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KDE 4 to Support Apple Dashboard Widgets
Ryan writes to tell us Applexnet is reporting that Zack Rusin, a lead developer of KDE, has confirmed that KDE 4 will be able to run and display Dashboard widgets similar to Mac OS X 10.4. From the article: "Basically, this means that a layer (similar in some ways to layers in Adobe Photoshop) in the KDE desktop could function the same way that Dashboard does in Mac OS X. Widgets themselves are not inherently difficult to write nor properly interpret, since they are usually just HTML and Javascript (although Cocoa code can be included, the developer's skills permitting). Furthermore, since Konqueror and Safari share very nearly the same rendering engine, KHTML and WebKit, this too will simplify the process."
Konfabulator?
Sure... if you define "anywhere" to mean "anywhere but windows"
Apple already took a lot from UNIX. It pretty much *is* UNIX. Perhaps it will lend something to KDE.
Most UNIX-people use Apple because it still is UNIX but with a better GUI. Perhaps KDE will convince Apple to make the GUI Free Software.
Or maybe Apple will just sue the socks off of the KDE project.
I switched to the ex-Konfabulator, Yahoo! Widgets and now my PB doesn't seem to thrash as much. That, and I've added a number of additional widgets.
I think this is a great idea. Right off the bat, there will be lots of Widgets available.
The Apple community will also benefit, because there are probably a lot of people in the Linux community that will write new Widgets that haven't been thought of (or thought necessary) by the Apple programming community.
I, for one, welcome our new Widget overlords.
None of the UNIX people I know use MacOSX. And I personally think the UI is awful.
You haven't used KDE lately, have you?
Each release has been faster than before with 3.5 being noticably faster than 3.4.1.
Finally, get off your whiney ass and compile it for yourself using Konstruct. Pick just exactly what you want and make it nice and slim for you.
That is what the source code is for, you know.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
who thinks this is rather bad idea?
Why do we need to bind the browser this deep to the GUI?
Haven't we learned anything about bad design from microsoft and IE5?
I mean something like this.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
On the other hand, if KDE is slow for you (on hw with speck >= to my duron conf.), than you screwed up your config (or your distro screwed up kde). KDE permorms admirably well these days...
Apple users looking to exploit the availibility of more games that Linux provides may now consider switching.
I think this is great. KDE is a wonderful, powerful, flexible, full featured desktop enviornment. I currently run KDE 3.4.3 on a P3-450 laptop with 256mb of ram and it runs great.
Do I think that KDE 4 will also run great on that hardware? I'll be honest, I have my doubts, but that is fine. I have seen how the KDE team did a great job of optimising the KDE 3.x series. Every release got faster and smaller (in memory). Still, if I need to get more ram, I'll do that.
For people that want to run a computer with less ram, or can't afford any more: Don't run KDE! You can run blackbox, fluxbox, IceWM, twm, and many more!
GNU/Linux/*NIX/OSS/Free Software is all about choices, so PLEASE don't sit around complaining about bloat (or anything else, for that matter.) Make sugestions. Make contributions. Enjoy the amazing bevy of free software!!
That's just apple's workaround for "we think virtual desktops are too complicated." No need to impose that on KDE.
If I recall correctly, the original code of the machintosh OS came from BSD 3... (Before they modifyed it extensively for commercial release) Now Opensource is taking the apple standard? This is interesting. Maby Microsoft will see this and include dashboard widgets for windows? It would be nice for once to be able to write something and run it on every os, not just Mac and Linux or Windows and Linux.
Features != bloat (especially if off by default)
Btw, KDE has had this for years, namely SuperKaramba.
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Well things in the style of the OSX dashboard widgets can be useful too. In this interview, Zack Rusin (the guy mentioned in the summary for this article) talks briefly about OSX-style eye-candy in KDE4, and he says that they want their interface to be useful as well as good-looking. If you still don't want the useful magic eye-candy thingies because you think they're too heavy on resources or annoying or whatever, then you'd probably be better off not using KDE anyway. You could just use XFCE or Fluxbox or something like that instead. You'd still be able to run apps from KDE or GNOME or whatever, but the DE would be more minimal.
I have to admit, I am completely new to KDE/Linux. However, I just installed kubuntu on a HP omnibook p3 600 w/ 256mb RAM. It runs beautifully and flawlessly with zero post-installation configuration. I dare say the notebook is a good deal snappier than when WinXP was installed on it. I'm very happy with it, and I plan to run it in the future...whenever possible.
KDE's runtime will be able to run most widgets designed for Dashboard. Also, KDE's runtime will be limited in that it will not be able to run widgets properly that use AppleScript or Cocoa in some way.
Those two statements are contradictory. Most widgets for Dashboard, especially for those that anyone considers useful, use Applescript and/or Cocoa. So in fact, KDE will be limited to only the simplest of widgets. Not much of a feature, IMHO.
I hate to break it to you, but Java beat them by a wide margin a long time ago. Java has been able to do the write once, run anywhere since around JDK 1.2. Yes, you still need to do testing on platforms you plan to officially support, but the big difference is that Sun has made incredible strides in making Java that reliable on all officially supported platforms.
Now, as a Java developer I see nothing wrong with this and even see a good place for Java in the development of widgets. It's an easy language to pick up and you have the applets concept which was the first attempt to create something similar to widgets. All things considered, Java is an asset, not a competitor, for widgets.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I currently have following things running on my KDE-desktop:
- Konqueror with 4 tabs
- Kontact
- Konsole
- Basket
- Kopete
- Bunch of KDE-related services (Wallet-manager, Klipper etc.)
- The usual Linux-services
How much RAM is being consumed? 149 megs. Let me repeat that: KDE, with all those apps running plus host of other Linux-services, is consuming 149 megs of RAM. Not exactly the 395 megs you quoted, now is it? Let's make this interesting, shall we? I also often run K3b, Amarok (with 7gig music-library), Codeine and Kword. How much RAM is being consumed with those apps running as well (for a total of Konqueror, Kopete, Amarok, Kword, Codeine, Kontact, Basket and Konsole running at the same time)? 310 megs, it seems. So we are getting closer to your figure of 395 megs (which you claim KDE consumes with nothing but Konqueror running).
If I add System Settings (this is a Kubuntu-machine), KPDF and Kate to the mix, RAM-consumption jumps to 323 megs. Still not the same as your figure. Adding SuperKaramba, Info Center and Help in there, and the system consumes 338 megs of RAM. Kspread and Kedit make the RAM-consumption to jump to a whopping 347 megs, still not as high as your figure. And I don't even know what other apps I could be running here. My taskbar is full of running apps, and the RAM-consumption is more than reasonable.
Then keep on using those old GUI's. If modern GUI's are slow and bloated, why are you using them?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Except, if you read the summary, you'd see it isn't, since OSX widgets can include Cocoa code, which KDE doesn't support.
In other words, you'll get your modpoints for bashing Java, but you lose in reality.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
So now KDE users can enjoy the same RAM-hogging pleasure afforded us OS X users by an array of useless, bloated widgets. Now THAT is progress! ;-)
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
This needs no special tuning whatsoever. Plain vanilla KDE will work fine without any tweaking on a puter with 256Megs. My main machine has 512, and even after extensive use, my swap partition isn't even touched. That with lots of apps loaded by default: skype, amarok, kmail, 4 preloaded instances of konqi, etc. My system begins swapping only if I start up firefox or ooo-build. (Or perhaps krita with an 50meg PNG :)
KDE's memory management is very efficient. In fact, considering what it does, I would say that I'd expect higher memory usage. Of course, we can throw numbers around here with little or no way to back up our claims, I realize that, but if you check the specs of people running kde (on forums) you'll see that configs like a 700Mhz duron with 256Mb RAM (I mentioned this in another post) is enough. I don't know where your K browser using 384Mb RAM comes from (well, except if you pull it out of your ass). Actually I made some screenies of kde 3.4.3 here. One of the screenshots displays memory usage. If you check the clock, you'll see that it shows the state of memory after opening a lot of apps, including scribus, with images loaded, etc (and you'll see what I have running in my systray). So I don't understand people who report excessive memory usage of KDE - it is either FUD, or they should switch distroes :)
You're forgetting where you are. This is Slashdot, where anyone that isn't happy keyslapping arcane commands into a white on black console isn't really using a computer, and any piece of software that tries to do anything for the user is heretical.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
That's exactly the problem with Dashboard though ... it's too tempting to approach it as "let's load it up with all types of crazy widgets!". By doing that, you make it less functional. (Takes longer to switch to them when you've got a whole screen full of them, etc.)
s /). That's something I occasionally need to do, and it's something you don't really want to load up a whole word processing package for.
Certain Dashboard widgets *can* change the way you work, but only when you select the right ones, and eliminate the rest!
For example, Ambrosia Software makes a free widget for easily printing addresses on envelopes (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/easyenvelope
I find the weather widget handy too. It lets me get the forecast on a whim, while not constantly running and eating resources when I don't need it. Sure, you can visit a web site to get the same info - but a widget is faster and always saves your preferences. (Web sites usually rely on cookies that you might clear out of your browser cache.)
Who knew that the "write once, run anywhere" promised to us by Java, would be beaten to the punch by an Open Source project?
Wow! So this means that these Dashboard widgets can run on my mobile phone? On Windows? On IBM z-Series mainframes? Can you write databases using these widgets? Application servers? Distributed network applications? Numerical applications?
Excellent! Then I'll abandon the hundreds of thousands of lines of portable Java code I have written and translate it into HTML and JavaScript after reading your informative post.
Oops! Hold on! Let's take a look at the article:
"KDE's runtime will be limited in that it will not be able to run widgets properly that use AppleScript or Cocoa in some way. Likewise, it's possible that Mac OS X users may also have to face not being able to run some widgets that depend on KDE somehow."
Oh well, back to Java....
Yeah; GNOME 2.12 is already far ahead at the "shaving off bloat" to the point where Linus said "fuck it" and switched to KDE. As long as the bloat is optional and configurable, everyone can be happy.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I think it's called a metaphor. As in explaining that the widgets are presented on a layer 'over' the desktop. Maybe a metaphor that didn't compare one piece of software to another might be better 'it's like a transparency sheet'.
Personally, I'd prefer them 'on' the desktop and to bring them up via Expose, but that's me.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
Hitting the HD would increase the amount of cached/buffered RAM. But that wasn't what I was measuring. I was measuring the amount of RAM the apps themselves consume. Cached/buffered RAM is basically free RAM. Of course, if I loaded some huge file to Kate for example, the RAM-consumption would go up. But that's hardly KDE's fault, now is it?
What makes you think that? KPDF itself takes few megs of RAM. KDE itself might consume some RAM, but I hardly consider the amount it consumes to be a lot. With the two apps I use the most (Konqueror and Kontact), it consumes under 150 megs of RAM (that's including whole KDE, the apps, and the related services). And considering that 512 megs is the minimium amount of RAM shipped these days, that's more than reasonable. 256 megs is really, really low end, with 128 megs being unheard of. 128 would be a bit too little for comfortable use, but 256MB would be perfectly doable, with 512MB being more than enough.
So you wanted the advanced features of the newer GUI's? Guess what? Those advanced features need RAM and CPU-horsepower! TANSTAAFL.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Except I use it all the time. Every day in fact. I use it on my interactive whiteboard to teach my class. We start the day with the dashboard displayed, showing weather, iCal class events, the weather in Stockholm (or other areas of interest depending on our geography topic) and, until recently, a countdown to Christmas.
Then throughout the day I have instant access to a calculator, the dictionary or thesaurus; it's invaluable. Sure, it's fun, too, but it's got that functional edge to it as well, and being able to fling up the calculator and suchlike without having to trail through applications is great.
As only mentioned by one poster earlier. Isn't superkaramba an older implementation of the same idea? im curious since everyone seems to give apple credit for the concept.
No, they compared a layer itself to a layer in photoshop. Big difference. As for "bloat": people accused desktops of being bloated without knowing what they talking about. Often, they're misreading how memory is used in apps, and when they're not, they're probably misunderstanding how systems like KDE share features. The whole point of a desktop environment is to create a platform that has lots of useful code built in, so that apps can be quickly developed from common widgets etc., without reinventing the wheel, and without wasting memory that could have been shared. In systems like KDE, the "bloat" is a feature. But, in GNOME, code-sharing is much less common due to it's lack of object-orientation. It really is bloated and slow, even with fewer features.
Just to set the record straight, there already exists something like this for Linux (and, more specifically, KDE). In fact, there are two major branches in development for such widgets:
1. The fancy branch (since sometime in 2003):
SuperKaramba, which spawned from the plain Karamba.
2. The non-fancy minimalistic branch (since god knows when - probably early 2004):
Conky, which spawned from the even less fancy Torsmo.
- shazow
This is what I think is one of the more interesting aspects of open source: the cross-pollenation that occurs, with a feature moving one place, mutating, then moving back into the original source. The whole thing smacks of memetics.
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to mak
K-Names make me want to K-rush my K-cranium in a trash K-ompactor.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Yes sure, lets all waste cpu time on running scripted programs in our OS, they are not horrible enough on websites... script languages are so great because every moron can use them... do you realize that the fastest "programs" written in SCRIPT languages need about TWENTY TIMES the ammount of cpu time that a COMPILED C++ Program would need? Is it so important to us, that every idiot can write "programs" for us? do we need them so badly that we have to throw our CPUs performance out of the window for them? just my two cents I love my c++ compiler =) AlgoMan
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
One of the things which is going to become the focus this year is precisely that. The look is badly in need of an update.
I'm one of the maintainers of GNUstep, so I'm hoping to beautify GNUstep in the months to come.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep