KDE Project Invites Ideas With Online Brainstorm

ruphus13 writes "In addition to working with the community for source code, KDE is looking to democratize idea creation and innovation via its new initiative called KDE Brainstorm. The initiative, which attempts to further decentralize roadmap decision-making by allowing popular ideas to be voted up, is outlined here: 'The KDE team recently announced the KDE Brainstorm initiative. KDE Brainstorm, in practice, works much like Dell's IdeaStorm — community members of all walks of life are invited to chip in their ideas for new and improved features and functions, with the wider community voting on (and fleshing out) these ideas. Ideas that generate enough interest are then reviewed further by developers, who work to make them happen. KDE Brainstorm officially rolled out March 20th, and the response over these first few days has been enthusiastic. In less than 24 hours, over 100 new ideas were proposed.'"

Comments

*storm

[Tubal-Cain]

First Dell's IdeaStorm*, then Ubuntu's Brainstorm, And now KDE's Brainstorm. I guess the whole "get ideas from your constituents" thing actually works.
But why do their names all have a *storm pattern?

*Actually, I think Lego beat them to it.

Re:*storm

[dangitman]

But why do their names all have a *storm pattern?

Because it's perfect.

Re:*storm

[Anonymous Coward]

Shitstorm?

Said with no wish for partisanship

[Dasher42]

I wish KDE would adopt at least some of Gnome's Human Interface Guidelines. It'd help everyone if the Linux desktops came together in that respect, at least to ditch those silly Windows-centric "Cancel/Apply/OK" preference dialogues which don't offer any reason not to be done more simply.

Re:Said with no wish for partisanship

[Dasher42]

Any suggestions on how it could be done simpler? And will your suggestion allow the same degree of control?
The only idea I have is to drop the 'Cancel' for being redundant with the 'Close' button in the corner.

Yes. Gnome, XFCE, and OSX do it. You click an option, it takes effect. Don't like it? Just put it back. Optionally, the dialogue can have a revert or defaults button.

Gnome's gone a bit far in the direction of stripping down features, but overall, I like the uncluttered presentation. I'd love to have KDE's power behind that kind of thinking.

Re:Said with no wish for partisanship

[WindBourne]

What is the difference between "don't save" and "cancel", anyway?
You hit the exit button, and this pops up.

1. Save means save and continue with exit.
2. Dont save means do not save, but continue with exit.
3. Cancel means do not save and STOP EXIT.

There are many places where there are multiple operations occurring at one time.

Maybe it does already

[Psychotria]

And, maybe it might not be popular mentioning Windows 7 on /., but I really like the feature in Windows 7 beta where you can drag a window to a screen border and it resizes to the screen height and 1/2 the screen width. I imagine that this would be easy to do as a plugin for KDE, but (so far) I haven't been able to find one.

I think it's great that there's now a place to 'request' features like this instead of on the KDE wiki or emailing the devs directly (hey, they're busy and don't always have time to reply, which I understand). On that note, I do my little bit by submitting src patches and (more often) editing the KDE wikis; I figure that each little bit helps.

Re:Maybe it does already

[baileydau]

And, maybe it might not be popular mentioning Windows 7 on /., but I really like the feature in Windows 7 beta where you can drag a window to a screen border and it resizes to the screen height and 1/2 the screen width. I imagine that this would be easy to do as a plugin for KDE, but (so far) I haven't been able to find one.

KDE does have a feature that is similar, but not the same.

If you right mouse click on the "maximise" button, the window maximises in the VERTICAL direction ONLY. Similarly, you can maximise to full width by clicking with the middle button.

Unfortunately, I don't know of anything to expand to 1/2 height or width.

Re:Maybe it does already

[Ash-Fox]

I like how in Windows there is this clip art thing that comes up when you try to get help in office and it tells you stories but it doesn't really help you find any answers.

Solved.

What's with all the hate?

[haeger]

Every time there's a story about KDE a number of people complain, saying it's a failure, that the 4.x-series are dead and so on. Where does all this come from? KDE is one of the high profile open source applications along with gnome, apache, and others so it should be in our common interest to have it succeed.

Why the need for all the trash-talk? Why not focus on the positive? KDE does some things great, as does gnome and others. Constructive criticism is fine but "KDE4 sucks" is hardly constructive.

It's not like we need to fight amongst ourselves. There are plenty of other opponents out there that we could focus on. Now we're only weakening our position. I just don't get it.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[cheros]

Hmm, I don't think it's "hate" as such, more profound disappointment. I can't speak for others, but KDE 3.5 was moving along nicely, was functional and had *heaps* of apps to make it a complete desktop. With Compiz Fusion added it was even damn flash, but the main thing is that it did the job and enough apps were available to create some flexibility.

Along comes 4 and whammo - I even have trouble finding a decent WiFi manager. All those 3.5 apps I was used to don't have a 4 replacement, and I don't really want to be a whining git asking the developers of every single app to upgrade their code (which is AFAIK not that easy either) - besides, I don't have the time.

So 4.0 was for me going from a functional 3.5 desktop to a black hole. I won't bitch about it, I occasionally check in and see if the situation has improved. So far, the answer is "not really", so I'll use Gnome of a lighter desktop. It also means that I can no longer wean people off Windows because KDE 4 just doesn't cut it yet as a replacement.

In summary, to me, going to KDE 4 was as much an upgrade to 3.5 as Vista was an upgrade to XP..

What I'd like is simply what 3.5 was offering, stable compiz fusion graphics added (flashiness aside, a cube is actually quite a good working desktop model from a functionality point of view) and a complete array of apps form printing, WiFi (well, OK, that still sucks in seven ways to Sunday on Linux IMHO).

Having said that, I'll probably buy a Mac instead. Functionality without the risk or hassle..

Re:What's with all the hate?

[Lord Lode]

Because it really is something to hate. That's why. I worked 2 months with KDE 4.1 and then had to install KDE 3.5 again simply because it allows me to work much better and faster. I'm normally not the guy who goes around changing his linux all the time, but the fact that I actually took the time to go back to 3.5 and that I was incredibly happy when it booted back up and I was immediatly more productive, does that prove that something is wrong with KDE 4.X, at least for some people? Yes, I hate it.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[penguinchris]

Agreed - I had my doubts about KDE 4 and thought it was terrible when I tried the 4.0 and 4.1 releases. However, now I've been using 4.2 since it came out, and when I recently set up another computer I tried to go back to 3.5 (it's a netbook and I figured 3.5 would be faster) and I couldn't. I got used to the improvements in 4.x and don't want to go back.

Which is not to say there aren't still features in 3.5 not in 4.x yet that I dearly miss. KDE's not quite there yet and I can see why many still wouldn't want to switch. But despite their gaff with 4.0 - which I think really was a bad move - 4.x is coming along nicely and in time most people will realize this and start using it.

My point is that the "KDE 4 sucks" talk is the natural result of people resisting change, combined with some pretty big mistakes the KDE devs made (the 4.0 release and the many still-missing features from 3.5, for example.) It'll die out within the next couple of major KDE 4 releases, I suspect.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[baileydau]

Hmm, I don't think it's "hate" as such, more profound disappointment. I can't speak for others, but KDE 3.5 was moving along nicely, was functional and had *heaps* of apps to make it a complete desktop. With Compiz Fusion added it was even damn flash, but the main thing is that it did the job and enough apps were available to create some flexibility.

Those KDE 3.5 applications you like still exist, they didn't go away. You can use them with KDE 4.x, 3.5, Gnome, or many other desktop environments.

Along comes 4 and whammo - I even have trouble finding a decent WiFi manager. All those 3.5 apps I was used to don't have a 4 replacement, and I don't really want to be a whining git asking the developers of every single app to upgrade their code (which is AFAIK not that easy either) - besides, I don't have the time.

So use the WiFi manager you like. Personally, I use KnetworkManager. I believe that is a KDE 3.x application.

So 4.0 was for me going from a functional 3.5 desktop to a black hole. I won't bitch about it, I occasionally check in and see if the situation has improved. So far, the answer is "not really", so I'll use Gnome of a lighter desktop.

Sorry, this is an attitude I don't understand. If you like KDE 3.5, but don't like KDE 4.x, why go to Gnome (or other desktop), just use KDE 3.5, it's still available. It seems like people are cutting their noses off to spite their faces (that is assuming are actually changing their desktop and not trolling)

It also means that I can no longer wean people off Windows because KDE 4 just doesn't cut it yet as a replacement.

So why not show them KDE 3.5 instead.

A quote from the KDE website:
"KDE 3.5 is the more mature version of KDE. For more conservative users, this is the recommended version of KDE."

In summary, to me, going to KDE 4 was as much an upgrade to 3.5 as Vista was an upgrade to XP..

What I'd like is simply what 3.5 was offering, stable compiz fusion graphics added (flashiness aside, a cube is actually quite a good working desktop model from a functionality point of view) and a complete array of apps form printing, WiFi (well, OK, that still sucks in seven ways to Sunday on Linux IMHO).

Having said that, I'll probably buy a Mac instead. Functionality without the risk or hassle..

So, why not stick with KDE 3.5 for the time being??? You aren't being forced to go to 4.x.

Personally, I now use KDE 4.2 on all of my machines (both home and work). I really like the "Cover Switch" alt-tab tool.

I tried KDE 4.0 and 4.1 and didn't like them. I stayed with KDE 3.5. I found KDE 4.1.3 OK and made the switch.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having spent a lot of time just to get the latest 4.x version, 4.2 running, I'm still very, very disappointed. All that made KDE so good is gone. Keyboard shortcuts are more limited now and occasionally don't work at all, file management is much worse, the launch menu is primitive compared to what it was (and whilst Lancelot can replace it, it isn't as good as the 3.x version was), plenty of useful, small apps no longer work like they should and finally, it's still quite buggy. I do wonder what they were thinking when the great launch menu was changed like that - having the most frequently launched applications gathered automatically was a great feature but now you have to add favorites manually.

Furthermore, file management doesn't work well anymore - I was used to being able to move icons in windows but now they all align to a grid no matter what, which sort of defeats the purpose of a graphical file manager. And as a consequence of my preference to double-click to open folders and files in the file manager (selecting by one click is what I'm used to), quick access too requires double-clicking, which is ridiculous.

And then some plasmoid replacements for useful apps simply make you ask if they're joking with users. I got quite used to knotes and liked being able to put post-it notes on my desktop - and it was great when you could turn them into reminder alarms for kalarm or e-mail messages in kmail. Now you have the ridiculous widget - with knotes you added new ones by right-clicking on the icon in the system tray and choosing "new note". Now to add a note widget you must first chose add widget, pick the widget from a long list and finally you end up with a note on the desktop that you can write something in but once you close it, the contents are forever gone. With knotes it was only removed when you closed it but still saved and accessible through the icon in the system tray. It's still possible to use knotes but it doesn't work very well - notes disappear too when you click show desktop and before the very idea was that they were there, stuck to my desktop and not like regular windows. And occasionally it gets buggy and the notes show up as windows in the task bar too, which takes a lot of space in it.

In general, I do wonder why they had to fix something that wasn't broken. Is it really a good idea to make so much from scratch just so that anybody that has just written "hello world" can proceed to easily write a widget, which sits on your desktop and says "hello world, the weather today is..." The KDE developers have strange priorities. If it does turn out that in addition to the widgets that nobody except the author and his mother consider useful, a bunch of useful once start to replace the small, useful apps that made KDE so good, users will of course start to like KDE again but for now, it's as bad as Gnome. Eye-candy is a bonus but good usability should always be the most important issue.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[ChienAndalu]

Because 3.5 isn't available in many repositories anymore and bugs for 3.5 aren't being fixed because efforts concentrate on kde 4.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[MrHanky]

KMail is a lot better. The desktop has more funtionality, if you like plasmoids (SuperKaramba doesn't compare).

Re:What's with all the hate?

[Ash-Fox]

Note, I am not the grand father poster.

Those KDE 3.5 applications you like still exist, they didn't go away. You can use them with KDE 4.x, 3.5, Gnome, or many other desktop environments.

I can't. I set the global hot key in any kde3 application running in KDE4.x and the hot key doesn't work, preventing me from using the applications.

So use the WiFi manager you like. Personally, I use KnetworkManager. I believe that is a KDE 3.x application.

Kubuntu actually, not KDE. Thus, not available on all distros.

A quote from the KDE website:
"KDE 3.5 is the more mature version of KDE. For more conservative users, this is the recommended version of KDE."

Didn't stop Kubuntu from adopting KDE4 as a default for all new releases without giving the option to use KDE3 on said releases.

So, why not stick with KDE 3.5 for the time being??? You aren't being forced to go to 4.x.

Considering I'm using the latest Kubuntu version to get updated applications, I am unfortunately - what sucks is that KDE4 isn't finished yet and they're pushing it as a full desktop system.

Re:What's with all the hate?

[baileydau]

Because 3.5 isn't available in many repositories anymore and bugs for 3.5 aren't being fixed because efforts concentrate on kde 4.

Which of the major distros don't carry KDE 3.5 any more?? I use openSUSE and it is most certainly available.

Looking at http://www.kde.org/download/#v3.5 there appear to be binary packages for Fedora, Kubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE

Whilst a lot of effort is going into KDE 4.x, the 3.5 line still seems to be worked on.

Re:Hmmm

[lbbros]

Bug reporting tools are quite inefficient for feature development (and that is why openSUSE has made FATE, for example). Plus you have to deal with duplicates, spam, flames... Our (I'm a KDE forum staff member) idea was to provide pre-screening, and also help users with voting, which reduces the amount of duplicate information and potentially "weeds out" bad ideas.

Re:Cashew - PLEASE provide a way to get rid of it.

[lbbros]

The Plasma developers have already spoken about it. And you *can* get rid of it by using a custom desktop containment. openSUSE does that, for example, although personally I don't mind the cashew (which is also way smaller in trunk, BTW).

Re:The true problem is X

[Ash-Fox]

X11 protocol was writen long ago for effective (ashynchronous communication) between terminal consoles and servers. Note that at the time, whole mindset of personal computers was different. Companies had huge powerful mainframes and just connected to them via their simple consoles.

Of course, these days we have billions times more powerful 'dumb terminals' and billions more powerful servers.

But then desktop market exploded and everyone had powerful computer on their desk. And X11 just isn't designed to work well in this situation.

Here is my personal experience -- My Windows games, with all the settings maxed out, perform better (can be even 20fps difference) running under Wine/Crossover+x.org+Linux than natively under Windows. The only issue graphically is fonts, and that's caused by patent issues.

In my personal opinion, I think x11 is doing far better than Windows and OS X (considering that games tend to perform worse with crossover games mac than they do with crossover games linux) is.

The implementation of x.org does have it's issues, but these aren't issues in the x11 specification, GEM should be fixing these issues. I have written a bit on the subject.

The client-server architecture of X is just overhead in most cases.

Overhead that seems to be beating Windows on the same hardware. I'm not convinced it's a issue.

(Tell me, how many times did you attach to remote Xserver? - and with fast internet lines this could be done via VNC easily)

Once or twice, but I have ran plenty of applications remotely on my local xserver - I do it all the time. VNC doesn't give me application specific windows, or allow applications to communicate with the rest of my desktop applications, or use the theming of my desktop, or work well on very low latency connections (I use compressed ssh tunnels - doesn't work well with VNC), or allow desktop composition to work, or do 3d acceleration... I can go on, but I see no point.

The next thing is X11 protocol itself, the asynchronous design makes programming for X a terrible experience and just creates more problems than it solves (and it solves absolutelly nothing when it xserver and xclient are on same computer).

Perhaps you should give first theoretical examples? And then give practical applications of real world instances where this happens. While, I am aware of some theoretical disadvantages, they're not really a issue practically speaking.

http://www.std.org/~msm/common/WhyX.pdf

There is a lot of random rubbish you find in that documentation like "Unreadable window attributes", whereby it's been a non-issue for a while now because the freedesktop specifications provided a suitable workaround for this ages ago on how WMs etc. should communicate with each other and applications.

Re:I got an idea

[tuxgeek]

neither posts above are troll. seems the trolls have mod points today. Bad troll! No donut for you today

I use KDE full time. KDE 4.1 - 4.2.1 are still unusable
4.1 was a development snapshot, but when 4.2 was released it was promoted as equal to 3.5.10 - this is not the case.
I compiled 4.2.1 on FreeBSD over last weekend and found an irritating delay to user input: mouse click anything and start finger tapping for 30 seconds waiting for something to happen. Seems all user input and system response suffers long delays. The machine hard drive was active but on a 3Ghz - P4 system there should be no delay with simple desktop interaction. Perhaps it needs tweaking for low latency, but that is over my head at this point in time.

I dumped Gnome years ago for KDE so switching back is like the idea of chewing tin foil, so KDE 3.5.10 is still the cat's pajamas in my book.