.
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I'm glad they're slowly tidying up the interface. My current pet peeve is the default icon set is really ugly. I know that you can replace it, but when I look at the KDE screenshots I don't get excited at the improvements to the interface or to Konq. I am put off by how ugly it looks with the icon set.
Right now K doesn't stand for anything, its just the "K Desktop Environment".
However, it started out as the Kool Desktop Environment. Read the 1996 project announcement on usenet, and the interesting replies.
The real path to male liberation
The KDE website has a list of upcoming features at:
- 4.0-features.html
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde
Judging by how many items there are on that list, and that this is a port, not a re-write, I think that KDE4 will be full of features. Though there are some which could go, really minor useless ones.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What "bloat" are you referring to? Could you give some real examples? As to speed.... I find KDE to be fast enough.
Here's a news-flash for you: you are not required to go through all the settings. But if you want to change something, they are there. But you could use KDE just fine without ever touching the settings at all.
Windowmaker is a windowmanager, not a desktop environment. So you are comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing Microsoft Edit to a full-blown office-suite. But hey, if Windowmaker has the features you need, whereas KDE does not, then by all means use Windowmaker. KDE-developers are not required to satisfy your whims. Instead of making demands, why not thank them for spending their time to give you this kick-ass piece of software for free?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
What you call bloat, I call very useful features. KDE 2.0 just wouldn't cut it for the day-to-day work I do now. Konqueror alone, with all it's features since 3.0, plays an integral part of my everyday work.
For example, I want a file manager that can do sftp, ftp, smb, nfs, etc. I'll agree that those elements make the code bigger and possibly slower, but I make use of them. I know a lot of other people do as well.
I also find that dcop plays a very important role in messaging between apps and KDE. Sure, it's another app that sucks up some RAM, but maybe some people like me use it.
Considering that most elements in KDE are embeddable objects (eg. Kate, Kedit and Kdevelop all use the same editor), I'd say bloat is cut down a lot. Nobody is implementing three different text editors when one will do the job.
I, and every other reasonable person, expects KDE 3.x to be larger and have more features than KDE 2.x. Such is the nature of software. That's not because coders are lazy or don't care if their program is bloated, but because hardware is catching up to their dreams. Programmers are able to implement things today that they couldn't do a few years ago.
If you don't want those features, then run Blackbox.
Personally, I don't think you know what 'bloat' is -- you seem to think that because 3.x is slower than 2.x it must be bloated. I think you've just heard that term so often that you repeat it to sound knowledgable.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Oh, thank you. I hate all the whining about "bloat". If you want to use a minimalist WM and everything, you have dozens of options. Use them and stop whining. I'll keep using KDE with Amarok, KDevelop, etc. It's fast, and it has a hojillion useful features and a great UI. That's not bloat.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Bonus points: name an OS - any OS - that only includes one application framework. Windows has MFC and .Net. Mac has Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa. Solaris had CDE and OpenWindows. Amiga had Gadtools, MUI, Reaction, etc.
Somehow, though, it all boils to "KDE and Gnome are bloated", even though every single widely-used system ever invented went through (or is currently in) the same situation.
Besides, I disagree on principle that this indicates bad design. KDE and Gnome seem to have fundamentally different approaches to several core functions. It's not fair to refer to them as redundant because they're really not once you get below the surface.
At any rate, the top poster's position was that KDE is, by itself, bloated. Your point addresses a different non-issue altogether.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Long as it's configurable, unlike gnome, I'm fine with it. I'll keep the buttons in the order I'm accustomed to.
When was the last time someone asked you a "no or yes" question? Dialogs should support natural idiom, including those of English, and not the whims of some developers, regardless of how many single-sourced HCI studies they can cite.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
1. Yes, you're locked in. This is both good and bad. It is bad in the sense that the hardware costs more. It is good in two ways however. Firstly, when you sell it three or four years later, you actually get back about half what you paid. Some box I built myself will be worth nothing (as new ones are so cheap). Secondly, everything works. I never have to configure anything when I get a new Mac. I put it on my desk, plug it in, and press the on button.
2. Upgrading will cost you? I can go buy a hard drive, ram, video card, etc, from all sorts of 3rd party vendors. The only thing I can't upgrade is the processor, and that's only on the new G5s. Sucks, yes.
3. A better desktop GUI than OS X? Well I suppose you either love it or you don't, but I personally am confident that it will be the best thing around for awhile. Besides, I can always run KDE or Gnome if I really want to. Plus you can always dual-boot.
4. Xcode is fantastic. There is no reason written in stone that "everything should be separate". If an integrated solution works best, then use that.
5. I've never had a Mac where the "window manager" wouldn't start. There's only one window manager, and hence there is no configuration files to go bonkers or anything to worry about. If it isn't working for you, it isn't working for a lot of other people too.
6. Mhmmm.
I would like to build my own boxes, yes. But as I said, the resale value negates much of the initial expense of buying a mac, and Apple certainly makes good hardware. The Mac is the best solution for what I do (art-related dsp and opengl work), so that's what I use.
> Have you seen a list of things that will be
;)
> removed from KDE4?
i haven't either. perhaps you could educate all of us
if you're afraid KDE4 will be "KDE, without the features" then perhaps you're thinking of that "SimpleKDE" fork thing or perhaps you just got wrong information.
we are certainly aiming for a more usable KDE, but not a featureless one. popular perception aside, the two are not mutually exclusive.
yes, we prescribe meaningful verbs whenever reasonable. you'll still find situations where 'Ok' is the best fit, but most of our dialogs do use verbs these days.
if you'd like to help police this, you're more than welcome to join the project =)
> Politics I guess is the main reason for not
> doing this
no. it's because we've done it this way forever, as has the DOMINANT desktop: microsoft windows. there's little to be gained in practical usage from switching the buttons around, except to annoy users who are used to it the other way around.
i'm highly unimpressed at GNOME for having broken this otherwise consistent placement of buttons on X11 by opting for a theory that in practice is largely nascent in benefit. fortunately now Gtk+ allows you to switch those button orders at runtime in its dialogs, thanks to SUSE wanting Gtk+ apps to look proper in a KDE desktop.
> with nice and clear icons and a nice solid feel
> to things.
=)
so you are comparing a desktop of one hardware family to a laptop of another desktop family running two wildly different versions of an operating system ... and figure the difference is the desktop environment that runs on top of all that? heh.
2.0 was hobbled and very slow in many ways compared to 3.4. put them side by side for work tasks and the improvements are pretty obvious.
but for your measure here, i'd suggest loading KDE 2.0 on your IBM laptop, or 3.4 on your Ultra 1 =)
Unlike GNOME, the KDE developers understand that the tiny usability improvement of having the buttons in a different order is vastly outweighed by the massive usability mistake of surprising users by switching around the order of the buttons to the exact opposite of what it was before.
Sure, it might be nice to have Close on one side instead of Save, but it sure is annoying when you've been clicking in the same place for years to save, and end up closing instead.
> Is KDE a window manager or a collection of
......
> applications, or both?
KDE ships with a window manager, kwin. it's also a collection of applications that span the gammut from web browser to file manager to groupware to image viewing/editting to media playing to software development to
it's ALSO an application development framework, and ALSO a desktop infrastructure (providing things like IPC, access to standard services, network transparent IO, etc)
> And when will they remove all those games that
> no-one really plays?
when no one really plays them. =) just don't install the kdegames package. very easy =)
I disagree, so that blows the whole "everyone" argument out of the water. I find Gnome to be uglier and less useful. I think Gnome's goals of simplicity are good, but those of us who are used to the power and supposed "complexity" of KDE find it addicting. I hope that KDE and Gnome continue to be different along the lines of power -vs- simplicity. This means that there is something that suits both types of users.
The benefits of OK/Cancel are many:
1) Everyone knows what they mean. Unless you're deliberately messing with the user by using bad grammar, OK/Cancel and Yes/No are so absurdly simple it's amazing this issue got the mileage it did. In fact, the only rational explanation for verb pairs that I've seen is "but what if there's bad grammar!" Wouldn't it be easier all around to fix the bad grammar.
2) OK/Cancel and Yes/No allows for *common* dialogs. The developer doesn't need to come up with a dozen different accept/reject verb pairs for his application. Just subclass KDialog and you're done.
3) As a follow up, the effort to translate just OK/Cancel and Yes/No into fifty different languages is significantly less than translating several hundred strings pairs.
4) No one has yet presented any studies saying that verb pairs are more intuitive than yes/no pairs. "But Apple does it!" or "but Havoc said so!" just isn't good enough. I want something more demonstrative than back patting before I go change several hundred dialogs. In everyday speech we answer questions with yes and no all the time. We all do it and we're all used to it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
More than that, the unchangable UI things need some improvement. KDE has really bad right-click menus in almost all cases. The options availible there need to be pruned down, moved into sub-menus, or "hidden" as accelerators attached to clicks.
I'm a big fan of the "hermetic interface", where simple commands are availible from the menus, buttons, and so forth, but really powerful commands are "hidden". They don't clutter the UI, the newbie doesn't care about them, and the old-hands will find out how to use these features.
Now I'm just the opposite. I like having all my options available in my menus and was quite surprised to see "Delete" disappear with my last upgrade. If I want a file gone, I want it gone. But hey, at least they left a way to put it back in the control center and config.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
"Technically, it makes sense to make a file-browser and a web-browser use the same code"
How does it make technical sense for a file-browser and a web-browser to "use the same code"? I've never heard a good reason for this and believe that KDE just copied Windows in this respect. Microsoft made Windows behave this way so that they could more easily make the claim that IE was an integral part of Windows and could not be removed.
Shift+Delete seems to be the standard "Delete without moving to trash" key combo.
my personal points of love since 3.0 are mostly found in kontact. (kerberos support in pop3/imap/smtp) and ongoing improvements in the groupware scene. kde text to speech was also a quite fun addition with many potentials. (but I would like a better backend with support for natural voices...) konqy fixes are render bug every release and speed has increased nicely overall. all in all I think there will just be less announcements like when we got our first kmail release or kopete messenger, simply because most apps are already there. I think kde is slowly getting to a point where more and more time is spend on polishment. the major framework is getting there where it should be. but don't get me wrong... getting everything cleaned up is VERY important.
Google maps has been working pretty well for me for the last month or so. For some reason I don't get the intial "default" map of the US that I get in Firefox when I connect, but otherwise typing in addresses, GPS coordinates, etc into the search bar and/or getting directions seems to be working for me reasonably well in Konqueror.
If you add "fc=1" to your query it'll bypass that obnoxious "you aren't using a 'supported' browser!" warning, too (e.g. "http://maps.google.com/?fc=1").
YMMV - I'm a compulsive updater of KDE and I'm running a recent SVN build.
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I read it as "Aging slut applies more makeup" instead of "Preview of KDE 3.5." Does that make me a GNOME zealot? Anybody?
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