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KDE Announces 4.9 Releases
jrepin writes "KDE announces 4.9 releases of Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. Version 4.9 provides many new features, along with improved stability and performance. Some of the highlights include, but are not limited to: more thorough integration of Activities throughout the Workspaces, ability to display metadata (ratings, tags, image and file sizes...) next to file names in Dolphin file manager, Mercurial versioning system support in Dolphin, detachable tabs in Konsole terminal emulator, support for MPRIS2 protocol in various places, ability to store and print PDF annotations from Okular document viewer, Okular can also play videos embedded in PDFs, Lokalize translation tool supports Qt's TS translation files, Kontact PIM suite gains ability to import data from Thunderbird and Evolution, Pairs is a new memory training game added to KDE Education package, and Marble desktop globe includes Open Source Routing Machine and support for bicycle and pedestrian routing. This release is dedicated to the memory of recently deceased KDE contributor Claire Lotion."
Just make sure the tablet UI mode stays optional. We don't need another Gnome3/Unity.
I'm glad the KDE crew is still pushing stuff out the door. While I'm not a huge fan of KDE4, it is improving.
Any service with a commenting section is full of people projecting their anger and insecurities on others. Given the nature of slashdot, it's particularly bad here.
Similes are like metaphors
Don't worry, nobody can, except perhaps Siego. Activities are a solution looking for a problem.
Think of it a groups of applications and desktop widgets between which you can switch.
For example, I find it convenient to have, say, an IDE, a web browser a couple consoles and relevant apps in an activity, and in another activity the word processor, another browser, perhaps a drawing programme.
I could do that on virtual desktops, but I like each group of apps spread over 3-4 virtual desktops. This is like a way of organising (in my case) 18 virtual desktops in 6 more manageable groups. Also, I don't want the twitter feed on all of them, and I want different directories on my desktop for each group.
Does it make sense?
If you don't understand them, it means you don't have the problem they are solving - a lot of UI components open all at once.
But whenever you're overloaded with multitude of items, grouping may help you. And sometimes you can distinguish some non-overlapping groups of GUI components. These are activities.
Like: For staying up to date with life (my eMail client, my facebook page), for the project I am currently working on (my IDE, some folders of the project I am currently editing, GIThub page, various googling sessions I am doing in research), for the entertainment (my favorite offtopic sites, etc.).