Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 3rd Sep 2001 17:24 UTC
Original OSNews Interviews Today we are hosting an exclusive interview with the Konqueror team, KDE's integrated filemanager, image/document viewer and web browser. Dirk Mueller, Waldo Bastian, Carsten Pfeiffer and Simon Hausmann are answering questions regarding the future of Konqueror, its portability and the integration with QT3.
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Way to go!
by Ben on Mon 3rd Sep 2001 20:26 UTC

I am constantly amazed at KDE's progress. This is due largely to the awesome Konqueror browser/file manager/swiss army knife. It's hard to believe that a few KDE developers have managed to best both Eazel's file manager and Mozilla's web browser. Not only that, but this is just one component of a large project that, among many other things, also encompasses a complete IDE (KDevelop) and a cohesive office suite (KOffice.) If you ask me, the KDE project has done a great service to Linux/Unix on the desktop. In fact, if you ask me, KDE offers a far more complete working environment than Windows, BeOS or Mac out of the box. Then there's the fact that QT Embedded brings KHTML to small devices such as the IPaq, and KHTML is small enough and clean enough that it can be ported to something as obscure as AtheOS is such a short time frame. It speaks volumes that Kurt would choose KHTML over Mozilla's Gecko. These developers bring so much to computing, and make it fun and accessible to a potentially vast market. Cool. (And no, I'm not a KDE troll. (Do they show up on this site yet?) I use Gimp, videolan, jpilot and xmms daily and Star/OpenOffice for large documents. Proof that using one environment doesn't stop you from using apps that belong to another.)

Very nice...
by Kevin on Mon 3rd Sep 2001 21:56 UTC

Another great interview! ;) I would like to see a Konqueror port to BeOS, it's a pretty good web browser, even thoguh it's a little slow. Actually, I think some one is porting Konqueror to BeOS but it still requires X for BeOS...

...is the tabbed window feature in Galeon. Normally, I don't like MDI, but for web browsing, it's great! I multitask when I surf; right now, I have four pages up (mail, this page, Linux Today, and a screenshot) all in one window and available with a click. In Konq, there would be four windows. Now, some people like multiple windows. That's fine. But I think there should be an option for tabbed windows. Keep multiple windows as the default option if you have to, but at least give me the ability to keep everything clean and in a single window! :Peter

Is the site down?
by Henry Mason on Tue 4th Sep 2001 03:24 UTC

Hey, is it just me, or is <a href="http://www.konqueror.org/">http://www.konqueror.org/ down?

by amir on Tue 4th Sep 2001 05:21 UTC

salam

png support?
by me on Tue 4th Sep 2001 11:46 UTC

I hope the new Konqueror/KHTML will finaly have full PNG support. I'm using KDE 2.1.1, and Konqueror still does not know about 8bits alpha information.Tthis bug has been around since 1999 (from what KDE bug report database mentions). Apart from this and a few other defects, KDE is a superb desktop environment.

re: png support
by Thomas on Thu 6th Sep 2001 19:09 UTC

konqueror and in fact the whole of KDE uses libpng, this lib has full support for alpha channels for some time now. Simply upgrade your libpng and you are done ;)

or enhanced massively during the "Hackfest" at the XFree technical conference: http://www.usenix.org/events/xfree86/ - all the right peole will be there and they'll have their laptops so .... JUST DO IT!! You know it will make KDE that much easier to develop

Re: Re: png support
by me on Fri 7th Sep 2001 09:00 UTC

my libpng is perfectly working. Gimp uses libpng, and gimp supports very well alpha transparency.

follows up on KHTML and png
by me on Fri 7th Sep 2001 09:04 UTC

From libpng website ( http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html ) "Konqueror [KDE developers] (Unix/KDE) - all versions? read-only; binary transparency;" binary transparency is working, I agree, vut PNG has 8 bits or 16 bits transparency, so only reading only 1 bit is a broken implementation (Netscape 4.x, x>04 and IE are broken the same way).

webmaster specified fonts _not_ important
by akm on Sun 14th Oct 2001 10:43 UTC

KDE is nice, and the interview is interesting, but I'll carp at the statement that it is important for the user to see the fonts chosen by the webmaster. On the contrary, the user should be assumed to have chosen the fonts, sizes, colours, and other factors for their display that makes it work best for them. These should rarely be over-ridden by anyone else. The insistence on a specific font for display will, for instance, be particularly unhelpful to those using a reader because they cannot see the page, but also anyone looking at the page using WebTV, a PDA or a new gadget which is invented next week and displays in an unanticipated way. Stick to providing the information, and meta-information about what it means, and leave the maximum possible amount to the user-agent. From the konqueror point of view, one of the ways in which browser dependence and OS dependence is driven is by adding marginal features to the servers and html authoring software that are coordinated to a single browser... joining in with that is not a good idea for a minority browser, whereas sticking with real rules is.