Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 22:08 UTC
The KDE desktop environment is going cross-platform with support for the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. In addition to porting the core KDE libraries and applications, developers are also porting popular KDE-based software like the Amarok audio player and the KOffice productivity suite.
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Member since:2007-03-29
First of all: I have precisely zero experience with Microsofts Operating Systems > Windows XP SP2 / 2000 SP4, so please correct me if I get things wrong. But I definitely see potential for several KDE4 applications, like for example :
- A centralised document viewing app like Okular would be a godsend to have on MS Windows platforms at least.
I'm not familiar with the status of running evince on MS Windows, but feature wise, Okular looks more useful (at least to me).
- A centralised document viewing app like Okular would be a godsend to have on MS Windows platforms at least.
I'm not familiar with the status of running evince on MS Windows, but feature wise, Okular looks more useful (at least to me).
I don't believe this will be the case for many. Most users will have to deal with a single format only, i.e. PDF and they typically have the Acrobat Reader installed.
If ocular wanted to be a serious competitor, the rendering quality of poppler would have to be increased dramatically. Quite unfortunately it still fails for non-trivial layouts, which is probably one of the reasons, why the documentation for Scribus, the popular qt-based Free DTP programme, recommend Acroread for use with Scribus.
[...]
- Given that the NVu project status seems to be currently "comatose", Quanta Plus *will* imho be the best dedicated (as in : not Eclipse et al) libre / gratis Web IDE.
Nvu is dead, sure. I understand that its unofficial successor KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.org ) is still alive. However, Quanta is something completely different.
Additionally, there will - afaik, please correct me if I'm wrong - be no native (Aqua, non-X11) version of OpenOffice.org 2.x in the near future (at least not before the OpenOffice.org 3.x branch goes stable).
There is a downloadable alpha of OpenOffice for Quartz/Aqua. I understand that KOffice 2 is pretty much alpha, too.
RE[8]: Cross Platform
by setec_astronomy on Fri 25th Jan 2008 12:11
in reply to "RE[7]: Cross Platform"
Member since:2007-11-17
First of all, thanks for your elaborated reply.
don't believe this will be the case for many. Most users will have to deal with a single format only, i.e. PDF and they typically have the Acrobat Reader installed.
If ocular wanted to be a serious competitor, the rendering quality of poppler would have to be increased dramatically. Quite unfortunately it still fails for non-trivial layouts, which is probably one of the reasons, why the documentation for Scribus, the popular qt-based Free DTP programme, recommend Acroread for use with Scribus.
If ocular wanted to be a serious competitor, the rendering quality of poppler would have to be increased dramatically. Quite unfortunately it still fails for non-trivial layouts, which is probably one of the reasons, why the documentation for Scribus, the popular qt-based Free DTP programme, recommend Acroread for use with Scribus.
Hm, I guess the typical end users I know are a different subset of the total user base then, since they tend to consume deja vu, chm (ebooks) and "office format" files (predominately doc/xls but increasingly odf too) quite often. It is probably a matter of taste, but having only one application to handle all/most of this formats instead of having to install and maintain distinct applications seems a good idea to me. And while Acrobat Reader is of course the reference implementation for rendering PDF, I was not aware of serious problems in libpoppler. Then again, I may have been lucky so far.
Nvu is dead, sure. I understand that its unofficial successor KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.org ) is still alive. However, Quanta is something completely different
Is it possible, that the correct URL for kompozer is
http://www.kompozer.net/
instead? In any case, thank you for bringing this app to my attention, I was not aware of its existence and will probably give it a spin. Although Quantas WYSIWY(probably)WG capabilities are limited, I still consider Quanta Plus to be a good replacement for Nvu, given the user knows at least the basics of XHTM / CSS editing especially when it comes to developing dynamic web pages with languages like PHP, Python or Ruby. Different strokes for different folks, and so on.
There is a downloadable alpha of OpenOffice for Quartz/Aqua. I understand that KOffice 2 is pretty much alpha, too.
Good for Non-X11 Apple users then. According to my last information, Koffice targets May 1st 2008 as release date, although I'm not sure whether all programs will work properly on all targeted platforms by then. I was not able to find an outline with similar details in the case of OpenOffice.org for Aqua, besides the reported summer 2008 date for the 3.0 release. Any pointers to such information would be greatly appreciated!
Besides the fact that koffice follows different philosophies than OOo in many areas (e.g. frame based wordprocessor vs. "classical" approach, default SQLite database in kexi vs. compressed directory XML files, no pixel editor with compareable capabilities in OOo, etc ) and should therefore be able to win over other classes of users as OOo.org, this is also a poster child example of the importance of treating cross plattform-ness not as an afterthought.
EDIT: fixed mangled quotation tag.
Edited 2008-01-25 12:13 UTC
Member since:
2007-11-17
First of all: I have precisely zero experience with Microsofts Operating Systems > Windows XP SP2 / 2000 SP4, so please correct me if I get things wrong. But I definitely see potential for several KDE4 applications, like for example :
- A centralised document viewing app like Okular would be a godsend to have on MS Windows platforms at least.
I'm not familiar with the status of running evince on MS Windows, but feature wise, Okular looks more useful (at least to me).
- While probably not having a top position on most peoples priority list, there are several applications under the KDE - Education umbrella, that are either already outstanding (like for example KStars, which is complemented nicely with the already cross-platform non-kde stellarium app) or approaching a very promising state (being a physicist myself, the Step simulator, which is scheduled for KDE 4.1, is a personal favourite of mine).
- Given that the NVu project status seems to be currently "comatose", Quanta Plus *will* imho be the best dedicated (as in : not Eclipse et al) libre / gratis Web IDE.
- While KOffice was so far not in a shape to give other
Office suites like OpenOffice.org a run for their money (har har, pun intended) (e.g. import of binary MS Office formats was/is still a hit and miss game, ODF support is/was far from complete, etc.), KOffice 2.0 should - judging from my limited experiences with the current alphas - be a far better competitor. I think the close integration of a wider range of applications (compared to OpenOffice.org) and components (e.g. dedicated flow charting, project management and pixel based picture editing/creation applications and components) in combination with technologies like pigment and especially painterly is quite attractive. While I have no problems with GIMP and its UI, I know at least four MS Windows users that prefer krita over GIMP and GIMPShop and will migrate to krita once it is available for Windows. Additionally, there will - afaik, please correct me if I'm wrong - be no native (Aqua, non-X11) version of OpenOffice.org 2.x in the near future (at least not before the OpenOffice.org 3.x branch goes stable).
- Finally, I look forward to the time when I will be able to run kile, kbibtex, ktorrent, amarok, digikam and kate without cygwin or virtualisation at work.
I'm sure, others can point towards other applications, that have a chance of finding a not too small niche on MS Windows.
Side remark:
There is another aspect of this cross platform-ness of KDE 4 (and F/OSS applications in general), that is imho often overlooked, because it affects not primarily home users, but schools, universities, agencies, (local) governments and SMBs.
My pet theory is, that the availability of F/OSS applications on non-libre OSes has only little impact on the likelihood of switching in the short run. But it should allow system administrators to prepare a future switch from lets say MS Windows XP / 2000 towards Linux gracefully by converging the range of installed apps over the course of several months or even years, thus keeping the costs and risks for training / testing in a more controllable range.
EDIT: Clarified stellariums non-kde status
Edited 2008-01-25 01:23 UTC