Do you even know what vectors are? They are just lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, semi-circles, etc.. This is opposed to pixmaps. Very few KDE styles are pixmap based. There are some hybrids that use both (like keramik). Most are wholly vector based, like the popular plastik theme.
Most Qt/KDE widget styles use the QPainter API for this. On X11, these functions mostly just call the related Xlib functions (s/draw/XDraw) If you want to see the source code to the styles included in KDE, see here and here
KDE's kwin window manager also uses vectors to draw most of it's decorations.
There was once killustrator.. it was pretty good app before there was ever sodipodi, but for technical reasons (oh yeah, adobe threatening the author didn't help either), it died in favor of karbon14, which while much better technically than killustrator, is worse than actually creating things than killustrator or sodipodi. There was a point where I could do very complex path manipulation in karbon, but it lacked a usable center-oriented rect tool.
So sodipodi is probably the best vector drawing app right now, but karbon is getting better. I also like karbon's interface a lot better than sodipodi, so I hope it continutes on it's way.
You could implement a SVG backend with Cairo, and people are already doing that. However, KHTML would likely never use that. Why? Because SVG can read/write/access things in the DOM. You need integration that something like xsvg would not provide.
Mozilla also would likely also never use xsvg, for similiar reasons.
> The KDE team needs to do more than just adapt SVG as a plugin, they need to render the whole interface via SVG. Maybe cairographics could be used as the backend, and KDE's UI, Icons, Widgets
Who said that they aren't doing this? The story links to Atlantik, which is being rewritten to use SVG for it's UI. The preview shows icons being rendered with SVG. KSVG also makes making Qt widget styles using SVG possible.
In the end, it's all about the features. There isn't a desktop environment that runs on UNIX systems that I'm aware of that can beat KDE in terms of features. People run Evolution for it's features too.
I don't think you've ever properly used any higher-level C++ constructs. The STL, the boost libraries, helper classes in Mozilla, helper classes in Qt/KDE, and i'd imagine classes in OOo's framework all help produce a higher level C++. It brings the high speed of development of Python while keeping the high performance that C/C++ entails.
I think that's because xmms has been developmentally dead for a while now. It's still using gtk 1.2.x, while the next generation of distros will only ship with a few gtk 1.2.x apps (xmms will likely be one of them.)
The development and maturation of xmms2 will hopefully fix that.
The good thing about winamp-style players is that they stay out of the way, without being too out of the way. Juk, for example, can sit in the systray as one icon. For me, this is too out of the way. If you bring up the real juk window, you get a massive behemoth of a window. That's too much in my way. Just doesn't feel right.
Uhm, I said nothing about C. C can be used fine for large projects.
However, gimp is nowhere near as large in terms of LOC as Mozilla or OOo is. If you want to compare something, use the Linux Kernel. It is pretty large in terms of LOC.
> that are prone to hard to find errors and dangerous errors
At least with C++, many people use smart pointers (like in boost) or smart/automatic memory management. Both Mozilla and KDE (not familiar with OOo, but I'm sure it does too) make extensive use of both of them.
> C and C++ are picked by newbies because it is popular.
What do you suggest, rewriting Mozilla, OpenOffice, and KDE in something like Java or Python? That would be pathetically slow.
C++ is used almost exclusively by three of the biggest projects that won this year in terms of lines of code: Mozilla, OOo, and KDE.
C++ on UNIX-like systems has been on an uptake, and it's usage on large projects shows that it is good for maintainability and production of such projects.
Yup, there are plenty of people using KDE and Evolution. Perhaps the upcoming release of KDE 3.2 along with Kontact will change that for some people. However, other people, like myself, will probably stick with Evolution for the following features:
1. Exchange 2000 support 2. Client side IMAP filtering
But.. I'd probably switch to using kmail/kontact partially if it had HTML editing =)
The real good thing about xmms is that it's winamp like. Except for the Macintosh platform, people have always liked winamp-like players the most.
On MacOS, audion used to the most widely used player. This is of course Apple introduced their own player, itunes. If Apple had introduced a jukebox player like itunes and a winamp player, the winamp player would have probably been more popular. It was always like that, as before audion, macamp was the most popular, which was a direct winamp clone like xmms is.
I suppose that for mac users, loyalty to using Apple products is most import; Safari was almost instantly widely adopted by Mac users, even for people who were using things like Chimera/Camino.
Kopete has a much nicer interface than Gaim, but over the last year, it's been horribly immature compared to Gaim. Gaim, on the other hand, is extremely mature. It's been aroun d for 5 years.
Perhaps kopete will manage to win next year, once it's shipped as part of KDE 3.2 in a few months.
The "big three", OpenOffice, Mozilla, and KDE will probably continute to the most liked office suite, web browser, and desktop environment, respectively.
OpenOffice has won it since it's maturation, Mozilla since it's maturation (and the death of NS 4.7), and KDE has won it's category since 1999 (when the desktop environment category was introduced)
Yeah, Miguel never said he support MS.. However, during that time, he was labeled as such.
oh well, I guess it's a moot point now since Ximian isn't actively pushing mono as much as they used to (but is still one of their most important projects, IMHO)
> Safari has its fair share of bugs - just to keep things properly in perspective. There are many sites that simply don't even work on Safari and many rendering issues.
Yes, but Safari is more standards compliant and secure than IE and is actually a joy to work with, unlike Moz/MozFB. The only browser that comes close to it is Camino, but Safari is a bit faster in my experience.
Yeah.. agreed.. Firebird, while *way* faster than Mozilla, is still *way* slower than IE. This is especially true on older systems. I think Firebird is actually faster than IE on my AthlonXP 2200+, but is WAY slower than IE on my p2 400.
> I do appreciate the funding they gave mozilla though.
What funding? They simultaneously fired anyone still working on Mozilla months ago when they destoryed the remenants of the carcass that was once Netscape.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you even know what vectors are? They are just lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, semi-circles, etc.. This is opposed to pixmaps. Very few KDE styles are pixmap based. There are some hybrids that use both (like keramik). Most are wholly vector based, like the popular plastik theme.
Most Qt/KDE widget styles use the QPainter API for this. On X11, these functions mostly just call the related Xlib functions (s/draw/XDraw) If you want to see the source code to the styles included in KDE, see here and here
KDE's kwin window manager also uses vectors to draw most of it's decorations.
> Adopting SVG for icon
Already is in the upcoming KDE 3.2. Used widely in GNOME for a while too.
> a Linux window manager to me is a bit trivial.
Yes, someone can do that with ksvg.
1. Please learn to use the breakline tag while in html commenting mode. It greatly helps readability. =)
> Why should a theme creator have to create 30 different versions of their theme for different resolutions?
They don't. Almost all Qt widget styles are already pretty much vector based (using the qpainter API)
SVG allows other things though. Easier theme creation for one.
There was once killustrator.. it was pretty good app before there was ever sodipodi, but for technical reasons (oh yeah, adobe threatening the author didn't help either), it died in favor of karbon14, which while much better technically than killustrator, is worse than actually creating things than killustrator or sodipodi. There was a point where I could do very complex path manipulation in karbon, but it lacked a usable center-oriented rect tool.
So sodipodi is probably the best vector drawing app right now, but karbon is getting better. I also like karbon's interface a lot better than sodipodi, so I hope it continutes on it's way.
Cairo != SVG.
You could implement a SVG backend with Cairo, and people are already doing that. However, KHTML would likely never use that. Why? Because SVG can read/write/access things in the DOM. You need integration that something like xsvg would not provide.
Mozilla also would likely also never use xsvg, for similiar reasons.
> The KDE team needs to do more than just adapt SVG as a plugin, they need to render the whole interface via SVG. Maybe cairographics could be used as the backend, and KDE's UI, Icons, Widgets
Who said that they aren't doing this? The story links to Atlantik, which is being rewritten to use SVG for it's UI. The preview shows icons being rendered with SVG. KSVG also makes making Qt widget styles using SVG possible.
Please read the article before commenting. =)
What's the point of using cairo to draw widgets? Almost all KDE/Qt widget styles are already drawn using vectors (as opposed to being pixmap based)
Using SVG could have the benefit of having copy+paste matching gtk and qt styles however.
In the end, it's all about the features. There isn't a desktop environment that runs on UNIX systems that I'm aware of that can beat KDE in terms of features. People run Evolution for it's features too.
The next closest is probably GNOME 1.4.
I don't think you've ever properly used any higher-level C++ constructs. The STL, the boost libraries, helper classes in Mozilla, helper classes in Qt/KDE, and i'd imagine classes in OOo's framework all help produce a higher level C++. It brings the high speed of development of Python while keeping the high performance that C/C++ entails.
I think that's because xmms has been developmentally dead for a while now. It's still using gtk 1.2.x, while the next generation of distros will only ship with a few gtk 1.2.x apps (xmms will likely be one of them.)
The development and maturation of xmms2 will hopefully fix that.
The good thing about winamp-style players is that they stay out of the way, without being too out of the way. Juk, for example, can sit in the systray as one icon. For me, this is too out of the way. If you bring up the real juk window, you get a massive behemoth of a window. That's too much in my way. Just doesn't feel right.
Uhm, I said nothing about C. C can be used fine for large projects.
However, gimp is nowhere near as large in terms of LOC as Mozilla or OOo is. If you want to compare something, use the Linux Kernel. It is pretty large in terms of LOC.
> that are prone to hard to find errors and dangerous errors
At least with C++, many people use smart pointers (like in boost) or smart/automatic memory management. Both Mozilla and KDE (not familiar with OOo, but I'm sure it does too) make extensive use of both of them.
> C and C++ are picked by newbies because it is popular.
What do you suggest, rewriting Mozilla, OpenOffice, and KDE in something like Java or Python? That would be pathetically slow.
C++ is used almost exclusively by three of the biggest projects that won this year in terms of lines of code: Mozilla, OOo, and KDE.
C++ on UNIX-like systems has been on an uptake, and it's usage on large projects shows that it is good for maintainability and production of such projects.
> Goto settings and configure the shortcuts to send on hitting enter.
Ah, wow.. I didn't even think about that. I doubt many other people will either, and assume that kopete doesn't support this.
Yup, there are plenty of people using KDE and Evolution. Perhaps the upcoming release of KDE 3.2 along with Kontact will change that for some people. However, other people, like myself, will probably stick with Evolution for the following features:
1. Exchange 2000 support
2. Client side IMAP filtering
But.. I'd probably switch to using kmail/kontact partially if it had HTML editing =)
Agreed.. it breaks what almost all IM clients have used in the last 4 years.
I rememeber old versions of MacICQ used to do what Kopete does now, and it was annoying as fuck. It should at least be an option.
The real good thing about xmms is that it's winamp like. Except for the Macintosh platform, people have always liked winamp-like players the most.
On MacOS, audion used to the most widely used player. This is of course Apple introduced their own player, itunes. If Apple had introduced a jukebox player like itunes and a winamp player, the winamp player would have probably been more popular. It was always like that, as before audion, macamp was the most popular, which was a direct winamp clone like xmms is.
I suppose that for mac users, loyalty to using Apple products is most import; Safari was almost instantly widely adopted by Mac users, even for people who were using things like Chimera/Camino.
Kopete has a much nicer interface than Gaim, but over the last year, it's been horribly immature compared to Gaim. Gaim, on the other hand, is extremely mature. It's been aroun d for 5 years.
Perhaps kopete will manage to win next year, once it's shipped as part of KDE 3.2 in a few months.
This is pretty much the same as it was last year.
The "big three", OpenOffice, Mozilla, and KDE will probably continute to the most liked office suite, web browser, and desktop environment, respectively.
OpenOffice has won it since it's maturation, Mozilla since it's maturation (and the death of NS 4.7), and KDE has won it's category since 1999 (when the desktop environment category was introduced)
Yeah, Miguel never said he support MS.. However, during that time, he was labeled as such.
oh well, I guess it's a moot point now since Ximian isn't actively pushing mono as much as they used to (but is still one of their most important projects, IMHO)
> I've NEVER heard of Ximian or Miguel (except by extremists) as being described as MS supporters!
Apparently you didn't read slashdot back when Ximian was announcing the mono project and Miguel was giving stump speeches about how great C# was.
> Safari has its fair share of bugs - just to keep things properly in perspective. There are many sites that simply don't even work on Safari and many rendering issues.
Yes, but Safari is more standards compliant and secure than IE and is actually a joy to work with, unlike Moz/MozFB. The only browser that comes close to it is Camino, but Safari is a bit faster in my experience.
Why? Mono helps Microsoft push the C#/.NET platform. Why do you think MS submitted C# as a ECMA standard?
This is one of the reasons Ximian (especially Miguel) is/was portrayed as a Microsoft-supporter.
> I haven't seen a GIF is hrmm maybe 10 years or so?
Are you viewing slashdot without images on? Because slashdot uses all gif's.. except for some ads which are jpeg.
> I don't even know what an RSA is,
Do you have an account at slashdot? Have you ever logged in? Yes, made possible through RSA.
Yeah.. agreed.. Firebird, while *way* faster than Mozilla, is still *way* slower than IE. This is especially true on older systems. I think Firebird is actually faster than IE on my AthlonXP 2200+, but is WAY slower than IE on my p2 400.
> I do appreciate the funding they gave mozilla though.
What funding? They simultaneously fired anyone still working on Mozilla months ago when they destoryed the remenants of the carcass that was once Netscape.