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Plasma 5 Release Candidate Announced

Posted by Soulskill on from the test-before-it's-too-late dept.

sfcrazy writes: The KDE Community has announced the first release of Plasma 5. It's a release candidate, so it's meant for testing and preview purposes, like the developer preview of Android L. The final release will be announced next week, so this is the last chance for testers and developers to find issues and get them fixed before the release.

24 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. XFCE by corychristison · · Score: 2

    Anyone else notice its starting to look more like XFCE?

    1. Re:XFCE by qubezz · · Score: 1

      Anyone else notice its starting to look more like XKCD?

  2. No way to distinguish which is the active window. by dotancohen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which is the active window in the official screenshot:
    http://kde.org/announcements/p...

    It looks like usability took a back seat to "Apple-like" flat, monochromatic design on this one.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  3. Re:No way to distinguish which is the active windo by rkoot · · Score: 2

    Well, I can actually tell quite easily that the 'system settings' window (the one in the back) is the active one. In the taskbar the blue underlining tells you what's active. Plus you can tell since the windows' title is greyed when not active.

  4. Android L? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Who gives a shit about Android L? Are Slashdotters too dumb to know what a release candidate is now?

  5. KDE announces releases... by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    ....that are not releases. Really wish they would stop that. I went to XFCE with the great "4" announcement. that screwed up everything that I expect a finished window manager to do. Anyway, isn't this a dupe?

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  6. Gnome 3 by DrYak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Would you have preferred that it looks more like Gnome3 ?!

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Gnome 3 by corychristison · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No. I actually really like XFCE. Why not just use XFCE? Less bloat.

    2. Re:Gnome 3 by xyzzymage · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I use KDE in large part because it separates the window element/widget design (checkboxes, etc.) from the colors, and lets me control what color everything is -- the defaults that KDE, Xfce, etc. all pick tend to be so low-color & high/low-contrast that they give me headaches. I also generally prefer KDE because of the little useful touches like the easily-added/programmed extra context menu actions in the file manager, integration of KDE-Look, and things like that.

    3. Re:Gnome 3 by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      Would you have preferred that it looks more like Gnome3 ?!

      Yes. Yes I would. But I think it's a good thing that KDE is doing their own thing first and foremost.

    4. Re:Gnome 3 by camg188 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Users want features and stability.
      Current devices have so much power and capacity that the average user is not concerned about bloat.

    5. Re:Gnome 3 by armanox · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because I much prefer Qt to GTK?

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    6. Re: Gnome 3 by corychristison · · Score: 1

      Just want to point out Thunar (the XFCE file manager) also has easily added context menu actions.

      I understand the desire for configurability, though. I use Gentoo/Funtoo personally. I have found XFCE to strike a great balance between configurable, stable, and lightweight. I'm not one for flashy, animated windows and effects though. That is in XFCE to a degree.

      The last time I used KDE was 3.5(I think), so maybe I should revisit it when 5.0 is out.

    7. Re: Gnome 3 by corychristison · · Score: 1

      Have you looked at or tried LXQt?

    8. Re:Gnome 3 by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      But one can only use Qt from C++?

      ...and 16 other languages.

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
  7. configurability by DrYak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And, this being KDE, by the time it's accepted in mainstream, it's going to be configurable, so you can make it paint the title bar of active application in neon pink, if you want.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  8. It's just a theme... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Odds are your distro will create it's own default theme if this one proves unpopular.

  9. Re:No way to distinguish which is the active windo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Larger areas present easier targets to hit quickly and accurately. This is important with the mouse as well as touch, because making all your UI elements too small makes everything slower to use while you're trying to hit a tiny target.

    See also: Fitts' Law.

    "Fitts's law (often cited as Fitts' law) is a model of human movement primarily used in human–computer interaction and ergonomics that predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. Fitts's law is used to model the act of pointing, either by physically touching an object with a hand or finger, or virtually, by pointing to an object on a computer monitor using a pointing device. It was proposed by Paul Fitts in 1954."

  10. Re:No way to distinguish which is the active windo by xyzzymage · · Score: 1

    I knew something looked buggered about that image, but I couldn't figure out what -- I was too distracted by frustration at the equally user-hostile oversimplified flat outline icons.

    What's worse is that it's so awful without even including the planned window decorations, which someone on the team posted to OpenDesktop in April. Imagining the two put together...not pleasant.

  11. FFS, that's not what a release candidate is by Bogtha · · Score: 2

    It's a release candidate, so it's meant for testing and preview purposes, like the developer preview of Android L.

    If you label something as a release candidate, what you are saying is "we think this has been completely finished. Everybody check it out, and if we haven't screwed up, we'll rename it as the final version". Hence the name - it's a candidate for release. "Release candidate" is not another name for "preview" or "beta".

    This is the kind of crap that gave KDE 4 such a bad reputation. Labelling things as done when they are still major works in progress. If you don't think it's finished, don't call it a release candidate. Don't label it as a new major version. If it's not finished, then it's neither of those things.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    1. Re:FFS, that's not what a release candidate is by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      This is the kind of crap that gave KDE 4 such a bad reputation. Labelling things as done when they are still major works in progress. If you don't think it's finished, don't call it a release candidate. Don't label it as a new major version. If it's not finished, then it's neither of those things.

      That's completely true. The worst part is that it isn't the fault of the KDE developers. Your quote isn't in the release announcement, it's in the writeup on some website that most likely doesn't have any connection to the KDE developers (or, apparently, a clue). The release announcement says, "This is one last chance to test for bugs and check for problems before the final release next week." That is what a release candidate is.

      KDE 4.0 was pretty much the same way. The developers proclaimed quite loudly that it was not meant for everyday desktop use, but that they felt it necessary to call it 4.0 so that the API would be frozen (this decision is certainly debatable). A few Linux distributions took software that they were clearly told was not ready for end users and gave it to end users.

    2. Re:FFS, that's not what a release candidate is by Bogtha · · Score: 1

      KDE 4.0 was pretty much the same way. The developers proclaimed quite loudly that it was not meant for everyday desktop use. A few Linux distributions took software that they were clearly told was not ready for end users and gave it to end users.

      There wasn't a single hint of this in the official release announcement and they were pushing it like crazy to end-users. Quote:

      The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. The Plasma desktop shell offers a new desktop interface, including panel, menu and widgets on the desktop as well as a dashboard function. KWin, the KDE Window manager, now supports advanced graphical effects to ease interaction with your windows.

      KDE 4.0 is the innovative Free Software desktop containing lots of applications for every day use as well as for specific purposes.

      The idea that KDE 4.0 wasn't intended for end-users and that the developers were clear about this was just an excuse they fell back on when it became apparent 4.0 was a miserable failure in the eyes of end-users.

      The cause of the problem was a piss-poor attitude towards release management compounded with a complete inability to take responsibility for their choices. Yes, I'm aware of all the excuses, but they don't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. Read that press release. Can you honestly say that's warning non-developers to stay away?

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    3. Re:FFS, that's not what a release candidate is by Bogtha · · Score: 1

      Love how you just can take a single message, completely out of context, quote a bunch of text which is perfectly true, and claim it says anything about your use case.

      It was a release announcement, it wasn't out of context, and it was entirely relevant.

      Your bullshit is old, has been debunked multiple times over

      How could you debunk the point I'm making when all I have to do is link to their own release announcement and point out what it says directly disagrees with you?

      nothing but hot air from the camp of the other, abandoned desktop

      Nope, I was using KDE from the 1.0 betas all the way to the 4.0 betas. I only switched to GNOME after the KDE 4 debacle, and I found that even worse and ended up moving off Linux altogether.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  12. Design by qzxcvbnm · · Score: 1

    Good news! But I think, that KDE >=4.10 design is better than KDE5's one. IMHO, it's too bright and flat.