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KDE 4.7.0 Released
jrepin writes "KDE 4.7 releases provide many new features and improved stability and performance. Lots of visual polishing took place with an update to the Oxygen icons, and improved consistency between panel items such as clock and notification areas. The window manager KWin brings a new shadow system and can now run on OpenGL ES supporting hardware, making it better suited for mobile devices. Network management widget is much improved. Navigating through applications and recent files is easier with the addition of breadcrumbs to the Kickoff application launcher. Kontact groupware solution rejoins the rest of the KDE software, with increased stability, better connection to new services and sharing of communication information between more applications. Dolphin file manager has a cleaner default appearance. The menu bar is hidden, but easy to reach and restore. The file searching interface has been improved. Marble the virtual globe now has voice navigation support and a map creation wizard. Gwenview image viewer now offers the ability to compare two or more pictures side by side. Digikam photo management app brings face detection and recognition."
I've always liked the KDE interface better anyway. It seems more professional (even back in the 90's) while Gnome has always been somehow "childish". And this was even before Unity-time.
There will always be something that doesn't work as it should or as you would like it to be. KDE 4 is a stable, solid desktop environment. I used KDE as my day-to-day working dekstop since 3.x. I jumped the wagon when they ironed out showstoppers in SC4 and don't look back.
BTW I wonder why there is so much complaining about KDE when it comes to some minor features? Such scale is unseen in windows world. Maybe windows users don't complain so much because ms doesn't care about fixing and improving things anyway? Here you can discuss and have things fixed or even redesigned in a matter of weeks or months.
How's that coming?
As a Firefox user who's children love Flash games, that's a /sine qua non/.
Integration of GNOME/GTK+ applications in KDE is very good.
http://kde.org/announcements/4.7/plasma.php
Recognizing the modular nature of KDE software and the ability to mix and match applications from many different sources, KDE has also improved the Oxygen GTK themes, making applications from GNOME (and other applications using GTK+) blend seamlessly with KDE applications in your Plasma Workspace.
It would be fair to say that integration of GNOME/GTK+ applications under the KDE SC 4.7 Plasma desktop is orders of magnitude better than integration of KDE applications under the GNOME desktop of any variety.
How about settings>Workspace Behaviour>Virtual Desktops>Different Widgets for Each Desktop...It's that easy!
Don't forget QtCurve, which I find to be considerably better than the ugly and garish Oxygen theme.
But thankfully, the KDE devs are not wedded to the 90s, and those of us who want a modern desktop still get one. Isn't free software wonderful?
Also, you say you tried a few releases. my guess is you haven't tries in a year. Which is an enormous amount of dev time. So you maybe should keep trying :)
Did they return the multiple desktop and individual backgrounds? Locking Apps to specific Desktops?
Yes.
No they haven't and they're still pushing Dolphin as the File manager instead of sticking with Konq, which worked quite well for that and browsing the web. Hell I found it quite useful when accessing an ftp site that I had write privs as it allowed me to simply copy files from the system to the server.
Yes they have. Konqeror is still there, and can be set as the default file manager if you want.
As a 3.5 user, I would have preferred them to simply bug fix and transition 3.5 over to QT4. Some of the restructuring was needed but the complete change to the UI was totally unneeded. Instead they had to copy MS and Vista and loose the one feature that made KDE stand out for me, which was the configurable desktops, background images and locking apps to specific desktops.
As I said, all these features are available, accessible, and are arguably better than they were in KDE 3. I honestly don't know how you haven't been able to discover them.
conclusion:
it's pretty but it's not exactly the same as GNOME 2.x so I don't like it, and I can't be bothered to type trivial questions into Google.
FTFY.
Pirate Party UK
> my biggest complaint is that they took away the desktop icons.
Which is why you can switch to folder view.
> it's graphics accelerated but not snappy.
It's vector graphics. Until you have built a cache of the sizes custom-rendered for your system, it takes a bit. For how long did you try KDE?
> it's really annoying to have to open eight different configuration windows
Specific examples?
I have my own problems with KDE and I am definitely not one who migrated to 4.x lightly, but your issues seem to stem from being used to Gnome and simply accepting that you can't change any settings, anyway (no, their "registry" abomination does not count).
> Also, you say you tried a few releases. my guess is you haven't tries in a year. Which is an enormous amount of dev time. So you maybe should keep trying :)
You see that is what many FOSS devs (specially Linux Desktop devs (specially KDE devs)) don't seem to get.
Trying out a desktop takes time and effort. Most people have better things to do in life than "trying out KDE/Gnome/XFCE/etc every 3/6/12 months" to see which are the latest (mostly useless) desktop new effects and integration gimmicks.