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KDE 4.4 Released Alongside Website Redesign
Cryophallion writes "KDE 4.4.0 has finally been released, along with a redesign of the KDE.org website. New features include tabbed windows, improved desktop search and social desktop features. 'Major new technologies have been introduced, including social networking and online collaboration features, a new netbook-oriented interface and infrastructural innovations such as the KAuth authentication framework. According to KDE's bug-tracking system, 7293 bugs have been fixed and 1433 new feature requests were implemented.' A feature guide is also available."
Agree 100%. Amarok jumped the shark when it went to version 2.x. To the point where it was one of the best mp3 players to what the hell is this?
That said, KDE was almost unusable at 4.0 but is now quite nice (I used Gnome for a bit).
I am not a script!
And this is different from most Linux projects how?
I don't think KDE should view itself as "most" Linux projects. KDE isn't an application, its a framework and base upon which to CREATE an entire desktop environment. Given the amount of hours which have obviously gone in to code development, I'm just asking for a tiny fraction of that effort put toward helping me understand how to develop apps for it. Open source shouldn't have to be synonymous with amateurism. And like I said, I'd be happy to help with docs, but I need some guidance. I really am not in the mood to spend several weekends working on docs just to have some "guru" tell me that I'm completely full of crap and I've just been wasting my time (and this has happened to me a couple times, it really has a tendency to sour a person toward contribution).
It doesn't even matter if you are right or wrong anymore. Years down the line you're still bashing a bunch of nice and hard-working people. Enough already "Concern". This is really uncalled for.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
Kubuntu consistently puts out the worst KDE packages. If you want a good KDE desktop, please try another distro like openSUSE, Fedora, Sabayon, Arch, PCLinux OS, Mandriva, etc.
If you want to blame someone for the "disaster", consider pointing a finger at your distro.
Usually when I make this statement, half the time I get modded troll. The other half of the time I get modded informative. Frankly, I don't care. But I am speaking the truth here. Anyone who follows KDE knows that 90% of the complaints seem to stem from people running terrible Kubuntu packages.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
My completely non-technical gf uses Kde4.3 daily for browsing, email, music, pictures (digikam), watching tv (myth) and finds it okay to use. The only real problem she ran into was with kmail, as one of its bugs started eating all her email before she could read them. (I'm banned from using kmail at work for the same reason). She doesn't change settings much but she knows how to go look for them if she wants something. To her its just another computer like those at her work (Windows XP). Last year I used KDE, OS-X (Snow Leopard) and XP. I find them all quite capable and usable. Each one has its irks, quirks and annoyances but overall I'm leaning towards KDE. I'm faster (less mouse travel) with KDE on multiple monitors than on OS-X. Its all good however, keep up the good work.
I totally agree though, Amarok turned into complete and utter shit
Hard to believe, but this is an understatement. I cannot think of any application that turned into a huge steaming pile like Amarok. Maybe Kino after the 0.6.x changes.
Then, when someone tries it and has a ligit complain, they're told, STFU, you get what you pay for.
I am trying really hard to remember reading a bug report that was answered with STFU. Maybe because complaints look more like offence (Concern look like doing a lot of that on this topic) in direction of /. (where maturity is not a prerequisite), then STFU answer is not surprising.
In your opinion, how should "OMG, KDE suxors, crashes all the time. And Amarok, gah!!!" be addressed? With "Thank you for valuable input, we will address these issues right away"?
My forays into the KDE 4.x release series were unpleasant too, although not necessarily for stability problems.
Look, it's obviously a labor of love, but sometimes the eyes of love are a bit blind to faults. The hardest thing to do in any creative endeavor is to set aside some idea you really love. But you have to do it, otherwise you end up with an exuberant but irritating mess. KDE 4 had a kind of an Andy Hardy "hey kids, let's revolutionize desktop technology!" feel to it. Or maybe like an art show for young UI designer's desktop concepts. It doesn't have a natural feel to it, by which I mean that after a few minutes with it you forget you're using some arbitrary set of conventions. It's an attention grabbing user interface, and I don't want my attention grabbed. I have my own uses for my attention.
The things I value in a user interface are consistency, responsiveness, and deference. I want the interface to stay out of my way, not to educate me on somebody's philosophy of user interface design. I regard my computer a my slave. When I give it an order, I want to be able to that quickly and have the result be absolutely predictable in how long it takes and how it ends up. I am not interested in any shuck-and-jive that the user interface designers want to throw into the process.
The whole program of revolutionizing the desktop is out of date anyway.
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