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A Screenshot Review of KDE 4
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Mar 31, 2008 08:05 PM
from the who-doesn't-like-a-little-eye-candy dept.
from the who-doesn't-like-a-little-eye-candy dept.
billybob2 writes "PolishLinux.org has an extensive screenshot review and commentary on the development version of the Free and Open Source KDE desktop. Highlights include the ability to run any desktop applet prepared for Mac OS X inside Plasma, on-the-fly annotation and rating of files from within the Dolphin file manager. It also has an improved GUI for the Amarok music player, flexible 3D eye candy configuration in KWin, and improved support for both accessing digital cameras via the Solid hardware layer and the DigiKam photo manager."
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Poor server (Score:2, Informative)
Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to see where OS X has borrowed from OSS, simply look at spaces (predated by Virtual Desktops), Dashboard (predated by Konfabulator), Spotlight (predated by Beagle), etc.
I'd like to see some OS X fanboys who have a clue about the way OS development works; hint: all the majors copy concepts from each other & rarely come up with original features (they mostly come from research projects), but once again, Apple fanboy disappoints.
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Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Informative)
No. I don't think Dashboard is anything like Desk Accessories - the only similarity between the two is that they're both small apps.
And Beagle? Apple hired Dominic Giampaolo in early 2002, who knows if he started working on Spotlight right from the get-go?
Oh FFS. Do you think you're adding anything to your case by speculating that Apple may have been developing Spotlight prior to Beagle's first alpha?
Even if you had concrete evidence rather than pointless speculation, you'd still not have shown Apple to be the innovator - how about this [retrosoftware.net] from 1987.
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Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:4, Interesting)
OTOH, Konfabulator and Dashboard are basically the same freakin' thing. They're both a runtime engine for creating/running markup-based (e.g. XML, HTML) mini-programs (widgets) with JavaScript code. The format for creating widgets is open and users can create their own widgets which they can share on Konfabulator/Dashboard widget sites.
Dashboard was so much different (and more significant) than Desk Accessories that Steve Jobs introduced Dashboard at the World Wide Developers Conference. Many developers in attendence were confused because Jobs seemed to be describing Konfabulator, which already existed and Jobs pretended didn't exist.
Parent
Re:Seems to be up now. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I didn't claim that - I said Konfabulator predates Dashboard.
then it's utterly disingenuous to claim that K-ator is not a "ripoff" of Desk Accessories in exactly the same sense. To anyone with a functioning brain, K-ator is much more similar to Desk Accessories than to Dashboard. If you disagree, I invite you to explain why rather than trotting out troll talking points.
Konfabulator could fetch information from a network & was easy to develop for, but again - I don't claim that anything's ripping off anything.
And Spotlight a ripoff of Beagle? A laughable, intentional lie. Again, if those two are similar enough to call Spotlight a "ripoff", then Beagle is a ripoff of every indexed search project since 1935.
But I do think Beagle has borrowed from every indexed search project since 1935 - I even said (in the post you're replying to): "Sorry fanboy. You're wrong.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are correct about Konfabulator, but I'm not sure Sherlock 2 is a good example - its indexing wasn't really any different to AppleSearch (did it search your browser history, mail, pdf content - ie all things we mean when we refer to 'desktop search' apps?).
FWIW, I don't think Beagle started the desktop search frenzy - all desktop
Unoriginal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, they didn't.
It really irks me when people look at a window decoration, and assume that fully encompasses the work of KDE 4.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nepomuk - This is FAR more than search. http://nepomuk.kde.org/ [kde.org]
Solid - I don't know anything about I/OKit, but Solid provides an easy API for apps to interact with hardware.
Plasma - In many ways it offers previous functionality (panels, dock, widgets, etc) but it brings them all together under one library and framework, however the real innovation and advantage of Plasma is the ability to gene
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was an inexplicably popular mod of FVWM called FVWM95 that tried to emulate the Windows 95 GUI. FVWM unless similarly modified isn't going to look like MacOS at all. Maybe someone has done that? If so, I've never heard of it. I doubt it represents the majority of FVWM users today, at any rate. FVWM is highly modular and ridiculously flexible (without recompiling it can be made to emulate the major functionality of just about any other window
"Error establishing a database connection" (Score:3, Funny)
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Expecting more.. (Score:2)
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Re: (Score:2)
Remember OMG Ponies?
Re: (Score:2)
Dashboard Support (Score:5, Interesting)
I've recently been able to do some widget development for OS X (nothing complex, just some HTML, JS, and AJAX calls). It's a neat little environment but the error reporting left a lot to be desired.
That said, I really appreciate the ability to open Dashboard widgets in KDE. The interface isn't that magical, and except for the ability to call native code shouldn't pose much of a problem for the developers. I was wondering if they were going to do something like this and I'm glad they have.
The little widget I developed could be used by users of one of our applications. I think a fair number of them would like it. For various reasons, 30% of the users of this application are using Macs, so that doesn't pose a problem. But when I pitched the idea (with a mostly complete widget) to my superiors they weren't that interested. I was basically told "that's quite neat, but it needs to work on Windows."
Ignoring my minor "let Mac users have something first" attitude, there is a very serious problem with providing the Widget on Windows. I can't (reasonably). I researched the options and here is what I found.
That list ignores whatever GNOME uses, and the 5-10 smaller engines that very few people use. Who knows how many people use Google Desktop or Yahoo! Widgets. None of the widgets developed on these systems works with any of the other system. Even if the widget is a simple as a "Hello, world" HTML file and image(s), the markup between Dashboard and Google is quite different. From the quick look I put into it, the same thing is true with Vista and Yahoo!. Google Desktop widgets can be loaded into the Dashboard, if you have Google Desktop installed on your Mac, because it performs some kind of translation.
So I can't develop a widget. The only user base I can promise is Vista. That's a big headache and only 2/3s the side of the Mac users we know of. Asking users to go install Google Desktop or Yahoo! Widgets just to be able to view our little widget is a little tough. Making the application native would take quite a bit of time. Integration for a custom Google homepage is probably the best option for us, but still not worth it due to the inability to predict the number of people who would actually use it.
So the project (which was just a side project of mine) is basically dead. Unless they decide that providing the widget to only Mac users (I find this very unlikely), the time isn't judged to be worth it (and I don't blame them). Until Vista takes over (probably by this time next year due to MS phasing out XP sales to OEMs) there are just too many widget engines. Targeting any decent sized group of users is nearly impossible. It's a quirk of our market that Macs have the market share they do.
This kind of consolidation is a very nice thing. As a KDE user, instantly getting so many widgets available (since outside of native code and possibly running shell commands, there shouldn't be porting) is a very nice thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Dashboard Support (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point, that's basically what WebKit is. If someone just makes a Windows front end, we'll be set. Getting Google to adopt it for Google Desktop would be great, but at this point I find that unlikely due to momentum. Dashboard is just little Safari windows, hiding things like the title bar, with a special Javascript object to let you do things like set preferences, flip sides, and know when your widget is shown.
This this version of KDE is supposed to be able to be compiled and run on Window much easier than the giant mess that used to be necessary (my understanding is that this is due mostly to QT4), we may even be most of the way there. All that is needed is to get the users. Being able to say "use Apple Dashboard widgets" would be a major plus in getting the users.
If it wouldn't cut into one of Apple's argued advantages, they would probably release Dashboard for Windows.
But as it stands, there doesn't seem to be any way develop a widget and have it run on any decent fraction of the Windows computers out there. Like it or not, that's a large market.
Parent
This is especially interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is especially interesting (Score:4, Informative)
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I've been running -dev (Score:4, Informative)
Why is KDE still not the mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream? (Score:4, Informative)
KDE is the BSD of Desktops.
Parent
KDE isn't the default on Debian based distros (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, I do appreciate Gnome for what it is, but it just doesn't feel as familiar as KDE. So, yeah, the main distros these days are debian
Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream? (Score:5, Informative)
Ubuntu...................Gnome
PCLinux..................KDE
Suse.....................Your Choice at install
Fedora...................Gnome
Mint.......................Gnome
Mandriva.................KDE
Sabayon..................KDE
Debian....................Gnome
Damn Samll.............Joes Window Manager
Mepis.......................KDE
So default installs... 4 with gnome, 4 with KDE, 1 your choice... and of course on any of these you can add the other manager anyway.. I don't see any conspiracy against KDE... people use what they want.. There is Kubuntu, same people, but it's not in the top 10 (it's 15th).. If done right, I am sure it's a great window manager.. My experiences with it have been ok, but I prefer gnome.. BTW gnome can be done wrong too.. I tried an alpha release of Suse with gnome, and hated their menu.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Is is because it[KDE] is mainly European based and all the so called major distros are American based? I hope not.
Lets see, the highest market share distributions using Gnome are:
It looks to me like there are as many KDE users as Gnome and it doesn't really correlate to where the compan
Still waiting for KDE 4 to be ready (Score:5, Interesting)
As a long-time KDE fan, I have been waiting for what seems like forever for KDE 4. I've been using 3.5 every day, along with OS X Tiger/Leopard, for the last couple of years. I love the apps, I love the environment and, in general, KDE's sense of style. The beauty that is Oxygen has had me stoked since the first screenshots came out.
I've been trying to use it as my regular window manager since a repo became available to Kubuntu users. I have been fully prepared to sacrifice some functionality and applications to use the latest and greatest, but yet still can't use it on an everyday basis, by a long shot.
Besides just general bugginess, there are some issues with the user interface that need fixing ASAP. First and foremost is speed. KDE has always been snappy for me, even on PowerPC G3/G4 hardware. On my Dell Inspiron with a 1.83 GHz Core Duo, things take forever to launch. It feels like OS X Public Beta all over again to me, in terms of application launch speed. (KDE 3.5 is super snappy on this same box.)
Next on my hit list are the widgets. We need to be able to hide the widget launcher in the right hand corner of the desktop. I've always been able to keep a super-minimalist desktop with KDE, and this menu is nothing short of distracting. And why is the panel now a widget that can only accept other widgets (of which there are a very small amount)? Where are the great little applets and buttons from KDEs past? Why can't I add an application launcher icon to the panel, like in any other desktop environment out there? For that matter, can I even create a custom application launcher anywhere? Why can't the panel be made to be a custom size?
KDE 4 has the potential to be truly revolutionary, but at this point, it's all good looks and severely lacking in functionality. Here's hoping 4.1 will actually be where 4.0 should have been.
Re:Still waiting for KDE 4 to be ready (Score:5, Informative)
Yep.
And why is the panel now a widget that can only accept other widgets (of which there are a very small amount)?
Because there's no reason to have half a dozen different classes and types of little doodads that are fundamentally identical.
Where are the great little applets and buttons from KDEs past?
Currently being rewritten.
Why can't I add an application launcher icon to the panel, like in any other desktop environment out there?
You can by now.
Why can't the panel be made to be a custom size?
Because they probably shouldn't have called KDE4.0 4.0.
KDE4 is a major rewrite the way KDE2 was. And if you think back KDE2 didn't become usable until KDE2.1/2.2 either but the code they wrote then was the basis for KDE all the way through the 3.x series. Linux 2.6, Gnome 2.0, none of them were ready for primetime and inclusion in distributions. But with OSS you have to release at some point because otherwise you end up with Enlightenment 0.17.
At least they 'fessed up and told us that the lack of functionality was caused by a lack of time and not by some brilliant vision for a new simpler, "more usable" DE. =P
Parent
Amarok 2, no thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Making it look like superficiallyiTunes whilst continuting to ignore the ability to have the user decide where to put things like the playback controls and position slider
Seemingly ephemeral "content window" taking up greater than a third of the main app real estate so I can repeatedly read the wikipedia articles on my bands, or something. Why would I want to do this all the time? Oh right, because it's plasma
Aforementioned content window gets in the way of dragging things from the tree browser on the left to the playlist on the right
Playlist has been severely gimped compared to amarok 1.4 IMHO. Devs have been telling users like me that keep several thousand items in their playlist are stupid (the only valid reason I ever saw was because it increases startup time - something I'm not particularly worried about with my current amarok uptime being about fifteen days) whilst failing to provide me with a convenient way to listen to my music in the way I liked (generally on random/semi-random unless I want to listen to a particular album or artist, in which case I use the boolean filter)
Maybe I'm horrifically sad and very much music 1.0 or some such crap, but I use amarok because it makes managing and quickly picking out music from a massive collection really, really easy. Amarok 2 just seems to me to be a catalogue of style over usability and change for changes sake. Pretty much every criticism I've seen of the new UI on the blog from the very first mockups has been shouted down with either "these aren't even alpha yet, shut up, the final design will look nothing like this!", "you're wrong, this way is prettier", "we think it's more usable even if you don't, no we won't provide that as an option, it goes against our philosophy" or "can't change it now, we're too close to release". Seriously, how much time to
Since the site seems slashdotted, here's the latest dev image posted to the amarok blog: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/uploads/Newtheme.png [kde.org]
On a more KDE-centric level, I'm not enjoying the low-contrast Qt themes with the insistence of rounding every possible corner, and I've yet to come across any themes that give be the beautific simplicity of Plastik
The new XP-style kicker replacement is an absolute abomination to use. Too many clicks, practically impossible to browse the program hierarchies quickly. Everyone says "use the search!" - sorry, I shouldn't have to use the search function because you neglected basic functionality
Still doesn't like working across multiple monitors
Panel and window configuration options are still severely lacking
Seeming enforcement of "the desktop is the application!" metaphor with the proliferation of widgets replacing apps. The desktop, in my way of working at least, is visible for about three seconds after login until an app or five autostarts and covers it. Thanks to KDE's fantastic setup of multiple individually configurable panels and/or kb shortcuts I was able to do away with all of that tiresome minimising of windows. If you're going to make us use widgets, at least give us the option to make them use the window manager so they get an entry in the taskbar, please. The lets-have-windows-without-taskbar-entries philosophy is annoying enough on windows, as anyone who's spent time trying to find that security dialog box that took a minute or two to appear will testify
Speaking of the taskbar, the icons are still huge and it still doesn't play very nicely with having lots of windows open
Last time I checked, those somewhat confus
That kicker replacement (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely right. I came here to see if anyone was going to mention it. I have a long description of what's wrong with the new KDE 4 application launcher [ath0.com] on my web site. I've told the maintainers, I've tried to bring it up on the KDE 4 HCI discussion mailing list. So far, I've heard absolutely no response.
I gather that the window is now resizeable, but the
Why is there a trash can on the desk top? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, just had to vent. In my office the trash can is out of site but easily accessible. So should it be on my computer desktop.
On XP I just removed it totally from the desktop and get at it through explorer. I saw a mod that allowed it to live in the system tray which I think is a better solution. I understand that on my Mac that its a native part of how the UI operates but at least I can keep the whole bar down there off my screen or scale it so its not annoying.
Still... in real life we don't sit them on our desks.... maybe they should use the ashtray instead - because thats the only "trash" thing ever to sit on a desk
Re:ok... (Score:5, Informative)
As the KDE people are often quick to point out, the release back in January was KDE 4.0--the first of many "KDE4" releases.
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Mirror with screenshots, text in Polish (Score:2)
Re:ok... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:2)
My problem with it is the lack of a decent printer configuration tool and its ugliness. It looks damn ugly!
Re:ok... (Score:5, Interesting)
The KDE 4 design is considerably cleaner than KDE 3. It uses less memory, and runs faster, and when KDE 4.1 hits with QT 4.4, it should improve significantly again. There is a known issue with QT 4.3 that forces some hackery in screen rendering that is resolved in QT 4.4
I'm not sure how Gnome is more minimalist, unless you mean fewer options and features. Then again, I'm not sure why people don't like having choice.
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Re:ok... (Score:5, Informative)
Mine started KDE 4 far faster than KDE 3 on the superior computer.
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Re:ok... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I consider myself a former Gnome user.
The last version of Gnome I was happy with was 1.4, though I have continued to use it through 2.18 or even 2.20. Every single revision took some options away — some options I had been using, too. I'd never much liked KDE (admittedly, mainly because I found Gnome to be prettier, i.e. more themeable), but as far as Linux is concerned, I'm switching to KDE. The tipping point for me was when Gnome ruined the dictionary applet, BTW.
KDE 4 seems to have many of the things I like about OS X, which has recently become my primary OS. Not to mention that in the near future I should be able to put KDE on my Windows install, thus making my life with Windows easier. I just wonder whether there is a decent OS X-like dock for KDE now; taskbars annoy me.
My father and several other Linux newbies (and computer newbies, for that matter) just love the new KDE menu, so I switched all their computers to KDE-based distros (still 3.5, though).
And it looks good now.
The only environment whose looks I like better is E17, but I have no time to play with alpha software. It's a pity those guys don't do something more with their project, as it would be just perfect for older systems (their graphic library is amazingly fast IME).
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Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea when the actual K Desktop Environment is due, though I'll probably be switching to the experimental Hardy KDE/4 version when Hardy itself is released. Mainly, I can't wait for Konqueror to not crash several times a day, and I suspect Webkit will help with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Pug
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's with the Fisher-Price trend? (Score:5, Funny)
Desktop managers are designed and made for people who can't use command lines and want something graphically cute. They are designed by people whose minds work in ways that most real engineers can't fully understand. They are designed by the same folks that really want their computer to match the color scheme of the rest of their office, as well as reflect the color that they best associate themselves with.
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Re:What's with the Fisher-Price trend? (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect it's what most people wanted all along, I remember netscape used to grab all the colours on my X terminal so that as you moused in and out of the netscape window the screen would flip between the netscape window and the rest of the screen showing random color goodness.
Like people want borders on their windows... crazy...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
90% of my time is spent doing very few things that implicate the interface--terminal, browser, IDE--and are best taken care of with a very slick, minimalist
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The search function seems retarded to me as well, for the precisely the reasons you state - we already have a method for launching applications where you're able to type in the start of the name of a program, press a
Re:slashdotted already (Score:4, Funny)
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