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KDE 4 Screenshots

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the eye-candy dept.

carlmenezes writes "Screenshots of the upcoming and much talked about KDE 4 have appeared at Planet Diaz. They include screenshots of the control panel, system tray, tabbed views, music and mail views, plus a mockup or two. I don't know what the Gnome guys are up to, but KDE is starting to look seriously cool."

21 of 458 comments (clear)

  1. More than just a mockup or two by strider44 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can anyone tell if there are any actual screenshots in that bunch? I'm having a bit of trouble finding them.

    1. Re:More than just a mockup or two by Bwian_of_Nazareth · · Score: 5, Informative

      If it is all mock-ups it is because there is no such this as KDE 4.0. Work on KDE 4.0 is currently happening on library level, porting to QT4 is still under way. There won't be KDE4 any time soon. The UI work (desing, proof-of-concepts) is happening in parallel to the library development but does not yet constitute part of what could be called KDE4.

    2. Re:More than just a mockup or two by vdboor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, it seams some people are creating a hype with mockups from KDE4 Brainstorm at kde-look.

      --
      The best way to accelerate a windows server is by 9.81 m/s2 ;-)
  2. It looks cool, so it is cool? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that trying to judge a book by its cover is probably the worst way to determine the utility of a window manager. One ought not be swayed by high resolution backgrounds and pretty fractal images. Then, of course, we live in an age where Mr. Britney Spears has a hit album, so I don't really have much confidence in the general public's ability to discern quality products from glitter-encrusted dog shit.

    Oh...Shiny!

    BTW, the link is Schiavo.

    1. Re:It looks cool, so it is cool? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      KDE isn't a window manager, it's a desktop environment, shininess is a big part of what it does.

      Incidentally, you are, in fact, part of the "general public". Regardless of what you tell yourself, you are not better than the rest of us. Take my word for it, you just aren't.

    2. Re:It looks cool, so it is cool? by aussie_a · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How a program looks is often indicative on the time and care that went into the program itself. If it looks like absolute shit, there probably wasn't much time that went into it, or the people didn't know what they were doing. If it looks great, it MIGHT be good.

    3. Re:It looks cool, so it is cool? by jcr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dude.. The general public hates it when you tell them that. ;-)

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  3. Coral Cache by Nycto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Coral Cache for the curious:
    have
    appeared

    (that first one was working for me, but I haven't been able to get the second to load yet)

    --

    --Nycto

  4. Re:That's all well and good... by vga_init · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For me it's always been the exact opposite. Back in the day, when KDE and GNOME were budding projects, it just seemed to me that GNOME "felt" right. It seemed to have the right level of flexibility, it was relatively good looking, and gave me a satisfied, functional feeling.

    Lately times have been changing.

    I still think GNOME is ahead in terms of "look and feel." KDE is usually touted as being eye candy, but you just can't convince me that GNOME doesn't look better. GNOME still feels comfortable to me, so what about it drove me to use KDE, my preferred desktop at the moment?

    Functionality. Sometimes I get sick of looking at KDE, but I keep on using it because it does everything I like. I get to have windows that snap together as I resize them, a set of graphical tools that can actually be configured, a file manager that isn't almost useless, etc.

    My largest complaint against GNOME right now is their philosophy that more features means less usability. Even if that were true, I don't see how that justifies dropping features to improve usability. Give me something slightly more challenging to use but does everything that I want.

  5. Re:sources? by LaurenBC · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's worth noting one of the screenshots has the word 'fake' in it, and to quote an anonymous poster on the forum these were posted on
    'I don't want to burst any bubbles, but I just thought I'd mention that these are certainly not screenshots of KDE in developement. These are just ideas posted as mockup, some of which have been around for a long time'

    hmph.
    --
    I don't need this, I've got a Master's Degree in folklore and mythology!
  6. Re:Screenshots from article by strider44 · · Score: 4, Informative

    And the three "screenshots" that are supposedly of KDE are actually mockups from KDE Artists not actual screenshots of the dev version!

  7. Re:That's all well and good... by vga_init · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I just pine away for the old GNOME where apps came with a healthy set of options instead of a insufficient few that don't exactly represent the settings I want or need. The configuration editing tool helped me to unearth a lot of hidden settings, and it lead me to becoming slightly more satisfied, but it didn't exactly do everything that I wanted.

    As for things like "focus follows mouse" and the like, I used to be an avid user of features like that. Not in KDE, but in GNOME and every other window manager. They can be quite useful, but I kind of got over that and settled into "click to focus." But whatever other people prefer is cool with me.

    I think nautilus is pretty good, but for some reason I'm not very fond of using it. It seems to get in my way, and I don't like that feeling, but I do believe you when you say that I can change settings to fix it for my tastes. Of course, I still maintain that konqueror is a fine file manager in its own right.

    Also, I find that you complaint about the configuration menus and whatnot valid. KDE takes a bit of customization, but I usually just sit down with a new install and go through the control panel until I'm satisfied. Most users shouldn't have to do this. So far the way the options are grouped together and how they present themselves in the UI is a bit of a mess. The latest incarnation of control panel suits my tastes less than the original idea, but hopefully they sort that out.

  8. Re:no offense... by Alioth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's that idiotic quote about Linux vs BSD users got to do with KDE? KDE is *not* a Linux desktop, it's a Unix deskopt (i.e. Linux, *BSD, AIX, Solaris etc.) I don't understand why *BSD users continuously whine about how Linux is 'trying to emulate Windows' when GNOME and KDE are *their* desktops, too.

    By the way, I started with Linux in 1992. I started with Linux in 1992 because I loved Unix and wanted it on my PC.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  9. Cultural differences? by Nahooda · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know Slashdot is american based when you read all the negative comments about KDE.

    Over here in Germany it's enormously popular.

    Must be some kind of clash of civilizations...

    I'm using it, too, as I like the integration of apps and window manager. On the negative side, the high level of integration can be security problem as Windows shows.

    -DBS

    --
    Sigs suck!
    1. Re:Cultural differences? by GauteL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I assure you, it has very little to do with that. All KDE or GNOME discussions on Slashdot get completely swamped with trolls from the "other side".

      The loaded comment at the end of the news snippet is literally engineered to create this controversy. The more people that come on here to troll, the more money Slashdot gets.

      "I don't know what the Gnome guys are up to, but KDE is starting to look seriously cool."

      Puh-leeeeease. Could it get more obvious?

  10. Re:no offense... by 10Ghz · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It doesn't really matter what features or eye candy KDE or GNOME add, because OS X does it better.


    It does? I have Mac Mini with OS X, and I have been using it for about a year now. I also have a tower-PC running KDE and Linux. And while OS X does have all kinds of nifty eye-candy, and I used it exclusively for few months (to find out what the noise was all about). But after that time I noticed that I simply enjoy using KDE more. It does what I want it to do, and it does it in a way I want it to be done. In OS X, I have to adjusts my workflow and expectations to meet the OS, in Linux and KDE it's the opposite. I can change the GUI and the system to meet my expectations.

    OS X is a nice OS, no question about it. But it's not the Holy Grail of OS'es or GUI's (despite the fact that some people try to claim that it is just that). For me, OS X does NOT do it better. I do love the hardware, and I'm planning to install Linux on that Mini.
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  11. Re:Screenshots from article by 10Ghz · · Score: 4, Informative
    My mistake, one of the screenshots certainly is from gnome. but
    http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/8478/desktop1vn 1co.jpg is definitely KDE.


    Uh, that's a mockup, not a screenshot. Seriously, there's not much to show at the moment, the work on KDE4 is concentrating of the libraries and porting. There can't be no screenshots of some whiz-bang KDE4 GUI, because that GUI does not exists. I bet that if you could get KDE4 to compile and run, it would look 95% identical to KDE3.5.
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  12. There are NOT screenshots! by 10Ghz · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hate to rain on your parade guys, but these are NOT "screenshots" of KDE4, and I have no idea why the admin of those forums (who posted the pictures) claims that they are. These pictures are mockups. Not screenshots but mockups. Many people have ideas what KDE could look like, and many of them have created mockups to demosntrate their ideas. There are many KDE-related forums/websites that are full of such mockups.

    There are no interesting KDE4-screenshots to show because there's nothing to show really. The work on KDE4 is going on at the library-level at the moment. The actual GUI (if you could get it work that is) would propably be almost identical to KDE3.5.

    Move along, nothing to see here.

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  13. Some _real_ screesnhots of KDE4 by nxsty · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/8529/1079108511 1010841086108213du.png
    http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/1358/screen8qt. png

    Not that exiting yet.

  14. Re:That's all well and good... by Dasch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the fact that KDE even exists means that Gnome shouldn't try to be more "advanced" (bloated).

    So people like the advanced options, the glimmer and the numerous widgets. Those people pick KDE. Some people just a basic, day-to-day desktop environment. Those people pick Gnome.

    The availability of both seems ideal to me.

  15. Re:no offense... by Mistshadow2k4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but let's be honest. "You've probably heard the quote, "BSD is for people that love Unix; Linux is for people that hate Windows."

    Okay, I'm being honest. I actually never have heard that before. I hate Windows and MS because my first computer came with Windows ME and I feel that I was totally screwed. If I'd wanted a Mac I'd have gotten one.

    "Many Linux users have no particular loyalty to Linux and would just as soon use something else. "

    Funny, but I've been thinking the exact opposite, that too many of them are rather blindly loyal to their distro of choice. Mepis retail will require a serial number to update soon, for example, and the serial number is tied to the MAC address of your computer. This means that you'll have to fill out a form to update if you switch computers and that they can refuse to allow you uto update. It also means that you can only use your copy on one machine; even Linspire lets you use one copy on up to 5 computers in your home IIRC. We *nix users have been telling people for years that you don't have to put with this kind of treatment from MS but the Mepis folks are loyal enough to think this is a good idea for Mepis for some reason, even though Mepis has been known for some time as having problems with bug-squashing. As I posted at Distrowatch, why bother with this when there are other distros that are more stable and free? But the Mepis people are loyal.

    Much the same can be said for the Libranet people; Libranet was more stable but it was also expensive, and the only original code the developers came up with they've refused to share with the Linux community even though their product was over 90% based on Debian's GPL code. Now that Libranet has been discontinued the adminmenu has remained closed-source. Why the lead developer's son refused to share with the community their product was based on, I don't know. But the Libranet users have remained quite loyal to them. And don't get me started about Mandriva.

    "More than a few people from my local LUG have installed a bootlegged copy of the OSx86 beta. One of our members showed off his toshiba laptop running OS X, which was quite popular, even among the old school unix types."

    Why they bother is beyond me. Oh wait, I do know - bragging rights. That's what a MAC is apparently all about as Apple fanboys spend so much time bragging on how great it is. One would think if it was so perfectly functioal they'd spend more time using it. "Plus I have a system that everyone envies!" was one post I read at Digg. C'mon, admit it- we all know that's really why people want a Mac.

    "While we may protest that KDE or GNOME are better than OS X, the collective orgasm when Apple announced an OSx86 show that free (beer) beats free (speech)"

    Really? I don't remember having an orgasm over OSX. I have had plenty of orgasms since it was released, but my thoughts at the time had nothing to with OSX (or even computers, for that matter). The media and people at Digg have been fawning over it and they seem to think that everyone in the world wants a Mac. They're wrong; give me a Mac and I'll sell it and use the money to upgrade my AMD running Linux, thank you very much.

    "It doesn't really matter what features or eye candy KDE or GNOME add, because OS X does it better. "

    I disagree. I don't like OSX's cluttered UI and I don't like vendor lock-in. With KDE I can remove the icons and have everything on auto-hide if I want to. And sometimes I do; if I wanted all this junk on my dekstop why would I bother using a wallpaer? Plus it's convenient to get everything out of my way when I'm multi-tasking. Apple has a lot of great eye-candy if you don't mind it being in your way, but I do mind. And when I want eye candy KDE has plenty enough of it to satisfy me. Plus I want freedom of choice, not what Apple chooses for me. Kde lets me choose when I wan the eye candy, how I want it to look, but only when I want it.

    --
    I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.