A few screenshots of an early build of the upcoming KDE 3.5 release. Among notable features, Konqueror gets Adblock, and KDE gets some usability features that were introduced in GNOME 2.10. This will be the final release of KDE in the 3 series.
KDE 3.5-beta Observations
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Please don’t tell me they took that ugly unsuable “add applet” dialog???? ARGH. At least they still seem to have menus for the rest…
Just a quick note, the “application” text is optional and it won’t be on by default.
So This is gnomization of KDE.
Well if this is for better, I am the happiest person.
I like it. I prefer Gnome, but like the friendliness of KDE. I expect good changes in KDE4!!!
I thought the new release would be KDE 4.0 built over QT4. When is that scheduled for?
I am just wondering why are the screenshots taken with this ugly theme?
Trying to repel people?
There is one more release scheduled in the 3.x series (3.5), after that the next release is the big switch to Qt4 (KDE4).
That’s not even labelled as Alpha version so far, it’s just the HEAD/trunk working version.
What’s the big deal with Kopete and display pictures? It’s had them forever on here – definately in 3.4 and I’m pretty sure they were in 3.3 as well.
About a month has passed since the switch to subversion has happened and they already have a 3.5 beta out? wow I would of figured they only had 3.5 checkouts from TRUNK? go figure.
Oh and 3.4.1 is making the whole system use about 80mb of ram on a cold boot with kopete, koversation and kmail starting up along with the normal services. Someone stole my bloat I’m thinking I might want to keep it for a memento.
KDE 4 in October of next year is going to be really nice.
This is the road map for Plasma (Backbone of KDE 4) + KDE4.
http://plasma.bddf.ca/cms/1033
Not so much new stuff in these screenshots. This is not a beta, just screenshots from SVN. These are not official shots, so the guy just likes the motif theme for KDE, yes its ugly.
3.5 is the last release in the 3.x line and will be released sometime this fall. The next release is 4.0 and will probably take a year since there are many huge changes planned. Among them are the move to QT4 (faster, take advantage of new features is X), merging kicker and superkaramba into plasma which has more cool possibilites for the desktop, an association framework (desktop search on steroids and much more) and a new media backend.
Probably more but I don’t remember everything right now. 3.5 is mainly an application release, there are no major changes planned for the base libraries.
coulda atleast used a Better theme for the screenshots ,, that looks like a 8 bit version
I read here :
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/1143
that some KDE devs would like to make the KDE 4 release coincide with KDE’s 10th anniversary. That would be October 14th, 2006.
You guys make such a big deal about the theme, but does it really matter all that much? You all have a choice about what type of aesthetic preference you can implement. Regardless of what theme the author of the screenshots had chosen to use someone would have still complained for god knows what reason.
All of the themes look fake and plastic anyhow, at least the look was unified and professional.
Next time you submit screenshots to the public eye, you can make your machine all blinged out with your stupid type-r modifications and what not, it really does not matter.
All of the themes look fake and plastic anyhow, at least the look was unified and professional.
Unified?! Almost every screenshot has a different window decoration!
Next time you submit screenshots to the public eye, you can make your machine all blinged out with your stupid type-r modifications and what not, it really does not matter.
That’s not the point. He could simply have stuck with the default theme.
If that’s the default theme, count me out. KDE has gone backwards, perhaps to conform to the Solaris-style UI that will soon take over Linux?
I didn’t think there was a way to make KDE any uglier, but using a Solaris CDE theme does it. 🙂
My biggest gripe with KDE is that I feel like it gets in my way. But the same is sort of true of Gnome these days. I find myself using WindowMaker and GWorkspace more (when I’m not using OSX).
I knew when i saw those screenshots some people would be compaining about the cde theme. I’d agree that it would be better that he just had used the default thema of kde.
C’mon now, using “illustrative pictures” was a silly idea. We’re not in the first grade anymore.
We’re not in the first grade anymore.
Right, but plenty of the readers are non technicans nor are they programmers.
But your illustrations have no apparent connection with what you were discussing. Can’t even tell which picture is supposed to represent which desktop.
> Please do not mention GNOME asides with KDE or within a KDE related topic.
Agreed, the news text submission was slightly inflammatory.
> they already have a 3.5 beta out?
No. Simply don’t trust OSnews stories.
> This is the road map for Plasma (Backbone of KDE 4) + KDE4
Wrong. Plasma will not be “the backbone of KDE 4”. And your link doesn’t contain any roadmap for whole KDE 4.
Plasma will be a merger of kdesktop+superkaramba+kicker. For KDE 4 goals see http://wiki.kde.org/KDE+4+Goals
I do actually prefer KDE over Gnome, and you might have a point somewhere, but such inept evangelising doesn’t do KDE any favours.
> GNOME is not a hacked-up DE.
Have a look at their countless deprecated classes sometimes or count how many html render libraries they use. 🙂
> every feature that has been incorporated is well-thought and usable.
Didn’t GNOMEs just admit at Guadec that (defaulting to) spatial browsing was a failure?
> GNOME’s architecture is actually a lot better.
You’re dreaming. And if the following is your sole argument for that: Qt 4 ships as several separate libraries and as the running Qt 4 port shows, KDE doesn’t require any architectural changes to link against those libraries instead of one big.
Despite a little too much KDE zealotry, that was quite a post!
I don’t think it should be modded down at all.
However, once again, the GNOME vs. KDE debate has been activated in a KDE-related post. Sad, very sad.
>>> GNOME’s architecture is actually a lot better. Qt is a GUI toolkit with SQL, algorithms, data structures, filesystem, socket libraries merged. This is bad, because it makes KDE very dependent on just one toolkit
QT is an application framework not a toolkit. Why is depending on 1 toolkit bad anyway? Does gnome depend on some other toolkit besides gtk? Have you seen any wxwidgets/qt gnome apps?
I actualy am a gnome user, but gnome’s slow rate of progress and the fact that it is slow as shit do not convice me that their architecture is very good, much less better than kde’s.
The only reason I don’t use KDE is because their programs have a poor user interface (unbelievably bloated), gnome’s UI is slightly better only because their programs have so few features.
At last, someone who points out clearly why KDE is ahead of GNOME. But for me the real question is why the GNOME fans are so fanatical in there responses to this post?
Ok, at first I thought “great, now kde dev guys ate something really bad and became gnome hig and gui zombies”, but after all, I think these things will just make kde even more fantastic. Up to ths day kde has been the most fully and easily customizable linux desktop environments out there. From these additions it just will become even more customizable. In kde I always feel I have ultimate control over every aspect of the de and I wouldn’t want to loose any bit of that. In gnome I always feel like a child who just aughtn’t tweak anything. As a fact, by just looking at it, my current kde doesn’t look any bit more “bloated” than my gnome de [ yes, I also have gnome
], still, no day has ever passed on which I felt I should turn to gnome because kde doesn’t fill my needs anymore. If that day should come, I bet it will not be gnome who will be able to provide me with the equal power over my desktop.
<strong>(Similar now to newer versions of GNOME, KDE has a new wizard for adding applets to Kicker.)</strong>
This was IMHO the lamest thing that ever happened to GNOME. It slowed down the process of adding new applets to the taskbar. It is a pity they are now going to be in KDE too
Oh dearie me…Firstly – why has this yet again (predictably) become a KDE vs Gnome flame war?
Anonymous (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net) has some valid and exceptionally well made points. Gnome is a very messy set of implementated applications, hastily put together – and it shows. GTK is horridly ugly (widget wise). Gnome UI/hid isn’t all that it’s crocked up to be either, it has some serious shortcomings imho.
Whilst i’m a KDE user, it has it’s problems as well. For many, it’s overly complicated with it’s almost infinite choices for tinkering. It’s slow. Applications still don’t have a common UI, which they really need to do. It has too many duplicated applications for a common type of use (kate, kwrite & kedit as an example). Whilst many of the KDE applications are very good, and very reliable, we have too many choices in KDE. It needs to get slimmed down imho.
I think a lot of the bad blood between KDE and Gnome harks back to the days when people supported Gnome because the toolkit was free. KDE and trolltech’s QT technically weren’t free. Not in the sense of the GPL. That meant a lot of people weren’t going to use KDE, simply because of that, and not because of technical ability. KDE up to 2 was average, slow, bloated, buggy. Gnome up to 1.4 was nice, elegant and worked well. Somewhere along here it went downhill for Gnome, and KDE picked up it’s game. I’m not sure why. I switched to KDE when I started using Debian when Woody was released. I remember fart assing around to get KDE 3 (rather than KDE 2.2 that shipped with Woody). It was worth it!
What are the main differences? From my eyes (as a non developer), KDE seems to have a common development strategy, and QT does seem a superior toolkit. KDE developers haven’t always had truly innovative applications or ideas, but they’ve been implemented well with some solid thought and gradually improved. Gnome, has some very good ideas, but doesn’t always seem to implement them well, it sometimes seems like it’s a half baked job.
It doesn’t help that a variety of OSS developers (Havoc as an example) have pushed Gnome down the Open Source users throats as being the “way forward”, blatantly ignoring KDE. Those with some authority in OSS are blatantly favouring their favourites, and not always for good or valid reasons.
Try compiling KDE and Gnome from src. KDE is a lot easier. For many, this point is irrelevant, as most distros package latest versions of both desktops pretty quickly.
KDE is a technically better implemented desktop environment. It needs to improve in many areas before it can really start to challenge the likes of OS X and Aqua, but – I’d say KDE is equal to Windows. Maybe even ahead in some areas. If KDE can ensure that all developers that write software for the KDE platform conform, dumb the menus and choices down (or at least have a default simple layout, that can be altered by experienced users to be more complex), speed itself up and provide some of the innovative ideas that it’s currently considering, it will be a truly killer desktop environment. Gnome seems to fragment more and more as time goes on.
That’s just my opinion. I’m no hacker, but i’m no dumbass either.
Gnome users – try not to take this as a trolling post trying to cause trouble. KDE users – don’t gloat. In the end, desktop choice really is down to the individual.
Dave
You are no hacker, yet speak authoritatively about the superiority of QT over GTK+. How is that even remotely possible?
> You are no hacker, yet speak authoritatively about the
> superiority of QT over GTK+. How is that even remotely
> possible?
Looking at the great desktop that KDE is gives him the impression. See even normal users and non hackers seem to be able to distinguish between good and bad.
Those are unfounded impressions and are false at best. There is hardly anything QT can do that GTK can’t and vice versa. These aren’t my impressions either, I use both toolkits frequently.
oGALAXYo,
While we are at it, I’d like a list of all the broken GNOME libraries you have used and what applications you were using them in.
I’m not convinced this article has any point?
It’s served as bait for the usual KDE vs Gnome wars though, that could be it, following the anti-climactic Apple switch. Anyone else kinda dissapointed the devs took it so well? lol, I wanted to see Job’s get cream-pied
Anyway, back to the case in point KDE 3.5, well, I think the nice thing about linux is how you can run Gnome/KDE/Xfce all on the same machine. I switch when the mood takes me, as I’m sure do many others. 3.4 works pretty well on my machine, compiled on Gentoo with pretty tight flags, it’s quick. Maybe I’ll compile 3.5 from cvs for kicks
Each desktop flavour has good and bad points imho, I like the quickness and simplicity of XFce4, but the filer really irritates me, it’s crappy and doesn’t compare to KDE/Gnome conterparts. Rox kinda works, but….So most of my time is spent kicking around KDE, I like it, it’s faster than XP on my machine since 3.4 and it’s stable.
I hope the optimization teams keep doing a good job on the KDE and Gnome code, it’s essential that the features vs bloat war is fought and won!
Your ad hominem attacks on well argued points doesn’t impress anyone, except the usual gnome-fanboy gallery.
Basically who gives a fuck about where gonme was a sucess or not, that isn’t what’s discussed here and now.
As for the brokeness of using ftp through nautilus let me second that. I recently tried to give gnome a honest shot since I was curious about the current state. Need I say that it was an exerciese in futility? Gnome is at least for my usage totally and completly broken. AFAIC oGALAXYo has described the gnome experience spot on, while you OTOH have done nothing but trying in various ways to defame him.
I’d say your losing this. Badly.
How did you figure out it was him? Was there something he said that gave it away or am I missing something.
This KDE topic has been hijacked, but then again there wasn’t much of a topic to begin with, so I suppose it is ok.
I don’t know much about GNOME development or what direction or priorities it has, but I think if the GNOME people are smart, they’ll realize what is important.
Important:
Technology development
Optimization
Documentation (which, apparently, is part of their google coding of summer mentoring plan)
Flexibility, such as making language bindings, as well as willingness to try something new (Cairo comes to mind)
Make it work (important when you’re trying something new, like above)
What isn’t important:
Absolute consistency
Even MORE talk of so called ‘usability’ issues
Even MORE talk of converting the ‘core’ GNOME system to X language
Making X DE/WM lovers like GNOME
I think that the GNOME devs/foundation agrees with me (or perhaps, I agree with them), because their focus seems to be aimed in the direction of tech dev, optimization and documentation. They’ve always been involved with tech dev, but optimization and documentation haven’t always been a priority. I see that changing and I like it.
Let Galaxy say what he wants, he’s already shown himself to be incompetent as a project leader. He lacks the ability to discern what is important and what isn’t (hence his focus on ‘usability’ and ‘consistency’), and he has also been inflammatory and dishonest in the way he has been trying to ‘fix’ what problems he sees (hence why he chooses to remain anonymous while lambasting GNOME and worshipping KDE development).
BTW, I have nothing against KDE in any way. I actually appreciate the fact that we have two major DEs, rather than one. Choice is good, contrary to those that believe that the GNU/Linux desktop needs to be monolithic in the name of so called ‘consistency’, but I digress…
everybody know kde win the war for the linux desktop….
about 66% of the desktop linux market use it….
this number can be found on the web..
What is it that you were ‘rewarded’ for in University? The term ‘rewarded’ is sort of vague for me, does it mean you got high scores or?
> everybody know kde win the war for the linux desktop….
> about 66% of the desktop linux market use it….
> this number can be found on the web..
I so do hope you’re being ironic otherwise this is one of the most ignorant and stupid things anyone has ever said.
And on osnews that aint no small feat.
It means ‘successfully passed the course’.
The first posts were complaining about the theme. Then it continued to childish fights over mine is better than yours. Stupid.
Neither toolkit is as good (consistent, fast, logical) as Windows or OSX.
If I can’t cut and paste between a KDE and a Gnome app, then to me the two are different and incompatible environments. The effect is the same as the so called “vendor lock in”. I, as an end user, with no programming capacities, have to decide with whom I will build up my experience and file set. Since I still haven’t decided yet this whole linux thing won’t take me much further, nor does reading these childish fights.
Goodbye.
oGALAXYo,
A lot of people who code for GNOME nowadays are still using for example BonoboUI or GnomeUI for doing Windows on GNOME stuff claimed to be deprecated with GNOME 3 (I doubt this to happen, since too much stuff depends on it and it would require huge code refactoring to get rid of it).
Oh, so you know it is not practical to do this, but you prefer to spend your time harping about it.
So we end up in stil using 3 different types of Windowing in GNOME, BonoboUI behaves differently than GnomeUI and GnomeUi behaves differently than GTK+ UI as well BonoboUI behaves differently than GTK+ UI.
I beg to differ. Two of this APIs are deprecated or scheduled for it. Neither of the APIs produces Window behaviours that are inconsistent to the user. By user I mean desktop user. Or I’m I missing something?
This junk needs to get eliminated ASAP and not in 2 years. The sooner the better.
I agree. But while you can drag a horse to the river, you can’t force it to drink water. It is completely naive that you think many developers have all the time in the world to spend transitioning their apps. I also find irritating that you fail to mention that two of these APIs have indeed being deprecated and developers have started to migrate away from GNOMEUI and BONOBOUI.
People keep hacking along on GNOME application and become creative in the way of developing their stuff. There is a HIG, there are developer documentations but there are no application Styleguides.
Can you be more specific. The HIG is the only Guide a GNOME developer should be adhering to when it makes sense, of course. Having two different guides only frustrates developers. Developers have enough shit to read as it is.
Stuff that even Motif/CDE used to have, stuff that even Microsoft, Amiga and Apple have. If people continue creating applications using all types of mess then we end up in having inconsistent looking applications.
I call bull again. Applications are allowed to look inconsitent. However, they should behave consistently. Sheesh! How many times do you want me to point this out. No environment provides applications that look totally consistent. It is undoable and stupid.
If people continue using libcurl, neko, libsoup for getting stuff from the net then it clearly explains there are broken things inside gnome-vfs so people keep avoid using it.
People avoid gnome-vfs because it is poorly documented, nothing more. Others are already comfortable with whatever they are using and the gnome-vfs folks are doing a poor job encouraging GTK developers to use and hack on it.
If people keep on using glade for their Dialogs and other people hardcode Dialogs and again others use whatever else then we won’t get any consistency inside GNOME.
This is just stupid! How does the desktop user know whether their application was hardcoded with GTK+, or generated via xml files or using libglade? And how does that lead to inconsistency at the user level? It doesn’t! You are just making making a mountain out of a mole hill.
See the Buttonorder issue, it was proposed to have this one changed from the toolkit side e.g. making GTK+ become able to change the Buttonorder with one flag, now how is this possible to get inherit by all the applications if everyone is doing things differently on a coding side ?
What the hell? Different application developers needed to use different dialogs communicate with their users of course based on the function of the application. If GTK automatically forced all developers into using only one dialog it will break hundreds of applications for a completely silly reason.
The resulting applications will never be able to listen to the changes offered by GTK+ because there are way to many possibilities, continuing to talk about all the bindings that exists who may be incomplete or buggy. This is getting us nowhere and cause big problems.
I use the PyGTK binding they are stable and complete. I’ve used the JavaGTK binding and I can say the same for them too. I know people who use the GTKmm bindings are they don’t have any issues with it regarding completeness.
Or if an application creates an own Toolbar editor and others lack the option then it’s bad design it clearly shows there is something very important missing.
Here is another silly statement. Developers should have the right to do as they wish as long as it is reasonable. Controlling what developers can or can’t do at a creative level is retarded.
Providing a clear Styling guide explaining them
a) what to avoid using, say “developer please avoid using BonoboUI and GnomeUI” because these things are meant to become deprecated.
b) avoid hardcoding UI elements and try using GLADE
…
…
*snip*
For the first time, you made constructive points, but again, whining won’t institute this. If you took the time to write a nice gnome beginner guide, your efforts would have been a lot more prosperous. Instead, you decide to spend you time whining. Besides, if you’ve ever taking the time to read the GNOME HIG, you’d see most of what you mentioned is already in there.
You see, all these basic things are missing and people keep hacking around GNOME, adding new dependencies, using deprecated API and much much more. I sometimes wonder why there is no vocal voice inside the GNOME camp that points these issues out.
You claim they are basic, so what have you spent your six year developing GNOME doing? The advanced stuff. If all these interested, why didn’t you start a project to address these so called “inconsistencies.”
Now you might ask that’s a known problem and the things are being worked on. But then I must reply, look at KDE they offer these things already, their components model, their toolbar objects, sidebar objects or whatever objects there is behave correctly already.
I’m sorry KDE component model is great, but it not all it is hyped to be. I know via personal experiences several applications that where broken during major Qt upgrades and several more that where written. Heck, the whole of KDE is been rewriting for QT4. So you statement is completely and categorically false. This issues plague all software developers, even Windows and Apples. It is not special to GNOME, but your hatred would never let you see that.
Once I change something there or here it get’s inherited by other applications automatically, no need to tweak around everywhere.
Bullshit! See above
The design of KDE makes it possible to ‘not being able to fuck it up’.
haha! You are funny! See above.
KDE offers mentors, documentation and people who know what’s up and what path to follow.
This is a very good point. I agree that KDE is better than GNOME is this regard.
GNOME doesn’t offer these things and everyone is happily hacking ahead doing what they think is right but not what’s supposed to be right. Seeing all these differences, problems, glitches, small issues, bigger issues and other things makes the entire GNOME experience become quite messy.
There is no relationship between the GNOME developmental issues and the GNOME desktop experience. Your extrapolation is premature and false.
I don’t want to have a desktop that simply looks good, I want to USE a desktop to get work done. For a hackers toy GNOME may be the right thing but not for professionals. So that’s why I say that GNOME is broken.
Well your definition of broken is bizzare. Millions of professionals use GNOME. Go figure.
If you start to fix in one area, the other areas are being broken again, then you fix the other area and then someone else breaks the area that you fixed before and so it continues.
Oh please! There you go again raising false alarms and predicting the apocalypse of GNOME. *sighs*
>> everybody know kde win the war for the linux desktop….
>> about 66% of the desktop linux market use it….
>> this number can be found on the web..
> I so do hope you’re being ironic otherwise this is one of
> the most ignorant and stupid things anyone has ever said.
> And on osnews that aint no small feat.
Well, he’s got the numbers covered. Check this:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2127420238.html
There are some things that I think should be consistent within both KDE and GNOME. Copy and Paste is one of them, and maybe printing is another. Except for a handful of exceptions, I don’t think consistency is as big of an issue as it is made out to be. I think it is perfectly reasonable that I don’t control a microwave and a car with a unified and consistent interface such as a joystick or a keyboard. I think it is unrealistic and futile to expect such a thing. The interfaces are specialized for the task the tool is used for.
That’s all you have. Feelings, hatred, lies, speculations and wild allegations. However, GNOME is being deployed on millions of desktop all over the world, to be used by professionals, corporate users and home users. Yeap, you’ve heard about them too. (*hint* Chinese deployment)
I assume KDE 3.5 is going to have the new Konqueror/khtml that passes the ACID-2 test? (Or whatever it’s called)
In your attacking of oGALAXY and defending of the GNOME glory, you make some rather bad mistakes. Actually you support most of what he says but you don’t see it because you get caught up in the fluff and attack over the wrong issues.
You state:
Developers need to focus on two things when developing applications. The users and the problem the user is trying to solve.
And you continue to state:
Is it absolutely important that all GNOME applications look the same?
Most they have the same toolbar?
The problem are not really that the applications and toolbars look the same, that’s the only symptoms of the problem. The problem are they use different technology/implementation to do the same job. This works against your first statement, making it worse for the developer to in the end solve the given problem. In the case of the toolbars, tree different implementations to do the same task signify brokenness. And it has notthing to do with looks, but rather code maintainability and agility to implement changes.
Since you admit not having any clue of professional software engineering, I’ll give an example from a real engineering discipline. It’s like a mechanical engineer using both empiric and SI units in the same design. Randomly using inches or millimeters. You may get something working from such drawings, but the margin for error becomes much higher this way.
“Heck, the whole of KDE is been rewriting for QT4.”
My anonomous friend, you could not be more wrong. The current kde4 work being done is PORTING work, not rewriting from scratch. While they are at it, they are overhauling kdelibs and refactoring a ton of code, but don’t confuse that process (porting and refactoring) with a full rewrite.
Neither toolkit is as good (consistent, fast, logical) as Windows or OSX.
If I can’t cut and paste between a KDE and a Gnome app, then to me the two are different and incompatible environments.
Can you cut and paste between Windows and OSX? 🙂
That said, you should know that you can indeed copy/cut and paste between KDE and Gnome apps. Text works at 100%, and images work for a lot of them. Also, you can drag’n’drop images from KDE apps into many GTK+ apps. As Gnome and KDE devs continue to work together, this will continue to improve.
By the way, which Windows toolkit are you referring to? You do know that image cut/paste doesn’t work between all Windows apps as well, right?
I use GTK+ apps in KDE all the time. As a end user, this is completely transparent. Please take your FUD elsewhere.
> Heck, the whole of KDE is been rewriting for QT4
no, it’s not. it’s being ported. in the month or so that people have been working on it, kdelibs builds as does most of kdebase. konqueror, kpat and kate are all up and running on Qt4, though there are many breakages at the moment. i’m not sure where you heard this myth that KDE is being rewritten, but it’s just not true.
> *hint* Chinese deployment
do you have any URLs describing the actual deployment? i’ve got a few that note the deals or the plans for deals and what not, but i have yet to find one that actually talks about the deployment itself. i’d love to put this one in my advocacy log, but it’s not a very productive example to use if i can’t find any documentation to back up the idea that it’s actually happening. i’ve seen more than a few “planned deployments” not get beyond the initial announcements, so i try and keep quiet about them until i see something more concrete
RE: the add applet dialog
a few have bemoaned it in this thread, but there were a few issues here we were contending with. first off, users just didn’t get the difference between “special buttons” and “applets” and $OTHER_COMPONENT_TYPE. also, many people install all of KDE and therefore get dozens of applets. this is crazy in a menu trying to find the applet. the dialog is more scallable and it unifies all non-application-launchers into one place. the user no longer has to understand how the panel works internally to get a konsole sessions button up
that said, adding applets isn’t something done very often (e.g. daily). but it is something that people will often do a few times in a row quickly. i know on a new install i’ll ususually add the few applets i really like.
with the old way i’d be right clicking up a storng and navigating through those 3 levels of menu. ug. not fun. with the new applet dialog i open it up once and then use the search filter to narrow the choices down. from there it’s either a double click to add them or you can drag and drop the icon to wherever you want on the panel. as i usually run with two panels and have some applets up top and some down below this is very handy. =) and when you’re all done you close the window. handy, simple, clean.
i don’t know if the GNOME Add Applet dialog has drag and drop (i’d be surprised if it didn’t) but i know it doesn’t have the search filters at the top.
and while everyone is obsessing about the Add Applet dialog, the panel pager finally has drag and drop for moving windows around! woooooo! not to mention you can drag tasks from the taskbar to the pager to throw that task to a given desktop as well.. =)
lots of nice little changes like that in the panels for 3.5.
Apparently, you friend oGALAXYo implied on several occasions that GNOME and GTK application developers where using different technologies to accomplish the same tasks. Hence, he conclude that GNOME was broken and the GNOME desktop experience was marred. On both occassions I proved him wrong.
In his argument, he listed APIs that he knew have been deprecated or are in the process of being deprecated as symptons of GNOME’s brokeness. Again, application developers using different technologies to accomplish a similar task does not signify brokeness in GNOME or a disruptive GNOME desktop experience, at least from the users perspective.
My point is that your proponent exaggerated matters beyond the reality of the issue. In between his exagerations he inserted several misleading and false allegation intentionally to show GNOME in bad light. For example, he stated that by developers using GTK+, BonoboUI and GNOMEUI, users of the GNOME desktop environment were automatically presented with an inconsistent experience. This is patently false and intentionally misleading.
While I do agree that two libraries serving the same function is inefficient and unnecessary, I disagree that it leads to an inconsistent user experience or interface or that GNOME is “broken” as a result. This is just not true. Your proponent then goes on to nitpick about extremely trivial issues, like the similarity of toolbars and menus as well as their editing capabilities as completely unacceptable to desktop users. But we all know other popular environments like Windows allow individual applications to customize their editing tools to the liking of the application developers.
Your proponent totally ignores these realities and decides instead to clamor that GNOME is broken as a result of minor differences in the appearances of applications.
I acknowledged that GNOME has problems, but it’s technologies aren’t it. GNOME’s problems are with regards to documentation and effective communication. GNOME needs to act and work like a united community. The technology is in place and it is as good as it gets on any platform including KDE. However, communication within the community and documentation are severly lacking.
Only geeks like us trip over menu placement, toolbar editors and menu handles. Real users don’t give a damn!
> Hence, he conclude that GNOME was broken and the GNOME
> desktop experience was marred. On both occassions I
> proved him wrong.
Aeh? you did ? where ? All you did was giving clueless comments without much value.
I should not have use the term “rewrite.” However, I wanted to point out to oGALAXYo that many apps in KDE have to be “ported/updated/changed” to accomodate changes in the lower level structure. This is not bad, broken, or poor design, as oGALAXYo implies it to be. This is the nature of software development. I should have been clearer with my comments, but I wrote in a haste.
> he stated that by developers using GTK+, BonoboUI and
> GNOMEUI, users of the GNOME desktop environment were
> automatically presented with an inconsistent experience.
> This is patently false and intentionally misleading.
Misleading like on this screenshot ?
http://img234.echo.cx/my.php?image=screenshot34ji.jpg
Better get a cluebat before calling someone wrong. Look close to the Toolbars, they are different height, different padding from the drag handle to the first icon, different behavior. One shows Icons only the other Text below Icons, then some Toolbars have drag handles others not and so on.
Hey, everyone who has GNOME can try this on their own, no need for me to back this up because everyone can do this on their own. Start Gnumeric, Abiword, Evolution, Evince and a few other applications and look at the Toolbars (without changing anything) and then start the Menus&Toolbars configuration program and play around with it while the other apps stay open.
Do you want me to produce screenshots of KDE, Windows and OS X applications with toolbars having different heights, different text placement, different menu items etc? I can if you want?
Oh, and claiming GNOME is broken because of that is completely hilarious! In that case, all desktop environments are broken.
> Re: By . (IP: 144.80.185.—)
Yes!
> By . (IP: —.lan.resnet.iup.edu)
But claiming that I am spreading patently false and intentionally misleading comments is wrong too. Since it’s proven by this picture as well as this small movie.
http://zerv.internetcafe.nl/~nexu/lol/gnome-the-movie.avi
It’s your lack of knowledge, your lack of proper understanding and your lack of software engineering that causes this kind of complicated situation of permanent missunderstanding.
Yeah, and throwing the term “software engineering” bestows upon you knowledge and divine wisdom.
Following all-wise, all-knowing, software engineer extraordinaire and experienced GNOME hacker, oGALAXYo’s, kindergatten logic, I hereby confirm that KDE is broken! The link below says it all!
http://www.imagecabin.com/imagehost/pic.php?u=919oOL4L&i=10416
>By Lars Hansson
>I so do hope you’re being ironic otherwise this is one of >the most ignorant and stupid things anyone has ever said.
>And on osnews that aint no small feat.
like the other said:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2127420238.html
try to stop to said stupid, little wannabe
Your proponent totally ignores these realities and decides instead to clamor that GNOME is broken as a result of minor differences in the appearances of applications.
You totally don’t get it that’s quite clear to everyone. The minor difference in the appearance of applications are not the problem, it’s only the symptom of the problem. The problem are the use of three distinct unrelated library functions used for the same basic task. The result of this are not only inconveniences like different look and feel between the applications(Should be devastating for zealots praising of Gnome’s cleanness, annoying for normal users), it also gives some serious technological disadvantages. Some of the problems are added bloat of both memory usage and code wise. Not to mention the added overhead you get for code maintenance and debugging/QA.
I think he DID say that all of the platforms need work on that. He just said KDE was MORE unified with just the qt toolkit than Gnome with its three toolkits (two of which are depricated, yes)
I get the impression that the whole thing with the toolbar editor was just an example of how everyone who wants to make such a thing has to reinvent the wheel because the gtk toolkit doesn’t do it, or they don’t know about it (documentation again, I guess)
That said, I don’t know how much end users would even notice or care. But I get the impression that KDE is seen as a “do everything” solution, while Gnome is thought of as an “elegant” solution. And having inconsistencies isn’t a good thing, never mind if it’s minor.
Your proponent totally ignores these realities and decides instead to clamor that GNOME is broken as a result of minor differences in the appearances of applications.
You totally don’t get it that’s quite clear to everyone. The minor difference in the appearance of applications are not the problem, it’s only the symptom of the problem. The problem are the use of three distinct unrelated library functions used for the same basic task. The result of this are not only inconveniences like different look and feel between the applications(Should be devastating for zealots praising of Gnome’s cleanness, annoying for normal users), it also gives some serious technological disadvantages. Some of the problems are added bloat of both memory usage and code wise. Not to mention the added overhead you get for code maintenance and debugging/QA.
Using that screenshot as evidence of GNOME brokenness is absolutely preposterous and utterly absurd. You are a person of the most anal-retentive sort. If you had any credability before posting that screenshot as your damning evidence against GNOME, you’ve lost ALL of it now, whatever little you may have had left.
Using that screenshot as evidence of GNOME brokenness is absolutely preposterous and utterly absurd. You are a person of the most anal-retentive sort. If you had any credability before posting that screenshot as your damning evidence against GNOME, you’ve lost ALL of it now, whatever little you may have had left.
> Do you want me to produce screenshots of KDE
> applications with toolbars having different heights,
> different text placement, different menu items etc? I
> can if you want?
We are still waiting…..
I also agree with . about GNOME’s communication. It sucks, bad. I think that is the biggest obstacle GNOME needs to overcome right now.
> http://www.imagecabin.com/imagehost/pic.php?u=919oOL4L&i=10416
You are drifting away from being serious here. The screenshot I’ve shown to you shows GNOME as is when you start different application without any manipulation of it (not that you can manipulate them at all). The context is that the Toolbars should be configurable through the Menus&Toolbars configuration program provided by GNOME. And most applications are not behaving to this because of different implementations – as even Morty wants to make you understand.
Your above Screenshot, you on purpose altered the Toolbars to look different e.g. one having Text beneath the Icons and others show Icons only etc. But then the Toolbars are still ‘technically’ the same Toolbar objects, what you can do with one Toolbar you can do with every Toolbar. They all have a drag handle, they all have the same height, they are technically the same. You can rightclick on the Toolbar and alter them with the popup menu (and this works with any KDE application).
What you don’t seem to understand here is that the Screenshot provided by me (or the little Movie above) ran GNOME and GTK+ related applications AS IS without any further modifications. Do you actually understand what I and some others are trying to make you understand or do we talk with walls here ? (Which at the end seem a bit ironically to me).
Simple explaination:
KDE offers one CAR (The Toolbar) you can open the doors, you can open the rear trunk etc. The car will look differently due the different open doors but still it is the SAME CAR.
GNOME offers three CARs (The Toolbar), one is a truck, the other a bus and the last one a tank (only metaphoric). You can open doors and rear trunks there too but still it stays three CARs. And a truck is not a bus is not a tank. That’s the problem
Ok, since you individually changed some applications settings NOT to follow the desktopwide setting you get inconsistency’s. Shocking, the application then deviate from standard because you told them to. The problem is what exactly? They behave in a consistent way and follow the users settings? But it’s rather nice play with KDEs configurability, nothing more.
”
Please don’t tell me they took that ugly unsuable “add applet” dialog???? ARGH. At least they still seem to have menus for the rest…
”
This is much better htan Gnome’s though, due to search. I think I”ll like this better than the old way
<<This is much better htan Gnome’s though, due to search. >>
You mean like this?
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/carbon-12/search.png
unfortunately isn’t a boolean search, therefore useless
what i think many people here are missing when it comes to consistency is that it’s about development driven by “paper standards” which forces every developer to implement properly and development driven by “policy standards” which are embodied in libraries which every developer uses “for free”. GNOME and KDE have chosen different routes, and we’re seeing the benefits and challenges of each. (i could expound on those benefits and challenges =)
but if you say “inconsistency doesn’t hurt usability” you’re fooling yourself. it does. the biggest thing people who support GNOME could do for GNOME is accept where it has challenges. the KDE community has done that around issues such as start up times, resource usage and graphical elegance. this allows the community to address the issues, since the first step is acceptance.
i am, of course, rooting for KDE
but i don’t like seeing Free Software projects being hamstrung by willful ignorance. it’s a bad precedent.
Aaron, these are the problems inside the GNOME camp. Therefore I agree with your sentence that if someone says that “inconsistency doesn’t hurt usability” then they are fooling themselves.
But then maybe they don’t know it better because none of them worked in a professional environment before. Dunno if this is common or modern standards in the USA to hack along as the nose fits or if it’s just because it’s a hackers toy and only kiddies work on it or part day workers or whatever. No one with professional education in proper software engineering.
The problems with the Toolbars are just the pointed of the iceberg. There are huge other flaws and problems inside their Desktop that I wasn’t able to bring up because some people seem to have serious understanding problems as well as not being able to realize that three is two more than one.
Look at planet.gnome.org for example and you see someone complaining that AbiWord is not translating the menus correctly due the non usage of gnome-vfs or whatever. I only quickly peeked over it but these are exactly the flaws of improper software design. Sure you can not have every software obeying every rules and of course there are shortcomings there and here but the sum of shortcomings and flaws found inside GNOME are immense.
Dunno, if they plan to fix these issues but it doesn’t look like. I feel sorry for GNOME because it was aimed to be a great project when it was first introduced and being worked on. Today I even consider XFCE the better GNOME than GNOME itself and recommend people to go with KDE when asked because it’s the better Desktop experience. KDE seriously gives people, the users, corporates, companies the better Desktop experience.
I also heard that in USA icaza and friedman are forcing their employees to use GNOME as Desktop Environment and many of them seem to be quite unhappy with this (as some of them told me) but in Europe where SUSE is dominating everyone seem to be using KDE and you rarely hear any compliants from them because the stuff simply works. I was also told that Novell itself is going to shift powers from people working on Ximian related stuff to other areas – looks like “they” (the bosses) realized something.
Update: I by mistake read gnome-vfs but it was meant to be gnome cvs which of course made more sense.
http://danilo.segan.org/blog/prevod/translations-not-in-gnome-cvs.h…
Read this article about the Java look-and-feel debate. http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10633
Inconsistency in the interface is a non-issue.
If you want your voice to be heard by the people you’re supposedly trying to help, you might try being less arrogant and inflammatory in your arguments. And that screenshot that showed such ‘outrageous’ inconsistencies in GNOME apps doesn’t help your credability either.
> Inconsistency in the interface is a non-issue.
It is a big issue and whoever told you something else is a moron. Consistency in the interface is a big issue specially for desktop environments such as gnome or kde. Sure you can’t have all apps to follow or obey the same rules but kde is doing better here than gnome.
> If you want your voice to be heard by the people you’re
> supposedly trying to help, you might try being less
> arrogant and inflammatory in your arguments.
Look, how long are you support gnome now ? One year ? Six months ? You can be sure that we have tried everything possible to bring this issues up.
a) we talked with people,
b) we wrote a nice email to the mailinglists,
c) we filled individual bugreports to bgo,
And guess what, we (or I in this case) were the ones who got regularry inflamatory replies, arrogant replies telling one to fuck off, or simply ‘too friendly replies’ soo friendly that you can read the ignorance out of it. Besides the fact that a lot of core gnome developers are simply ignorant insulting, slandering shitheads (which of course don’t add any positive creditibility to my own comment here) they have done everything to shit a lot of people away from gnome. Don’t trust me, then trust others who left or who have something to add here.
> And that screenshot that showed such ‘outrageous’
> inconsistencies in GNOME apps doesn’t help your
> credability either.
Maybe but it makes people understand that there really is an issue so all the “trolling” “ranting” and “lies” that people try to make out of me is crushed down I hope because there are pictures and small movies available that demonstrates the real stuff inside gnome. If people still come up with the same crap then they seem to be either quite stupid or ignorant (as usual).
Consistency on Windows is a big issue.
http://img177.echo.cx/my.php?image=inconsistent8sy.png
This is a real beauty. I like how you try to take subtle jabs at people in this one.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-August/msg00261.html
Not so subtle.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-2-0-list/2002-May/msg00001.htm…
I especially like your rebuttal to this comment.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-October/msg00055.html
You haven’t always been so ‘nice’ and ‘kind’ or even ‘respectful’ to people on the mailinglists.
I wasn’t able to search for your name in bugzilla, but I imagine that people would flame you for being so forceful about just how important the position of the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ buttons is. As a general rule, you’ve been arrogant in discussions dealing with usability and GNOME policies. There was even a web page that dealt at length with your trolling, but unfortunately it is down.
I also like how you completely ignored the Windows screenshot, showing how the worlds most popular platform isn’t so consistent either. It doesn’t seem to have harmed it much.
> I also like how you completely ignored the Windows
> screenshot, showing how the worlds most popular platform
> isn’t so consistent either.
No, I didn’t ignored it. But I believe it’s a false justification for GNOME to be broken. People spent time, hours, weeks and months into writing the HIG to make everyone understand that GNOME needs a consistent, polished UI. But as soo as you get proven that this attempt failed you come up with he Windows justification. How pathetic. As soon as failures are shown infront of you you come up with some shabby explaination to justify why the miserable situation is as it is. But as soon as it comes to marketing you turn exactly these things around. Like a bouncing ball. It’s being placed how you like it only to make things show from the perfectly nice side. Just as you like it but not as it really is.
Your points are NOT GOOD AND VALID. My position is that the inconsistencies you’ve shown in that stupid screenshot are not a problem in the least, and I showed how the most popular desktop environment on earth shows many inconsistencies, yet is not hurt at all. You don’t even hear about it.
I brought up the mailing list posts to counter:
a) we talked with people,
b) we wrote a nice email to the mailinglists,
c) we filled individual bugreports to bgo,
And guess what, we (or I in this case) were the ones who got regularry inflamatory replies, arrogant replies telling one to fuck off, or simply ‘too friendly replies’ soo friendly that you can read the ignorance out of it. Besides the fact that a lot of core gnome developers are simply ignorant insulting, slandering shitheads (which of course don’t add any positive creditibility to my own comment here) they have done everything to shit a lot of people away from gnome. Don’t trust me, then trust others who left or who have something to add here.
In the beginning I said that your opinion would be heard if you would be less arrogant and inflammatory, you said you were a nice guy and get flamed in return (see above), and I’ve shown that you weren’t such a nice guy, nor even logical. You even tried suggesting there was some sort of conspiracy between the different corporations to control GNOME development!
Your arguments simply have no basis in reality. You can be sure that if, in the future, I see posts by you taking shots at GNOME and glorifying KDE simply to harm GNOME, I’ll bring this topic to light again. Your anonymity won’t save you from your past.
Is it normal for you to write so much bullshit ? I wonder how this is going to help GNOME in any ways. I mean you even prove more and more what I am always repeating. That GNOME is full insulting and namecalling persons.
a) I didn’t started the GNOME rant here. It was started by those who put this article on OSNews.com by stating that KDE is finally following GNOME’s path and I pointed out that this is quite wrong since KDE is going their own path without the need to jump on GNOME here.
b) I contributed a lot of things to GNOME (which you seem to be ignoring here). I think my contributions to BALSA, Galeon and some other projects have been of great value as well as the past 6 years that I spent writing and maintaining CVSGnome that helped getting a lot of people on the GNOME architecture. Yet putting my script to the list of others on GNOME.org was too much to ask for and thus all I earned was a lot of inflamatory shit like this here. Like yours.
c) I was a former GNOME Foundation member even if I applied for membership 4 years too late. I never bothered much in politics inside GNOME but then found out that there was way to much inflamatory inequity going on in the GNOME camp and people are acting bad towards others and new people and thus something has been done to correct this. My membership gave me (and others) the possibility to be part of the election process and hopefully get equity back into GNOME. Which at the end I realized that this is not possible. Thus I canceled the Membership again. Look at place 417.
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gnome-foundation/application_status.tx…
From the charter of GNOME Foundation, which you of course have read you can only become a member if you have been contributing to GNOME.
d) We only had a lousy talk here what I believed were the flaws in GNOME and all I got was permanently regulary attacks from some zealots who ignored all the facts that I brought up in favor to demonstrate what kind of kidiots some are. There was nothing and no attempts from my side to defamate any persons rather than brining up true facts that I from the side of a developer see. If you can’t agree with my very own opinion that I don’t have to justify infront of you then it’s your own problem. Nonetheless they reflect reality.
Everyone who has GNOME can look up these issues on their own and I haven’t claimed to be knowitall either but I have a lot of good experience to see some things better than others. And you obviously don’t see it or do not want to see it but then it’s your own problem and none of mine.
I have valued KDE and GNOME and brought up where I believe KDE is superior and brought up facts where I believe GNOME is inferior. You can slam as much you want and destroy my name in the public as much you want and kill all my rest creditibility. But then it’s now easier for me to continue my job as messiah
in the world of open source and do my best to get one person after another to understand what’s wrong with GNOME (the desktop AND the community). And every person taken away from GNOME is a win for this community because it’s about time to protect people from the GNOME community (the desktop itself is not the problem).
Greetings!
Wow! Look at him go! Panties all up in a bunch. Ali sure can be entertaining. Just loooook at this. He starts off with a bold-faced lie:
> a) I didn’t started the GNOME rant here.
This is of course hogwash. He continues by distorting the truth:
> It was started by those who put this article on OSNews.com
> by stating that KDE is finally following GNOME’s path
> and I pointed out that this is quite wrong since KDE is
> going their own path without the need to jump on GNOME
> here.
Remember that the article states that “KDE gets some usability features that were introduced in GNOME 2.10”. Not “finally”, not following GNOME, just that KDE gets some of the same features. He goes on by over-stating his own importance:
> I contributed a lot of things to GNOME (which you seem to
> be ignoring here). I think my contributions to BALSA,
> Galeon and some other projects have been of great value
YES!!! THERE YOU HAVE IT! A ONCE CONTRIBUTOR OF BALSA AND GALEON THINKS THAT GNOME IS CRAP!!! This is front-page news. Really! I wonder why the GNOME camp doesn’t listen more to Ali? It could very well be because he has never contributed in a positive way. He does rant a lot though… and whine… he does that a lot.
Oh, this next part is priceless. Ali’s been whining about the direction of GNOME for YEARS before he applies for membership to the Foundation. The only reason he even applied was so he could forever call himself “former member of the GNOME Foundation”:
> I was a former GNOME Foundation member even if I applied
> for membership 4 years too late.
The next paragraph is also really good, because the person with the worst behaviour has always been Ali himself:
> I never bothered much in politics inside GNOME but then
> found out that there was way to much inflamatory inequity
> going on in the GNOME camp and people are acting bad
> towards others and new people and thus something has been
> done to correct this.
Oh… this is also good. Ali talks of “others” who support his cause. Ali: THEY ARE JUST THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD!
> My membership gave me (and others) the possibility to be
> part of the election process and hopefully get equity back
> into GNOME. Which at the end I realized that this is not
> possible. Thus I canceled the Membership again. Look at
> place 417.
In all honesty, this could go on all night, but I’m tired and need to get some rest. But stay tuned though… I’m sure Ali will pick this up in a minute or two.
Nice, posting to an article which has disappeared from the frontpage only to add your further fud to it so whoever steps over this article on google will get a wrong impression.
Know what, you are quite sick and nobody gives a flying fuck for you. The things said about GNOME has been said, it’s no secret and everyone can look it up on their own. People should make up their own mind about something.
Btw: People seem to not laugh with you, they laugh about you and the way you wrote your recent two replies makes us believe that something has failed in your head.
This Kelvin guy is Markus Berg.
> This Kelvin guy is Markus Berg.
Thanks for letting us know. But who is this guy and why is he attacking me rather than giving contructive feedback which helps solving the bad situation that GNOME kept stuck in ? Even more, why does he make such a mess out of an KDE article going personal and discredit people, while all I did was comparing KDE with GNOME and things that I believe should be fixed ? I really don’t understand the GNOME community anymore, is defending the Desktop with every dirty possible way more important than looking over the tableborder and get the things fixed ? GNOME is not about community anymore or getting stuff done, it’s about namecalling each other and pure dirt talk that explains why people keep communication via private eMail or over bLog entries rather than commenting somewhere due to the huge amount of inflamatory people sitting everywhere only waiting to give their crappy insulting comments.