Submitted by “The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first alpha release of the KDE Desktop Environment, version 4.0. The release is a basis for the integration of powerful new technologies that will be included in KDE 4. It has been given the codename ‘Knut’.” Meanwhile, the KDe HIG team is looking for help with finding applications that violate the (unfinished) KDE HIG.
URL for the alpha release article should be: http://dot.kde.org/1178891375/
for some reason the screenshots made me think of gnome, not kde…
Probably the layout, the size of toolbarbuttons and stuff like that. To me it still seems very much KDE – but with nicer layout.
KDE4 could definitely pull me away from Gnome (for good). Definitely.
probably the use of pale colours and dolphins cleaner interface compared to konqueror.
Edited 2007-05-11 18:52
Dolphin is definitely more Gnome-ish than Konq is, but I think the biggest visual change is the text under all the toolbar buttons. This means no more apps with 50 unlabeled buttons that no one knows what they do, because they won’t fit anymore.
Anyway, there are a lot more UI changes to come. This release was mostly about finally freezing the library api’s. Now that it’s out, hopefully the pace will pick up on projects like Plasma and Appeal.
Also, it’s good to see someone cleaned up the HIG checklist for config dialogs they put out the other day. It was a little ironic and a little sad to see how unusable it was – instead of listing things like this:
do this
don’t do this
they had them listed like this:
🙂 this1
🙁 this2
and told you to check the smiley for whether it was good or not. Incredibly annoying and hard to understand.
Edited 2007-05-11 19:19
depends on how used one are to text based communications…
Text under icons is a great step forward. Also, anyone else notice the FOLDER TREE on the left side of Dolphin?!
…and there was much rejoicing.
Edited 2007-05-12 14:24 UTC
“Text under icons is a great step forward.”
Yes, it surely is, but it is nothing new in fact. I know some Gtk applications that had this feature some years ago.:-)
“Also, anyone else notice the FOLDER TREE on the left side of Dolphin?!”
Makes it looking something strange like this “Explorer”… 🙂
KDE 4 really does notable improvements for average users, it will surely be a help for Linux based OSes to get more usage share (and oh joy oh market share) on the end user’s desktop. It’s concepts are straight forward, and it runs usable fast on new hardware. I’m interested in seeing the first distros using it on a regular basis.
Yes, it surely is, but it is nothing new in fact. I know some Gtk applications that had this feature some years ago.:-)
Text under icons has been around for ages – the only difference here is that it is the default. I also note you say ‘GTK applications’ having that feature. Is there no universal setting and inheritance for this?
“Text under icons has been around for ages – the only difference here is that it is the default.”
If I remember correctly, the Opera web browser had this feature, too – by default. I think it’s a good iead because it introduces the functions the icons stand for to new users, and if they are familiar with them, they can switch the “subtitles” off in order to gaim nore space on the screen.
“I also note you say ‘GTK applications’ having that feature. Is there no universal setting and inheritance for this?”
I’m not sure, I’ve seen this feature on a Sylpheed mail client application, but there was not surrounding Gnome desktop, so I cannot tell if it’s possible to set this look to all Gtk applications at once. This particular application had a menu entry to change the look: icon only, icon with text beneath, text only.
That’s pretty much was I was just thinking….”It looks like the bastard child of NeXTStep and Gnome”
But, desktop environments can’t be judged on looks alone….just look at Vista, for example. Fugly, and semi-functional.
I’m sure KDE will really tighten up in the looks dept. before it’s released. And you know the environment itself is going to be pretty rock-solid, as per the norm.
well it looked plenty usable. it was just not what i expected from kde. didnt look half bad either. just unusual compared to have kde have nearly always looked.
I don’t doubt it’s usability, as I’ve always had KDE as the default environment. I know it is/will be plenty usable and fully functional when it’s released.
Live cd link anyone?
Shit… what’s with that “Live CD link” comment for every article? I just don’t get it.
Go visit the website
– read the articles – google it 
google placed in italics just to annoy self proclaimed “language purists”
In the time that you replied to his comment though, you could have actually answered his question. A live CD would be rather cool, cos I’d probably d/l and test it. I’m running XP and have no intentions of installing Linux and dual booting etc…but I am interested in seeing what KDE 4 can do.
Dave
edit: This page seems to be what you want…
http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/
and if I read correctly, a live CD:
http://download.kde.org/download.php?url=unstable/3.90.1/KDE-Four-L…
Edited 2007-05-12 03:35
True, but I don’t blame him/her. Sometimes I think we are too gentle on people asking stupid questions and thus allow them to proliferate. When a Google ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ search for “kde 4 live cd” returns a related result you know they aren’t trying. Sorry, but flaming those posters is teaching them to go look for themselves.
KDE 4 looks amazing. It really challenges the prevailing notion that open source desktops lack aesthetics.
KDE 4 looks dull and old-fashioned. I understand it’s still an alpha version, but they need to call for graphic designers. It seems to be created by software developers. Icons are not too bad, though, but I would expect something more shiny, more sexy, you know, something that attracts your attention, something that when you see it, you want to have it on your computer. It almost looks like Gnome with dull colors and plain bars. The KDE team should visit some Web 2.0 web sites and see how to make KDE a lot more eye-candy. Proprietary OSes are very good-looking, why can’t open-source OSes?!
That’s going to happen next. Before now it was more important to get the libraries right, as it doesn’t help anyone to get a flashy desktop and then have to recode the entire thing all over again after the libraries are fixed.
Sounds like what you’re wanting is new widgets… which are on the way, but not ready yet. From the article:
For the record, I agree that the widgets could use an update. I’m not sure why, but something about their look has always bugged me…
Powder coated Mecano set perhaps?
KDE never ceases to amaze me how they can so easily make a desktop look so ugly. I hope people are right about the look not being final. Though the layout of Dolphin is a huge improvement.
To me it’s like this: I know an Audi Quattro is a fantastically engineered piece of machinery, but if it looked like a cheap Klastic toy out of a cereal packet, I’d never bother to look under the hood to find out!
First impressions are so important!
{I hope people are right about the look not being final.}
{ First impressions are so important! }
Sigh!
How many times does it have to be said … this is basically KDE3 looks running on KDE4 underlying libraries.
The “look” of KDE4 is not released yet (apart from some of the Oxygen icons). That is the last part to add. The KDE4 roadmap says release is not until October.
As the article says, the KDE4 team is just now looking for Human Interface input. The usability review only started on May 9.
http://dot.kde.org/1178743323/
Plasma is not yet a part of this alpha release of KDE4.
http://plasma.kde.org/
http://plasma.kde.org/cms/1069
It is silly to create a Visual Guide to KDE4, if there’s nothing visual to it.
the visual guide shows a few of the parts in KDE where there actually IS something new to see (like the games, edu, a few basic apps, koffice…).
The new widget style will be in the next KDE alpha/beta, I think. Then you can start complaining about the looks (so we can make it even better).
“To me it’s like this: I know an Audi Quattro is a fantastically engineered piece of machinery, but if it looked like a cheap Klastic toy out of a cereal packet, I’d never bother to look under the hood to find out!”
So you will enjoy a car that looks cool but does not move when you press the pedal, while looking at us who drive the cheap looking (in your mind) car that can fly and sail and dive and do what ever we can?
Cool your jets. This is alpha.
Most of what you see in the screen shots is old KDE3 stuff running on KDE4 libraries. The eye-candy you are referring to is present, but not active. When they are active, KDE4 will look nothing like KDE3.
Of course, had you actually read the article, you would have read:
For those looking for eye candy, the new composite-enabled branch of KWin has been merged but the composite features are still disabled by default, and the Oxygen icons are in, but the new Oxygen widget style is still too immature to be included. The basics of Plasma are there (try Alt-F2, and check out the new Run Command dialog as shown on the right), but most of the changes are still only in the libraries, so Kicker, the KDE 3 panel, is still present when you log in.
Yeah, this article is like the “Shock and Awe” slide in a presentation where you try to overwhelm the audience with the sheer volume of improvements. It worked on me. I’m impressed with what they’re doing, and I’ll be even more impressed if they hit their November 1 release target.
The new file manager looks nice and clean, as opposed to the baroque monstrosity that is Konqueror.
Unlike the ornamentation in baroque architecture and art, the many buttons and whatnot in Konqueror each have a function (beyond aesthetics) and I miss those functions (or easy, obvious access thereto) in Dolphin.
You think Dolphin looks better, I think it does less. And hey, we can both be right! Happily, we get to choose which one we want to use. I suppose using the prettier one as default is a good idea since so may people obviously are hung up on looks. It’s amazing to me that the positive reactions to KDE4 seem mainly to be of the form “it looks better!” and “it looks like Gnome!” People are superficial.. (Yes, I know looks and functionality aren’t entirely unrelated. Too many widgets can paralyze people, hence Dolphin is default). Anyway, Dolphin’s there for them, and Konqueror’s there for me.
*edit: response to another post that slipped in*
Dolphin is great. It was inspired by nautilus & mac finder.
That, I think, sums up my dislike for Dolphin. And your admiration. Why don’t people like you just use Gnome and leave KDE alone
I smilied that because I don’t mean that in a “get out!” way, but it is a serious question. If KDE becomes attractive as it becomes more like Gnome, why not use Gnome? Where does that leave people who like KDE because it isn’t like Gnome?
Of course, those questions are easier to answer if shades of grey are employed instead of black and white, and I can do so to my partial satisfaction. Still wouldn’t mind hearing other thoughts on the matter though.
Edited 2007-05-11 19:15
People are superficial.. (Yes, I know looks and functionality aren’t entirely unrelated.
A lot though, I think has to do with just how much of konq in particular, and kde in general, isn’t hyped or often even documented. I started a fork of konqueror a week or two back to tweak it to my taste, and I couldn’t believe how much functionality I discovered by looking in the source code that I had no idea even existed. People won’t miss functionality they never even knew existed.
One of the biggest features in KDE I never knew about was fish. I’ve been using KDE for ages, and never heard anyone mention what’s quickly become one of my favourite things about the system.
fish:/ is nice, but sftp:/ is nicer.
fish works by uploading a small perl script to the system over ssh, and then executing commands via ssh/scp connections.
sftp works by the same way ftp does, only it uses an ssh connection. And sftp works at the commandline (as it’s a separate command) whereas fish doesn’t.
Granted, fish will work on any system with sshd running, which sftp does require a setting enabled in the sshd_config file (but it’s enabled by default).
One of the biggest features in KDE I never knew about was fish. I’ve been using KDE for ages, and never heard anyone mention what’s quickly become one of my favourite things about the system.
I really hope they’ll implement a protocol browser somewhere in KDE4 that shows you all that useful kio-slaves.
Konqueror in KDE 3 has a services tab in the navbar but it lacks half the stuff. Sometimes I even had entries disappear between reboots and there seems to be no graphical way to get them back (if I have to edit config files it’s 100% pointless because then I could just google for protocols instead).
A simple navbar entry with a list of all kio-slaves would be enough. If the slave does need a URI and you can’t use it to browse for destinations it could simply display a webpage like Konqueror’s introduction page, that has a short text on what the kio-slave does and what kind of URIs it accepts.
On a related note, Konqi’s intro page is really useful and I like the design, but it’s not an actual URI on disk you could browse to (there is the basic file but if you open it directly all the images are missing).
I could’ve looked at the source and hacked together a workable .html but all I wanted was a customized homepage like Konqi’s intro page but with some of my bookmarks and with dirs I use often (Kinda like Opera’s new launch page) and I decided it was just too much hazzle.
Both things aren’t major complaints but just 2 of many examples where KDE makes stuff more complicated than it should be without a compelling reason.
I really hope they’ll implement a protocol browser somewhere in KDE4 that shows you all that useful kio-slaves.
It’s already there (in KDE3). kinfocenter -> Protocols
Where does that leave people who like KDE because it isn’t like Gnome?
We fork. That’s one of the best things about KDE from a development perspective. The actual gui stuff is highly, highly, seperated from the actual application logic. Which is really cool because it makes writing what amounts to a new application, but using the underlying development effort for the main kde work, quite easy in comparison to most platforms which only have that kind of design philosophy as an abstract and quickly abandoned ideal. Not to say it’s all peaches and cream, but all in all it’s pretty impressive. Even more so in kde4 from what I’ve seen. Though that can make it a bit of a pain to keep up with the current development there. Which is also why this release is such good news.
Where does that leave people who like KDE because it isn’t like Gnome?
..
We fork. That’s one of the best things about KDE from a development perspective.
There is that possibility, and the good separation between the GUI and the logic you mention does help with that. I actually forked Kaffeine (just for myself so far) when its UI got [huge irony] too complex [/huge irony].
You are right though. In the same way people frustrated with complexity created Mailody and Dolphin, someone wanting more OMG widgets could create an app to their taste, and with KDE’s solid underneath it shouldn’t be hugely difficult. Thanks for your thoughts.
______
note to Kaffeine devs: If I, who think Konqueror is peachy, feel that Kaffeine’s UI is a mess.. OMG
Edited 2007-05-11 20:34
Ha! That’s exactly how I feel about Kaffeine. It’s a shame, too, since at one point it was (IMO) the most intuitive, wonderfully simple interface going. It also had an awesome, powerful backend with many easy to configure options. It still has that backend, but it’s trying to be too many things at this point, and frankly is a displeasure to use from the interface standpoint (again, IMO).
It is, without a doubt, a fantastic app, but someone should really look at the interface from about 2 years ago and compare it to the interface today and have an aha moment.
Having choice is great
And the simpliest choice by default is something good.
I did tryed gnome because of that!
I always try those new things. So when GNOME 2.16 came out I tryed it. I found some things good about gnome, mainly its simplicity. But it lacks all the EXCEPTIONAL feature KDE offers, like fish://, Kate, kickoff, and others. I sometimes feel KDE is just to crowded. I know all buttons have their goal, but sometimes it’s just too much. I prefer a clean default, then add some things, from the opposite. I’m back at KDE since a month after a year of gnome (with KDE before that 
) and I think they are getting in the good direction by simplifying the interface (dolphin, kickoff, etc.) while still giving the possibility to change it.
all the EXCEPTIONAL feature KDE offers, like fish://, Kate, kickoff, and others. I sometimes feel KDE is just to crowded. I know all buttons have their goal, but sometimes it’s just too much.
There’s that not looking at things in black and white I was talking about
As you say, KDE can have wonderful architecture and well integrated parts along with a simplified GUI, which some would say is the best of both worlds. Thanks for the reply.
**
I would like to say something regarding the simplification though (and this isn’t a direct response to the previous post, just my thoughts in general). Simple UIs get frequently characterized as newbie friendly (including in my previous post). I don’t fully agree with that though, for my previously mentioned reason that less features are exposed.
I’ll take as my example the increase/decrease-text-size buttons in Konqueror, frequently targetted in Konqueror-needs-to-slim-down diatribes. The thing is, those functions get used. When my mother forgets her glasses, the text size must go up.
One might reply that there is a keyboard shortcut for it, but my response is that if a function requires a keyboard shortcut, in many cases it might as well not be there. My father, after years of computer use (and 13 years of higher education) still doesn’t know about ctrl-c/ctrl-v copy and paste.
Think back to the days of Word Perfect 5.1, the Word Processor my mother started out using. It had keyboard shortcuts out the wazoo; surely that proves that a neophyte can use them. Thing is, she had a cheat sheet that fit over the keyboard that made it actually usable. That works OK if one app gets most of the use, but even then it is really suboptimal.
Yeah, anyone who users computers enough and cares a bit will learn shortcuts. But that is not describing the newbies all the UI cuts are supposed to cater to. People are attempting to cater to them by removing functionality, and the functionality lost is not always trivial or seldom used.
It’s a matter of finding a balance of course, and efforts to do so must avoid solipsism (towards which I have strayed by talking about my parents). I just feel certain popular trends of pare-down-the-gui thought take it too far.
Edited 2007-05-11 20:24
Exactly, and that’s what’s happening with KDE4 and the reason why I – as a Power User running Gnome – am extremely excited. KDE4 is the dream come true for the Power User in Gnome (but don’t tell anyone I wrote that
Add to that the loveliness of QT4 – uuhhmmmmmm :-*
The way I see it, the problem with this kind of attitude is that when users grow out of the newbie status, their preference is quite sure to change a bit. And then the “simple & clean” look may not be a plus after all.
Furthermore, as You mentioned, when features get hidden away in the guts of the app (meaning deep down in some menu, or as a keyboard shortcut or as a DCOP interface command), they are so much less used than those that are accessible as a button. Now, going back to this developing newbie scenario, when the newbie has accustomed [him/her]self to the basic features, he/she probably wants to know if there’s more to it then that. And if the stuff gets hidden away, then there has to be a counscious effort to look for it rather than the usual “ooh. what does this button do?…wow, cool. that could be useful”.
Of course, everything cannot be reasonably stuffed into the “main window”, but having buttons enabling quick access to features removed just because newbies feel intimidated by them is also a bit selfish. Remember that all newbies grow to be experienced users at some point.
Of course, this thought is based mostly on my experience and the experience of the people I have had the “pleasure” to “train” so it certainly is a bit more biased towards the attitudes of the quick-learning part of society. I understand fully that some people cannot stand the attitude that I should only click buttons the functions of which I’m aware of and leave the others put till I find out what they do.
Dolphin’s there for them, and Konqueror’s there for me.
Plus they’re both based on the same code, compiled into different KParts, and assembled according to the needs of two very different audiences.
If KDE becomes attractive as it becomes more like Gnome, why not use Gnome?
Because I think the biggest chunk of the market wants a desktop that looks like GNOME and works like KDE. Especially with the boatload of behind the scenes enhancements going into KDE4, there’s no question which DE is leading from a technology standpoint. But they have to make it simple and usable, which is an area where GNOME has been leading and the reason why GNOME desktops have been winning contracts.
I envision a KDE 4.x release where users can select a simple or advanced interface on a per-application basis and then tweak it from there if desired. KDE4 has the underpinnings to make this happen. Why not make everybody happy if you can? But understand that simple is the obvious default.
the reason why GNOME desktops have been winning contracts.
Call me cynical but I believe the killer feature of of Gnome is that GTK is LGPL and thus people can create native commercial apps without having to buy a Qt license.
The benefit to the Qt license is that we have professionals paid to improve (an aspect of) the architecture leading to better quality. And so Qt could never go LGPL or else KDE would lose on of its strengths.
I don’t think that usability is why Sun chose Gnome over KDE for their DE. After all, Solaris is already all about the power/technical user.
I agree. There is nothing wrong with konqueror.
Many of us prefer the konqueror the menu and the toolbar options like they are now.
One thing konqueror would benefit from would be one small and indicative word of the associated function/icon. (Show text below icons – like in Nautilis toolbar).
Dolphin is great. It was inspired by nautilus & mac finder.
v0.8.2 is usable in KDE 3. It is way better than konqueror for file browsing. v0.8.2 will (sadly) be the last version for KDE 3. KDE4’s will be improved. You can already see the difference from the screenshot in the article.
http://enzosworld.gmxhome.de/
I can’t wait for okular too. Putting comments in PDF will be great!
I tried Dolphin when I heard it was going to be default in KDE4, and I found it to be crippled in comparison to Konqueror’s file browser, plus to me it looks horrible – far too much wasted space between icons, etc.
(I’ve never used nautilus, but I find OSX’s Finder unintuitive and very annoying to use.)
Can you expand on what you mean by “better”? I’d agree with “simpler” and maybe “easier”; but to me “better” means something more capable, not less.
I do think it’s probably best as the default though, and as long as I can still use Konqueror, I’ll be happy.
For me, those are the two main arguments against it. I really mean no offense, and I also talked about this earlier, I have nothing whatsoever against having Dolphin, it just makes KDE more colorful, and gives more choice to KDE users. It’s cool, you can show it off to your Gnome-using friends, even use it if you like it. Just leave the file manager selection options easily accessible and I shall have no issue with it
Dolphin is great. It was inspired by nautilus & mac finder.
Is that actually true for a lot of the people behind it? Of all the things in osx, finder’s the last thing I could imagine anyone being inspired by. Finder’s usually the only big complaint I ever hear from osx users about their setup.
Wow, finally a file manager that looks modern and usable for the Linux desktop. With the right theme, this could kick some serious Gnome butt!
It’s already in the article, but for those who didn’t notice or don’t RTFA:
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.0_Release_Schedule
Everyone who has been looking forward to KDE 4 finally has a date that they can put on the calendar. I’m looking forward to trying KDE 4.0.1 (hopefully) in the spring.
congrats kde team.
Is any one else experiencing insane CPU load under KDE4?
The apps appear to work well and are not too slow but System Monitor shows near 100% CPU usage.
Is this a bug in System Monitor or does this test version really use that much CPU time?
I’m asking because memory usage is reasonably low…
Regarding Dolphin:
It seems to waste a lot of space. Button sizes vary too widely. I like the breadcrumb navigation, though.
Note, guys, I’m not bitching, I know this is an alpha.
Just curious…
PS:
If anybody who complained about the top bar in every sensor of System Monitor in early screenies is reading this:
It’s still there, but rest assured, you can turn it off 😉
Is any one else experiencing insane CPU load under KDE4?
I have the current snapshot compiling at the moment, but no troubles with my most recent pull from trunk…about a week back. I’d typically have some pretty heavy processes running in the background while working with kde4 and never saw anything out the ordinary for the cpu load.
Hi,
I doubt it’s a bug with the system monitor – code wise it’s pretty simple. You can double check by running “top” in a console.
As for the top bar, I don’t them either. I will at least turn them off by default, and probably have a go at redoing that code. (I’m the maintainer of that program btw).
From what I understand, KDE 4.0 will also officially support OpenSolaris – what that will mean, when they update/patch and so forth parts of KDE, part of being a supported platform will mean that it will have to compile on all the supported platforms.
Hopefully once they get KDE 4.0 compiling with Sun Studio 11, not only will this benefit OpenSolaris users, but Linux users as well who might want to compile KDE with Sun’s Studio compiler on Linux or Intels own compiling suite.
I like how a technology in KDE4 is named after a cute baby polar bear 🙂
Disgusting.
20 something years of X windows, and they still can’t sort the fonts out.
*sigh*
So yeah, konqueror *really* isn’t complicated. I still don’t quite get the need for a supposedly “easier” file manager.
Easy != Nice to Use
So yeah, konqueror *really* isn’t complicated. I still don’t quite get the need for a supposedly “easier” file manager.
Dolphin isn’t necessarily an easier file manager – but it is a file manager. The problem with Konqueror is that it ended up trying to be all things to every function. It tried to be a file manager, whilst trying to be a web browser whilst trying to be some other viewer. File and web browsing are just use cases that are too different, because with web browsing you have an awful lot of settings such as cookies, certificates and password management that end up being in the dialogue settings of the file manager as well. It’s just become far too much.
The KDE Human Interface Guidelines (KDE Pseudo-HIG) can be found here: http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Pseudo-HIG
And more here: http://developer.kde.org/documentation/design/ui/
I haven’t always liked some of the changes made into GNOME because of their stricter HIG. Thus I think the more flexible principles in the KDE Pseudo-HIG might often suit at least my personal preferences better. From the KDE HIG:
“The focus is not on forcing people to follow some strict abstract guidelines for improving usability targetting a small specific audience. The focus is on showing convincing possibilities how to improve the usefulness of certain features in certain situations which will potentially increase the usability of a feature for a large audience.”
“Contrary to other commercial and non-commercial projects, consistency within KDE has not been achieved by forcing people to follow HIG rules. It has been achieved by offering consistent system-wide features in libraries, and by discouraging the use of application specific UI changes.”
“The objective should be:
The highest possible amount of flexibility while staying consistent in every case possible and offering configuration samples of KDE’s UI adapted to special situations.
The actual configurations shall then be offered with the target audience in mind. For example:
· KDE CVS target audience is its developers;
· A system administrator’s target audience is the group of users using his systems;
· A desktop Linux distribution’s target audience is its targeted clients;
· etc…”
By the way, there are also many other good usability links at the end of the KDE Pseudo-HIG too:
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Pseudo-HIG#_Other_resou…
Edited 2007-05-12 06:56
I absolutely despise the icon view in a file manager. It is an insult to a person’s intelligence to use icons when the human eye can zero in on items within a list much faster. At least I hope the user settings actually stick for the user-defined default folder views unlike in previous versions of kde/gnome file managers.
I guess icon view looks good for sreenshots. That’s about it. I agree, it sucks big time compared to list or detailed view. Anyway Dolphin looks okay.
For now, the kde4 desktop looks incredibly ugly and boring but I guess it’s normal since:
‘For those looking for eye candy, the new composite-enabled branch of KWin has been merged but the composite features are still disabled by default, and the Oxygen icons are in, but the new Oxygen widget style is still too immature to be included. The basics of Plasma are there (try Alt-F2, and check out the new Run Command dialog as shown on the right), but most of the changes are still only in the libraries, so Kicker, the KDE 3 panel, is still present when you log in.’.
Btw, mixing tiny and huge icons in the kicker and having the task manager on two floors are errors imho and it looks hideous.
@RawMustard
Yup first impressions are important. I’m not sure they are as important as they should for kde developers. Hope so however even if I’m concerned about the way the KDE team manage the KDE4 HIG.
At least I hope the user settings actually stick for the user-defined default folder views unlike in previous versions of kde/gnome file managers.
They do in Dolphin. It’s been one of my continual pet peeves with Konqueror.
While I still prefer the Gnome look and overall approach of “less is more” when it comes to the UI, I must say that KDE is doing a very good job of tying together the underlying desktop technologies, which is almost more important for a seamless overall user experience. Dolphin looks like an improvement over Konqueror, especially with its integration of Strigi. I hope Nautilus follows suit with a tight integration with Tracker (yes, I know you can integrate the two, but there isn’t yet a good enough interface for parsing/presenting the search results).
The fact that SuperKaramba now has support for Ruby is cool. I’m hoping Screenlets (the most promising desklet technology for Gnome, IMO) will also support Ruby in addition to Python.–The more languages, the more chances there are that devs will write cool/useful widgets.
I wonder if Okular will be an allpurpose document viewer. That’s something else Gnome could really benefit from. Evince is great but doesn’t support text documents. Sure, you can open them in Abiword, but a viewer that supports all formats (with pluggable system so more formats can easily be added to by contributors), and better yet, integrated into the file browser (ever use the document viewing options in Total Commander on Windows?), would be a big step forward.
yeah, Okular will view whatever you like. There was an Okular dev at the KOffice meeting in Berlin last weekend, and they’re working on a library to allow KDE applications to read and write ODF easilly. So it won’t even be hard for the dev’s to add support for ODF etc…
Superkaramba as of now also supports javascript, btw
And actually, Dolphin doesn’t really integrate strigi specifically – strigi is integrated in the underlying infrastructure, and thus Dolphin (and all other KDE apps likewise) supports it now. Soon Nepomuk will follow. But you know, I wanted to keep things simple 😉
I’ve made a few screenshots here:
http://www.adminlife.net/allgemein/screenshots-von-der-kde-4-four-l…
Regards
igno
are the window theme (including the buttons X, min, max) going to change? I think they look awful.
they sure are, the whole theme is going to be replaced… this is the old KDE 3.5 look.
I didn’t see this mentioned, so here goes:
http://pollycoke.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/kde4-istantanea-attuale-d…
I don’t understand Spanish, so anybody who does should feel obligated to summarize =)
It’s Italian actually. And here is a translation, not very good but understandable:
http://babelfish.av.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=it_en&url=ht…
First up, I’m not a *nix user. I’m not a programmer. So please be mindful of this when you guys set fire to my arse. I have to say it – No version of Linux has ever looked good. Apart from redundant/duplicate GUI commands, it’s just plain butt-ugly. There. I said it.
Runs away…
OK, I should qualify. I’ve been hurt. I never had any problems installing lunuxes alongside my Win installs until Ubuntu. I deliberately made main & swap partitions before installing 6.06 and it still arsed up my machine. Doubtless due to my own lack of tech knowledge dealing with boot managers etc., but there has to be a better way. Dell installing it from source is a beginning. But folks, it’s not all that great out of the box.
Edited 2007-05-12 18:49
*Sigh*
There are plenty of options to change the look and feel of the Linux desktop, if you don’t like how your chosen distro has made it look and there are plenty of desktop environments to choose from if you don’t happen to like KDE…or you can pick and mix between them. There is no possible way to please everyone, but generally it can be changed very easily. Apparently you really like the look of Windows, I don’t.
As for being hurt trying to dual boot your machine, what you are trying to do is quite technical so a lack of knowledge in that area probably did lead to it messing up your machine. I hope you were sensible enough to keep backups. Most distros make it quite straight forward to set up a multi-boot environment. Try it from a different perspective…install Windows on a Linux machine without messing it up, how easy is that?
Anyway I think I’ve rambled off topic enough for my first post! I’m really looking forward to all the new underlying technology in KDE 4 from an integration standpoint. KDE 3 I find to be already excellent in this regard, 4 will take it to a whole new level.
Well done that team
Edited 2007-05-12 19:57
I don’t know which application you’d prefer to see in a stock KDE4.
But I’d like to see this one as the main component of KDE4
http://freshmeat.net/projects/qbrew/
Now that’s a killer app
You look at all the things that are in kde 4, new api’s, no more arts, plasma, the freedesktop framework and HIG improvements, Oxygen, phonon, decibel, solid, and the only comments are “I like it, dolphin looks like gnome” or “It sucks, dolphin looks like gnome”, or “we need to fork kde, because it looks like gnome”.
But I see the screen shot and it looks just like my kde desktop right now, if I have konqueror open with the nav panel closed.
Think dolphin doesn’t meet your needs, guess what, use konqueror, it’s still there.
Don’t like the icons, or the widgets, or the thickness of the window border, or the colors, or the background, guess what, kde will let you customize them down to a gnat’s behind. That’s what kde is about. Letting you make your desktop environment do what you want it to, form the simple to the sublime.
I don’t really have much to say about the look and feel of GUIs. People seem to have opinions, but pretty much any GUI I’ve ever used can be made to look acceptable with a little tweaking.
Since a lot of people call KDE ugly (I think the default clock looks cheesy, but that’s easily changed), I’m curious to know what people consider a “good looking” GUI, just so I can understand what it is people want to see. I assume a lot of people will point to the Mac – which I am indifferent about (don’t dislike it or find it particularly compelling, visually) – what other GUIs or WMs or operating systems have “attractive” interfaces.
I wonder if there is a general consensus or feeling about this.
I used Gnome for years – much longer than I’ve used KDE, but I am now a KDE user and probably will continue to be so. Of the differences between them, look and feel doesn’t even show up in the list in terms of what I think about in terms of preferences. Because it is quirky on my machine, I don’t use Beryl yet, but I do like the elasticity (and magnetism) of windows in Beryl – to me, this provides satisfying feedback. By the same token, many of the other effects serve no useful purpose I can ascertain, other than eating CPU cycles.
I hope this isn’t considered off-topic, because a lot of the comments on this story surround how things look. One commenter pointed out that this is a fairly shallow concern (one I agree with, though all things being equal, I’d rather look at something nice rather than dull). I just want to know what it is people like, and whether or not there is a majority opinion on this issue, or whether it is completely subjective and what pleases one group will displease another in roughly equal numbers.
I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it once more – I can learn to be productive in almost any environment. The amount of discussion about usability and the like makes me wonder if I’m some kind of freak, because I simply do not care – it takes a little time to adjust to anything new, and then it feels normal and familiar. This has been the case with every GUI I’ve used: GEOS, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Gnome, KDE, and Windowmaker – plus a few of the Mac OSs over the years. None of these seemed glaringly deficient to me (Well, Windows 3.x was horrible but not because of the interface – because it didn’t run half the stuff I wanted to run).
If it’s useful like Openstep then it will be much appreciated.
That’s another weak point of open source desktop environments. It seems like theme developers mostly work on screens with huge resolution (or e.g. high dpi laptop screens).
Actually, when this is displayed on a standard 1024×768 screen (e.g. my crappy laptop), it ends up wasting too much space, with all those big buttons, non-conservative spacing on window edges and between widgets (especially GTK!).
I hope Qt4 will have ability to scale applications (vector-wise, not bitmaps), but maybe we need some kind of hinting (dpi-dependant widget arrangement schemes) so that same application look good on high-dpi and low-dpi screens (and what’s also important, fit into them!) even without proportional scaling.
yeah, that’s why I like plastik. It’s pretty small, compared to other styles (and esp compared to the default gnome style, my 800×600 laptop can barely show like 3 buttons on a row with a gnome theme…).
But I think the new style will waste a bit more space just to look ‘clean’ (after all, it seems ppl like that, wasting space is what made gnome’s look popular). Well, screens are growing, resolutions too, so it might be a good thing. And those on small screens can still choose another theme…
about the scaling, well, at least KDE 4.0 won’t have something like that, but I think it’ll come somewhere in the 4 series, probably 4.2 or something. Still 2 years away, yes…
Obviously, most of you guys have never used KDE intensively. To counter some of the issues:
* Text with icons
This feature has been part of KDE for a very long time, you can even choose if you want it right or below the icon. This is even configurable per toolbar!
* Big buttons
All that stuff is configurable. If you want smaller icons, just configure it like that!
* Bloated appearance
http://users.opengate.be/~glenn/screenshots/polaris-11-09-2006.png <- holy crap! Total bloat!
You can configure every single aspect of the GUI: if you feel like there are too much buttons on the toolbars why don’t you just remove them? A single right click -> Configure Toolbars is all it takes!
And for the record, I have been a GNOME user for a very long time. I left GNOME because of the inconsistancies of GTK/GNOME applications (and the GNOME enviroment itself) and the lack of finesse on alot of GTK/GNOME applications. And keyboardability is hell in GTK/GNOME. Alot of GTK/GNOME applications just appear to be thrown together.