Slashdot Mirror
Aaron Seigo On KDE SC 5.0 — and What Getting There Means
An anonymous reader writes "After years of focusing on further improving KDE4, two weeks ago the developers of the free desktop announced the next big step for their project: KDE Frameworks 5.0. But as long-time developer — and Plasma team leader — Aaron Seigo points out in an interview with derStandard.at/web, the source-incompatible changes shall be held to a minimum. He also calls Frameworks 5.0 only the 'first step;' new Applications and Workspace releases are to follow later. Seigo goes on to talk about their chances in the mobile market with Plasma Active and further areas of collaboration with the other big free desktop: GNOME."
Well, I was a KDE 3.x hold out for the longest time... but then I gave it a chance again.
I am glad I did.
It really has improved greatly since the 4.0 debacle. Try it, from one 4.0 hater to another.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
QML is pretty much like HTML/CSS+Javascript, except that you can do more Javascript magic to manipulate the UI. In theory the whole application can be written in Javascript, but I'd say normally just for the UI or things closely related to the UI. Personally I consider it a step backwards, to me it's more like trying to use web app tech to build a "real" app. I always thought that the only reason you'd want to use a declarative UI is because you need to send it as one big HTTP page, rather than set one and one property as you can do locally. To me at least the whole system seems way less intuitive. With an imperative system I always call setWidth() to set the width, in a declarative UI it's set in the declaration one way and I have to change that property some other way. Maybe I'm wrong but IMO it's throwing away the best part Qt has.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's a little bit silly to complain about KDE's user interface when the things you complain about are user-configurable. Configurability has always been the hallmark of KDE; if you don't like the way it comes by default, there's probably a setting to change it under System Settings->Workspace Appearance and Behavior.
As the other posters said, there's actually three different modes for the K-menu: classic (which is probably what you want), the new one, and Lancelot. If you don't like the one set by default, try another one.
This isn't GNOME, where you're stuck with whatever the "usability experts" there think you should use, and aren't allowed to change anything. You can have it your way (with apologies to BK).
Plus, no one's forcing you to put plasmoids on your desktop. You can leave it totally blank if you want.