KDE 3.4 is currently in the beta2 stage, and preparations are being made for the final release. I thought it would be nice to give people some advance information on new features in KDE 3.4, so I have written this beta2 preview.First Impressions
I started off with a default KDE install, and, as usual, was presented with the KPersonalizer tool on startup. Plastik has now become the default style, with the old default, Keramik, still one of the choices. I went with Plastik. I noticed that font handling has gotten better. In previous versions, the default font setup used Helvetica, which was extremely ugly on my system. But this time, KDE automatically chose Bitstream Vera Sans, which looks very nice. In other ways, the default settings have improved. There is a new System icon on the desktop, which brings up a Konqueror window containing icons for the Home Folder, Remote Places, Settings, Storage Media, and Trash. Quite nice. The default desktop icon text color has also been changed to white with a black outline, which looks nice. Also, some of the Crystal icons have changed, mostly for the better.
New Looks
It seems that KDE is becoming much more concerned with look and feel of late, which I think is a very good thing. I believe KDE is a first-rate desktop environment, and to stay that way, it needs to be aesthetically appealing. Along those lines, some new eyecandy has been added. First, the icon zoom effect on the panel has been changed to an animated bubble pop-up that fades in. This looks nice the first few times, but it has a tendency to get in the way sometimes, popping up when you don’t want it to. Also, many applications, such as Konqueror, Kontact, and the Control Center, have new start screens. These look very nice, and are quite functional. Konqueror’s new start screen includes icons very much like the System icon on the desktop. In addition to the System button’s icons, Konqueror sports an Applications icon, allowing access to installed programs. Seen throughout these new screens is a new KDE gear logo, which I think is excellent, and it goes very well with the Nuvola icon theme, which is my personal favorite. Other look and feel updates are seen in the desktop configuration dialog, where wallpaper previews are now shown displayed inside a monitor graphic. This is a great effect, and it’s good to see that things like this are starting to be done.
Individual Applications
KPDF
Improvements in KPDF in this release are phenomenal. KPDF not only looks a lot better, but its functionality has been greatly improved. Working with large PDFs has become much more enjoyable, since you can now search through the text. Another new feature is a presentation mode, which allows you to view a PDF as a slide show. In slide show mode, left-clicking advances the show, while right-clicking goes back through previous slides. A small graph in the upper right corner shows the progress of the show, advancing a counter every time you view another slide. There are numerous other improvements in KPDF, and it’s really becoming a wonderful tool.
Kontact
As I said earlier, Kontact got a new start screen. But it also got some new features, most notable of which is probably the Akregator integration. Akregator is an RSS news feed agregator. Its Kontact integration allows you to check your news feeds in addition to managing your To Do list and your calendar. Akregator has a built-in KHTML Part, so you can open links right inside Kontact. Oh, the joys of KDE technology!
Konqueror
Kontact isn’t the only program getting Akregator integration. Konqueror now has an orange RSS button, visible in the lower right corner of the window when a page has an available RSS feed. It’s amazing that number of sites that do these days. Clicking the RSS button allows you to add the feed to your Akregator feed list. Sweet stuff.
KDM
Fast user switching support. This is very nicely done. Individual users can have their own desktop, and switching between them is a matter of a couple of button presses. It’s quite snappy.
New Accessibility Apps
KTTS (The KDE Text-to-Speech system) has been unveiled. Many applications now have TTS support, including Konqueror and KPDF. KSayIt is another nice utility which can convert a text file to speech, or say the contents of the clipboard.
Overall Changes, Improvements and Bug Fixes
The handling of the Trash ioslave has been greatly improved. It now allows the deletion of multiple files with the same name, has better file restoration handling, and faster operation. A Media ioslave has been introduced which replaces the Devices ioslave. Media allows access to CD-ROM drives, floppy drives, and other mount points such as hard disks. The System ioslave has also been revamped to help more people learn about KDE ioslaves. If you haven’t been properly introduced to ioslaves, I’ll give a brief introduction. In KDE, ioslaves are used to handle all sorts of information transfer. They are the underlying technology KDE uses to access SSH, IMAP, FTP, SMB (Samba), etc. You use ioslaves all the time without even knowing they are present. But knowing that they do exist can be very useful. I like using the fish:/ ioslave to access remote SSH servers, giving me a drag-and-drop representation of files and folders in Konqueror. KDE ioslaves set KDE apart from other desktop environments.
Closing Thoughts
It looks like the developers have done a great job with this beta release. In my testing, I did run upon a couple of small issues, but these will likely be fixed in the full release. I had no crashes whatsoever, and no programs hung on me. All in all, it looks like an excellent release for the transition from KDE 3.x to 4.x. I’m very excited about new developments in both Qt and KDE in the future. I’m sure the migration to Qt 4 will be a little rocky, but it will be well worth the effort in the end. Long live the K Desktop Environment.
About the Author:
Joshua Keel is currently a Computer Science student at Bob Jones University. He is a huge Linux/KDE fan, and has aspirations of becoming a KDE developer someday. Till then, he writes in English, not C++.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Is it faster? Does it use less memory?
I really liked the review, as a beta2 user myself, I can really say that KDE starts becoming more and more polished without losing options, which is a Nice Thing ™.
And don’t forget that Kopete finally got a new ICQ implementation, which really speeds up account login times, and fixes other things.
When are they planning to release it?
Although I now use only Mac, I used Debian with KDE on top of it for a long time. KDE is so good. Really stable and nice and easy to use. You can remove a lot of “kludge” from its appearance by merely configuring it in the Kontrol panel.
I like the changes to KPDF. It looks much better and the text search looks pretty cool. The user switching thing never really worked for me under KDE3.2 so it’d be cool if it would work completely under KDE4.0
The thing that I feel is mostly lacking in KDE is Juk not being able to rip CDs. Unless I’m mistaken…
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=241&slide=1
From memory RC1’s late February, and release (hopefully) early March. Put “kde 3.4 release plan” into Google if you want to know more specifically![🙂](https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f642.svg)
http://dot.kde.org/1108288130/
KDE 3.4 is definitely faster if it has been compiled with a gcc-3.4 that has support for symbol visibility hiding. The latest Fedora and ~x86 Gentoo have this feature in thier gcc-3.4 releases. In general it has resulted in MUCH fast application startup time. Most smaller programs load nearly instantly and bigger kde apps only take a couple of seconds at most. This is on an older machine (1.4 ghz celeron) that has a pretty spiffy hard drive. The difference is quite notable in comparison to KDE-3.3.
I haven’t used my linux box in about 2 months (power supply died and I have no motivation to fix it) — KDE 3.4 might change my mind.
[standsolid]
I have some small screenshots of the options for Logitech mice in KDE 3.4: http://miikal.blogspot.com/2005/02/kde-34-beta-2.html
“KDE 3.4 is definitely faster if it has been compiled with a gcc-3.4 that has support for symbol visibility hiding. The latest Fedora and ~x86 Gentoo have this feature in thier gcc-3.4 releases.”
I think you’re forgetting someone. MDK 10.2’s KDE is compiled with -fvisibility , it’s in the betas already.![;)](https://www.osnews.com/images/emo/smile.gif)
I couldn’t help but notice some of those “new” kde3.4 features already present in 3.3, such as the wallpaper preview inside a small monitor image in the Wallpaper configuration, or the white desktop icon text with black shadow behind it, etc. I’m glad to see the rest of the new features though
I look forward to trying KTTS and KSayIt.
fast user switching – is this the same as the “Start new user session” in the KDE menu, already available in KDE 3.3?
I use KDE as my desktop environment, but Konqueror and Kmail still aren’t ready for me, as an Opera user. 2 things I sorely miss – fast forward/rewind buttons, virtual folders for email. I would miss more too but those 2 stood out right away when I tried kmail and konq today.
There are ongoing changes after Beta 2 for KDE 3.4 Final: new splash screen (of course), new default wallpaper, new panel menu icon, changed sidebars of file dialog and Kontact, fewer Konqueror toolbar icons, …
for all eyecandy lovers: 3.4 will also have support for translucency windows!
also the cut/copy/paste icons have finally disapperead from konqui, yay!
Kwin also has support for dropshadows and translucency on all windows, and configuration is very nice. Also, if you compile konsole with the right flags, the translucency in konsole is true translucency.
Also, kompmgr seems very stable (been running kde3.4_beta2 for about a week, and no crashes with both translucency and shadows – on an NVIDIA card with latest drivers and xorg 6.8.2.
Matt
KDE 3.4 has also: SVG wallpaper support, a new “media” IO-Slave with HAL backend, MS Exchange connector for Kontact, a lot more SVG icons, a new and very useful “remote” IO-Slave, a much faster and improved kicker, improved trash handling with the new “trash” IO-Slave, KDE-Look.org download integration, a new Konqueror Extension Manager, a streamlined konqueror, an improved plastik theme, simplified Control Center, improved mixer, better calculator and much more
“better calculator”
YES!!
uh … I’m sure there are other big improvements as well![;)](https://www.osnews.com/images/emo/smile.gif)
Whooaa… I’ve never seen that one before… that would really useful for me I think. Application finder searches for non kde apps on the system and you can then add them to the kde menu! Good for me because I’m lazy! Ohh and a new menu editor? Can’t wait to try this stuff out!
Seems to be shaping up well!
I’m only curious if performance has also improved and if there will be a 3rd beta.
Also, the new default background is this:
http://webcvs.kde.org/*checkout*/kdebase/pics/wallpapers/KDE34.png?…
At least they’ve got rid of that bloody “default gears” one!
” But this time, KDE automatically chose Bitstream Vera Sans, which looks very nice.”
No it doesn’t, it looks too big and really ugly, not to mention there seems to be some problem with xft (bytecode on?). And, they should get rid of that stupid digital clock font once and for all.
It’s a beta man, and it’s all about how you compile…. If you compile it yourself, you can make it faster if you know how, as the others have already said. If you install from binary your distro of choice is going to be in control. Now if you think about the history of KDE… it gets faster with each upgrade.
Also, the new default background is this:
http://webcvs.kde.org/*checkout*/kdebase/pics/wallpapers/KDE34.png?…..
Why do they need to write KDE on everything. Text or images on the background only makes it harder to see files and folders that are placed on the desktop. Why couldn’t they just have a colored background?
If they absolutely insist on having an image they could have chosen one without disturbing figurative elements. E.g. some kind of low contrast checker pattern with each square in a slightly different color shade and large enough to hold a handful of icons.
That way the image could have been useful to give the users visual clues to support his memory of where he put that file.
Nice to hear that they have improved the trash. But why couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker like on MacOS-X or the new Gnome 2.10. Residing on the desktop, it is usually covered by other windows and thus hard to reach.
looks good
> But why couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker
> like on MacOS-X
Did you actually care to look at the release we are talking about? It works that way already.
The little bits of translucent text made me think my monitor had burn-in or something…
Re: dr_gonzo
>The user switching thing never really worked for me under KDE3.2
I have never had any problems with it in the later 3.2.x releases. Most likly it’s your distribution who don’t support it properly.
Re:Uno Engborg
>But why couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker
Usability, most people are used to having the trash on the desktop. But if you want it in kicker, just add the trash applet. Takes less than 15s.
> the trash. But why couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker
KDE 3.4 introduces a Kicker trash applet.
Isn’t there Adobe Reader for Linux?
Yes, there is one. And it sucks so bad it hurts.
> I sorely miss – fast forward/rewind buttons, virtual folders for email.
KMail has virtual folders already (ever since 3.2). They just dont call them virtual folders. They’re called “search folders”. They might be a little tricky to set up. I didnt actually use kmail long enough to get a feel for how well they worked… but they are definitely there.
James wrote:
“KMail has virtual folders already (ever since 3.2). They just dont call them virtual folders. They’re called “search folders”. They might be a little tricky to set up. I didnt actually use kmail long enough to get a feel for how well they worked… but they are definitely there.”
Nice! I will have to check them out, hopefully they handle IMAP (the Evolution virtual folders don’t handle IMAP, while Opera’s do – and opera is, what, 1/10th the size of Evolution? lol)
You don’t really need that one!
Just point konqueror to audiocd:/ , go to mp3 dir and copy files from there to where you want. It will copy, and you have got it.
And! Someone please check, can KMail filters move messages to imap folders? In 3.2 they can’t, which forced me to use tb![;)](https://www.osnews.com/images/emo/sad.gif)
Isn’t there Adobe Reader for Linux?
The new Kpdf is actually much better than Adobe Reader (whether it’s for Windows or Linux). I like how you can select an area of a page and copy it to the clipboard either as an image or as text.
And, no, your comment didn’t offend me and isn’t off-topic since Kpdf is in KDE 3.4.
there’s a beta of Acrobat 7 for Linux, but it’s not open to the general public…
ripping CDs – there’s KAudioCreator for that (yes, sometimes audiocd:/ isn’t good enough – when you want to tweak bitrate, filenames, id3 tags, etc).
The biggest problem I have had with user switching in the past is that the second user never gets any sound (or any control of the soundcard). In my mind, you cannot have user switching without sound, especially given the level of integration sound has in the desktop environment. Has this issue been addressed? Certainly I would think that it could be handle through artsd, as the second and third user would get an arts pseudo soundcard, so as to manage it through an arts proxy. Thoughts? Comments?
Quote
“Why do they need to write KDE on everything. Text or images on the background only makes it harder to see files and folders that are placed on the desktop. Why couldn’t they just have a colored background? ”
You know that you can change the background?
May be an issue with your soundcard’s support in ALSA. I sure have no problem with sound when starting a new session
>I like how you can select an area of a page and copy it to >the clipboard either as an image or as text.
Search and selection of text were something I missed.
> there’s a beta of Acrobat 7 for Linux,
> but it’s not open to the general public…
Yuppy, a bit tired to use AcroRead5.0.x.
I think a Kicker-integrated thrash is in the works, or at least I think I saw something like that in Aaron Seigo’s blog.
I tried Linux-as-a-desktop-OS a month ago or so just to see how far KDE and Gnome had progressed since i tried it last (2+ years ago or so, only used Linux for servers since) and i must admit that KDE is getting really robust and thought through.
Anyway, if you want to run the latest version of KDE but can’t find packages for your distro you can always try Konstruct – it’ll download and build all the neccessary sources for you. You can keep the new build in a different directory so that it won’t interfere with your stable version, and you can choose how much of it you want compiled (full, minimal etc).
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=9725
A little off-topic – but do you know if this keyboard+mouse is supported
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=23-126-13…
Still too expensive though.
all the mouse features are implemented, and as the keyboard has very few media buttons I think it’s working very well as well. (oh I wish I could afford one of those.. *sobs*)
Acrobat reader is slower, but it is the only reader to support advanced pdf options. Ask Scribus people for more details (javascript, forms, etc.). So there is place on the desktop for fast pdf reader (gv, xpdf, kpdf, etc.) and acrobat reader. No offense to take.
The DiNovo can operate in two modes: HID and HCI. When no bluetooth stack is loaded, it works in HID mode, and the PC sees it as a normal usb mouse and usb keyboard. With Bluez, you can switch it into full bluetooth (HCI) mode. There has been som bugs with key repeats, but they should all be fixed now. The only thing you will not get working is the display on the media pad (and stuff like auto-copying calculator results on media pad into clipboard).
But no, I do not think the mouse config of Kcontrol supports the MX900 (That comes with the DiNovo). At least the author has not mentioned it in his blog ( http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/677 )
Oups, messed up the url by changing the title: http://miikal.blogspot.com/2005/02/support-for-logitech-mice-in-kde… should work.
They’ve had that same clock since I first installed Linux (SuSE 5.2 or something). It wasn’t great then and it’s really ugly now, just clashes with the rest of KDE which is getting very shiny and polished (in a good way). Certainly my Linux DE of choice.
faster and less memory use? of course, every KDE release is faster (dunno about the memory, actually). But KDE 4.0 will use less memory, at least a decrease 0f 15-20% I think. Maybe even more.
Add a lot new features, and still better xorg/composite support, gstreamer, hall/d-bus, svg…. it’ll be amazing. but KDE 3.4 will keep us busy till then![;)](https://www.osnews.com/images/emo/grin.gif)
they should get rid of it, for sure. now there is styleclock from kde-look.org: http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=14423
but it does not work without openGL, so won’t be the standard. well, they might just use a clean clock, not the digital one, would already be an improvement. or add the shadow, the desktop has, to the text?!?!?
You can quite easily change the style of the clock. Just right click on the thing, choose Configure, and change it to a plain clock. Easily done.
Admittedly, it would be nice if they had that as the default. The LCD clock looks rather 1980s.
On the whole though, KDE is getting more impressive (and faster) with every release. Great work thus far. Now, off to download, and try to find some bugs…
Easiest way to sample this beta is with Klax, a live-CD of Slax + KDE 3.4 beat 2, all in only 373Mb. Get it fresh at http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/klax/
John.
KDE is great, but what about the rendering of GTK applications, at the moment gnome apps still look awful under KDE, I wonder if KDE 3.4 has improved on this?
> The biggest problem I have had with user switching in the past is that the second user never gets any sound (or
> any control of the soundcard). In my mind, you cannot have user switching without sound, especially given the
> level of integration sound has in the desktop environment. Has this issue been addressed?
It works here and did from the start for me (some two years ago when I started using more than one X server at a time). So this does not seem to be a fundamental problem in KDE.
I would check two things:
– File permissions and ownership of /dev/dsp (I’ve seen a distro that changed the permissions / ownership when a user logged in)
– What is your inactivity interval of the arts daemon? Set it to a low value (e.g. 5 sec), then the first user will probably have released the device in time before the second user needs it.
Or did you mean *concurrent* access by both users? I’m not sure this is possible.
How could KDE improve that? Use GTK-Qt (http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fgtk_2dqt)
KDE is great, but what about the rendering of GTK applications, at the moment gnome apps still look awful under KDE, I wonder if KDE 3.4 has improved on this?
You might as well say that KDE applications look awful when run under Gnome.
The support for GTK applications under KDE is far better than the support of KDE/Qt applications under Gnome or GTK-using desktops. There is a piece of software called QtGTK that basically uses a GTK style to style GTK applications in the same way as KDE ones (but you can use it for KDE apps under Gnome – just not as good obviously!). You even get the right file dialogues etc. so it’s a bit more than just regular theming.
Not sure how out-of-the-box it is, but it can certainly be configured, and it does a pretty reasonable job. I certainly don’t see the Gnome or GTK people thinking in that manner.
> Nice to hear that they have improved the trash. But why
> couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker like on
> MacOS-X or the new Gnome 2.10. Residing on the desktop,
> it is usually covered by other windows and thus hard to
> reach.
How often do you accidently delete files and need to resore them? It should be better not to clutter the toolbar with an action, you probably only need once per month.
> KDE is great, but what about the rendering of GTK
> applications, at the moment gnome apps still look awful
> under KDE, I wonder if KDE 3.4 has improved on this?
Well, I’d say it would be a task for the *GNOME* developers to make this work out of the box!
But the KDE developers have a solution: Install GTK-Qt and choose it as your GTK theme. You’re able to configure this in the KDE control center.
See http://dot.kde.org/1073599985/
KDE is great, but what about the rendering of GTK applications, at the moment gnome apps still look awful under KDE, I wonder if KDE 3.4 has improved on this?
The GTK-QT theme engine for GTK looks promising:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=9714
I’d be very surprised though if that kind of thing would be integrated into KDE releases, because it depends so much on GTK. It’s the distributors’ job to put these things together.
I’m using succesfully metatheme:
http://metatheme.advel.cz/
It works better than the gtk-qt engine for me… and it offers a better integration of gnome apps under kde. cheers
It’s so cool
http://bssteph.irtonline.org/kde_and_kompmgr_transparent_inactive_w…
Yep, I agree, it should be up to the distributor, and thanks guy’s for pointing out the GTK-QT app, I had an old version installed that never seemed to make any difference – I’ll install the updated version, see how it goes.
It’s just that the most productive applications that I use are all written mostly for Gnome, for example Gimp, Mozilla Firefox, AviDemux, Evolution, RealPlayer etc, all these apps function under KDE just look bizarre, but I suppose it would be more up to the creators of these applications to write a version for QT.
Having said all that, there are of course great alternatives written for KDE, and I have to say that this is the only linux desktop environment that I’ve used for a number of years.
firefox is not for gnome, some parts of it use gnome libs, but it doesn’t really fit in (imho). but afaik, in KDE 3.4 you can use the gecko rendering engine in konqueror, so no need for mozilla anymore…
> Or did you mean *concurrent* access by both users? I’m not sure this is possible.
Actually, it is possible, but it does not only depends on KDE, it is dependant on ALSA configuration.
Search for ALSA dmix and KDE.
It is dependant on a good alsa dmix config and a good KDE sound config to use alsa dmixer.
“It’s just that the most productive applications that I use are all written mostly for Gnome, for example Gimp”
Not a Gnome-app
“Mozilla”
Not a Gnome-app
“Firefox”
Not a Gnome-app
“AviDemux”
Not a Gnome-app
“Evolution”
This one IS a Gnome-app
“RealPlayer”
Not a Gnome-app. While they _might_ be GTK+-apps, they are not Gnome-apps and they are not written for Gnome.
> but afaik, in KDE 3.4 you can use the gecko rendering engine in konqueror
No, not yet and I doubt it will be ever part of a KDE release.
firefox is not for gnome, some parts of it use gnome libs, but it doesn’t really fit in (imho). but afaik, in KDE 3.4 you can use the gecko rendering engine in konqueror, so no need for mozilla anymore…
Firefox doesn’t use Gnome libs, it is commonly built with gtk support.
Konqueror doesn’t use Gecko, it uses KHTML as it’s rendering engine
Thanks Janne, however you have mentioned that the applications I list above are not written for gnome, whilst this is true as far as OSX or Windows are concerned, for Linux they have been written using GTK – the Gnome Tool Kit and as far as the GUI for these apps is concerned, only look good in Gnome.
“for Linux they have been written using GTK – the Gnome Tool Kit”
that would be “The GIMP Toolkit”.
“as far as the GUI for these apps is concerned, only look good in Gnome.”
I occasionally use Firefox on my KDE-machine, and I have no problems with the way it looks.
that would be “The GIMP Toolkit”.
You’re right, it is, my mistake, apologies for that
but GTK apps still look their best under Gnome – anyway, this is drifting a tad off topic….
You know that you can change the background?
Yes, but that is not the point. Given half an hour or so. I could change KDE into something you wouldn’t recognize. The configurability is a very strong point in KDE.
However, there is no reason for not having good well thought out defaults. Now tell me what reason there is that makes it necessary to put disturbing text on a place where other things should have the users attention.
The answer, but you can configure it, whenever some usability flaw is pointed out is simply not good enough anymore.
Guess who maintains GTK+? That’s right, the gnome folks. And what exactly makes a gnome app? As far as I know Mozilla and Firefox use gnome-vfs, and plethora of libraries developed by gnome developers. Heck, people are even claiming Evolution isn’t a gnome app, when it is.
who bloody cares whether something is a gnome or gtk app when for the purposes of the comment that distinction makes no difference? imho you shouldnt be mixing them anyways, its a collosal waste of resources, the apps stick out like a sore thumb, and it will have zero integration with your other apps.
you can create a gtk app, and not integrate it in gnome. just as you can use QT to create a QT app, and not use any KDE libraries. it will have the look of the KDE theme, that’s sure. but it is not a KDE application. it won’t use the KDE fileselector, for example (firefox doesn’t use gnome’s filedialogue, last time I checked)
about the background, well, imho this one is quite clean. most icons are on the top-left of the desktop, so I don’t care about the picture on the bottom-right…
mattb, the issue that I brought forth was exactly that GTK based apps do not integrate with KDE very well, it seems that most of the usable apps (everyday use) for any desktop PC are built using GTK and not QT.
There are exceptions like the excellent K3b, but imho, if KDE wants to provide a professional desktop (look and feel dept), then the developers (KDE or otherwise) should either encourage the likes of Mozilla and Real to produce a Qt friendly version, or have KDE developers develop the GUI side of say, realplayer prior to it’s formal release.
Then you could have – download RealPlayerQT (for KDE) or RealPlayerGTK (for Gnome) via Real Networks web site.
@asfd.broadband.ntl.com:
No, I don’t think it that the best way is to create two apps for one task. The correct answer is to create standards that can be shared between applications. To adjust look and feel, GTKQt does the job.
To use the current desktop filepicker, VFS, etc…, standards are the best sulution. And it is already happening: common menus, trash, vfs discussions, etc…
just booted slax to try this beta… it rocks, too bad this live version isn’t showing all of the new features (hal/dbus integration anyone?)
an ex kde-diehard, i’m currently using gnome2.9.91 on ubuntu hoary and let me say most of the past criticism about bloatware, usability and sensible defaults are sorting their effect! 3.4 is a bit more usable, consistent and fun.
kudos go to kde dev’s for accepting criticism while actually caring about the userbase: they’ll manage to build a desktop which is clean, integrated, uncluttered AND highly customizable.
although coming a bit late, sure this is just what i consider a first step into the right direction… guess i’ll wait kde 4 to switch back
absolute pro’s:
* project utopia integration (hal/dbus etc)
* a *lot* of unrivaled apps: k3b, amarok, akregator…
* perfect integration of gtk2 apps thanks to gtk-qt-engine
PS: yes i dig kde *and* gnome
Sound problems with user switching (one user can use sound and the other cannot) are usually permission problems. If the first user owns the files and the permissions restrict other users, the other users won’t have sound. Often systems are set up so that PAM gives exclusive ownership of the sound files to the first user to log in at a console.
>But why couldn’t they have placed it in the kicker
Usability, most people are used to having the trash on the desktop. But if you want it in kicker, just add the trash applet. Takes less than 15s.
The “what people are used to” factor is only one aspect of usability. However if MacOS-X, Gnome and probably soon Longhorn dare to change the trashcan placement to a from other aspects, better default position so could KDE.
“Guess who maintains GTK+? That’s right, the gnome folks.”
No, the GTK+ folks. It’s a toolkit. Lots of people use it. Not all of them write GNOME applications. The GTK+ developers are well aware of this.
>The “what people are used to” factor is only one aspect of usability
>& better default position so could KDE.
Another factor is also the case that (based on how I work and what I have observed others do) most people don’t usually use drag and drop to thrash (Perhaps on Mac, have little experience with that) They mostly use delete key or RMB menu. So the only time the trash icon actually are in use are when you want to retrieve some previously deleted files, which for most users are rather seldom. So you are proposing to move a seldom used function from a well known location? And place it so this rarely used function takes up space in kicker where space are a limited resource?
As a default i don’t think this make much sense to do. This may make sense on Mac and perhaps Gnome since I think both defaults to a menubar at the top in addition to their kicker equivalents, but KDE does not.
“it seems that most of the usable apps (everyday use) for any desktop PC are built using GTK and not QT.”
That is not the case in my case at least. I mainly use these apps: Konqueror, Kontact, Amarok, Juk, K3b, Kaffeine and Kopete. And I dare to say that those apps are among the best in their class. Every one of those are made using Qt, and they are KDE-apps. It used to be so that KDE was a great desktop, whereas Gnome/GTK+ had the great apps. But during the last year or so, Qt/KDE has seen a large number of apps maturing in to truly kick-ass products. The time when KDE-users had to have large number of GTK-apps around are behind us.
Well said Janne, I too use all the KDE apps you have mentioned for ages (years in fact), although I had an ‘issue’ with Kaffeine where it kept messing with my seperate Xine installation (config issue), but for some reason I seem to be using GTK apps more often (in KDE), mainly the ones I mentioned before, but this is only me and I’m sure that as KDE matures, I’ll start using these GTK apps less often.
In fact I’m sure of it![;)](https://www.osnews.com/images/emo/smile.gif)
The time when KDE-users had to have large number of GTK-apps around are behind us.
Exactly. Before KDE 3.2 I used to use Evolution and Firefox, but now I don’t need them anymore. I even uninstalled Gtk+2 since no program uses them.
But I have to keep Gtk+1 for Lopster :/
You wrote: GTK apps still look their best under Gnome.
I’m a bit confused here. GTK apps running under KDE look exactly the same as they do when running under Gnome (given that theming and fonts are set up correctly). Are you perhaps talking about the fact that GTK apps running under KDE don’t match up with the look and feel of QT/KDE apps?
The sad part is that Plastik look better on GTK applications than KDE applications.
I also use all these applications:
“… I mainly use these apps: Konqueror, Kontact, Amarok, Juk, K3b, Kaffeine and Kopete”. I would also add akregator, kwallet, digikam, and Skype as QT application.
I am scientist who needs to program, use latex, and manage a lot of papers as PDF files. KDE/QT just shine in those areas: Kate, Kdevelop, Kile, Lyx, QTDesigner, Labplot, etc. I tried the new KPDF. I believe it is one of the best available applications in Linux. Bye, bye!!! old crappy acroread…
I am perfectly productive using KDE. Furthemore, the artwork in the last releases of KDE has also improved a lot (e.g. Plastik), so the desktop looks much better.
I know, this is just a personal preference… but please do not say GNOME/GTK applications are the best, because that is not TRUE.
Please go I try yourself, do not think everything is like one year ago…. Linux world moves fast, and KDE even faster.
> The sad part is that Plastik look better on GTK applications than KDE applications.
Yay, it’s the GNOME troll with the three dots again. Where have you been? A hearty welcome to yet another KDE thread!
I would like to see a small default theme. The icons use to much space and even when i change de size de bars still remain very big. What is the use of that?
I suppose you’re talking about kicker, right?
well, you can make it as small as you like it…
http://www.kde-look.org/content/pre1/16127-1.jpg
http://trolls.troll.no/~harald/accessibility/accessibility3.png
>>I’m a bit confused here. GTK apps running under KDE look exactly the same as they do when running under Gnome (given that theming and fonts are set up correctly). Are you perhaps talking about the fact that GTK apps running under KDE don’t match up with the look and feel of QT/KDE apps?<<
I must admit that i’ve never actually succesfully managed to get GTK to theme with KDE, same goes for the oversized fonts, GTK apps on their own just look out of place on KDE, best example would be to do a vanilla install of Firefox on KDE, then do the same on Gnome or XFCE, and look for the overwhelming differences.
Yay, it’s the GNOME troll with the three dots again. Where have you been? A hearty welcome to yet another KDE thread!
Thank you, I still believe my critics help more KDE to be a better DE than pseudo KDE trolls pretending to be the perfect DE.
after reading about metatheme in a previous comment I gave it a try. unfortunatly it crashes my kde. in case you have the same problems, use: metatheme-install -u to uninstall it. I will kep using gtk-qt-engine as it works fine for me
I hope metatheme will improve…
Thank you, I still believe my critics help more KDE to be a better DE than pseudo KDE trolls pretending to be the perfect DE.
With top-quality comments like “Plastik looks better with GTK apps” (obviously total crap, as it’s the same theme) you’re going the right way about it.
Nice to see yet another article and discussion about KDE has now again leaned towards a toolkit in GTK that isn’t even up to scratch.
The fonts are exactly the same size they would be in GNOME. If you set GNOME’s dpi to the same setting KDE is using, they will be identical to the fonts in KDE.
With top-quality comments like “Plastik looks better with GTK apps” (obviously total crap, as it’s the same theme) you’re going the right way about it.
That’s a personal opinion, if can’t handle it, that’s your problem.
Yes. Kde 3.4 comes with a lot of cool stuff![🙂](https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f642.svg)
What I like most is the new kpdf. It’s fast, very usable, powerful. Currently it has all I need. I prefer it over all the other pdf reader available on linux (and even Acroread). I’m so happy with it!
And it seems that it will soon support annotations. Yay!
Seriously.. give it a try. It’s worth it.
Bye bye..
After some experimentation it looks as though the best way to match up the app eye candy on Gnome and KDE is to install both DE’s…..
(I just tries it, DVD::RIP looks great)
Obviously this is not so great if you have a small harddrive…..
Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying out KDE 3.4 when it’s completed beta testing.
And that makes me the 100th post, Yay!
Does anyone know where to get KDE 3.4 for debian without compiling it myself ? Are the binary packages around already compiled with symbol visibility ?