KDE 4.1 Beta 2 – Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?

jammag writes "Linux pundit Bruce Byfield takes a look at the latest KDE beta and finds it wanting: 'Very likely, KDE users will have to wait for another release or two beyond 4.1 before the new version of KDE matches the features of earlier ones, especially in customization.' He notes that the second beta is still prone to unexplained crashes, and goes so far as to say, 'Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake.' I'm not too sure about that — really, 'everyone?'"

Comments

Re:Unexplained Crashes

[mpyne]

But they were not due to us designing them out, it was due to the fact that they did not get ported over in time.

So, would it be fair to say that you haven't removed any features, you just haven't gotten them all working yet? If so, that would give KDE users something to look forward to, instead of something to complain about.

Well this is my personal feeling about features/configurability:

1. Adding an option to do something that the program should be able to figure out is a bad idea. So in that regard we should be trying to minimize option dialog clutter by making programs smarter.
2. Programs need to be useful however, including meeting the expectation of users of previous KDE 3 versions of the program. So yes, the idea is to get everything that was working in KDE 3 to work in KDE 4.
3. In the case of Plasma, it is a replacement, not a port, of kicker, kdesktop, etc. The Plasma devs are not trying to force people into using one specific desktop metaphor or anything like that. Even the much maligned KDE 4.0 release had support for desktop icons (which was a feature regression in my case since I disable them. ;) KDE 4.1 will have a type of applet called a folder view that will show a file view for any folder, not just the ~/Desktop. So you can use it full-desktop if you'd like (although IIRC the desktop background will be obscured) but you can also have more than 1 (i.e. a coding directory or a web site directory). Or in other words, in cases where a KDE application is replaced outright we'd like to implement the useful features of older version but it may not necessarily be a 1:1 correspondence if we feel there is a better way to implement the feature.

So yes, the idea is to make things that worked before work again if it doesn't work now. Of course the usual disclaimers apply, full refund if it doesn't work, patches always accepted, help always appreciated, etc.