Thanks to Warren and Edgan who sent us two screenshots from the latest Red Hat beta released today. Warren sent us a KDE shot and Edgan sent us the modified Red Hat menu (a positive change if we might say, without the “Extras”). Update: A quick suggestion mockup for the menu.
Two Screenshots from Red Hat Phoebe 8.0.93
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
They finally remove that stupid extra from the menu
Doesn’t Redhat use their own latest Redhat-artwork? 0.58 Bluecurve Metacity theme does not look like in those screenshots anymore, or was 0.58 just an experiment build and 0.59 and above reverted back to old (as seen in screenshot) style?
Either way, looks good but I’m more then happy with my Gentoo.
I would like to point out a few other ideas:
Preferences and System Settings should become one. They could keep it seperate, but depending what market RH is after, they should make the appropriate decisions and changes. You see, in the [corporate] desktop, it does not make sense to have System Settings and Preferences. They are essentially the same thing. The difference here is that the Preferences are “personal” settings that changes are saved on your ~/ while the system settings are written on /etc or elsewhere. But for the user there should not be such differantiation. They are all settings. The fact that the first kind is per user and the second kind is per whole system does not change the fact that people use a single account for themselves, so in their minds these settings should be under the same roof (even if under the hood there is a difference). I wish I could explain this better, on this particular example I feel the lack of mastering english…
“System Tools” should be renamed to “Administration” or something else. “System Tools” doesn’t say a lot, in fact it is confusing with the “System Settings”, but weirdly it is used a lot by many distros. “Office” should be renamed to “Productivity”. Office is the name of a product (MS Office) not the name of the team of any applications that do a similar job.
Other than that, it looks good.
Are you sure that they have updated the KDE BlueCurve? The picture there that you can see the theme is under KDE, and IIRC the KDE theme had problems and was a bit left out on updates and fixes.
but I have to say that no distribution to date has managed to deuglify KDE…
I guess I’ll just have to pin my hopes on Slicker
Try the AquaX theme, looks pretty sweet.
Cascading style menu please.
programs -> accessories
-> office
-> graphics
-> internet
Control Center -> Preference
-> System setting
Here is how to edit redhat menu straight from the
horse(jackass)s’ mouth
http://www.bluethingy.com/linux/rh8menu.html
well, beside the mozilla font enabled, nothing much has been changed in UI aspect. I hope Gnomer get all the apps port to gnome 2.x quickly to take advantage of the antilias-font support.
Any mirrors actually have the new beta ?
This very article has a link which links to our today’s story on the beta’s release. In that story, there is a link that shows all the mirrors. I won’t give you the direct link, because it just seems that you didn’t even try to click any of the relevant links or investigate our front page…
That will teach to post before reading.
why it looks so much like windows? why? seems that linux people love windows so much more than we think.
Please show us a screenshot…
>a positive change if we might say, without the “Extras”.
Yep. Redhat did the right thing again. I’m really looking forward to the future releases. It seems that they actually have a clue what real software should look like. While RH8 has won a stable place on my harddisk a lot of work is still needed to make Linux an attractive desktop OS. Easy and standardizied installation/remove of hardware devices / drivers for example. ONE standard package format and without the dependency hell please. Real software comes in one package and is not cluttered over dozens of different ones. Of course one of the problems here is that Linux lacks a set of standard and *stable* libraries (unlike almost any other OS on the planet). That is ugly for both the developers and the users. Standard toolkits/APIs for sound, GUI, printing etc. are needed. But I’m optimistic. It seems that the big distros all know about this problem and try to turn Linux into a more standardized platform.
Anybody knows where to download microsoft’s webfonts for RH8? Many thanks!
here is the download for AquaX theme
http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/aquax-gtk2/?topic_id=923%2…
Ofcourse mine looks better with some tweeking
right click on the panel
go to properties
then backgroud
change the type to Transparent
download a good mac os x wallpaper
I got aqua X logo on white and grey background
ms webfonts
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
Yes, we’ve discussed this on xdg-list as part of adding menu integration to autopackage. Havoc takes the view that the new menu system sucks, but sucks less than the old (desktop-specific) system. Basically apparently categories are a nono usability wise, people can’t quickly associate what they’re looking for with a category so they look through all of them. Also having menus more than 2 levels deep is bad, so presumably they see the “More graphics..” thing as a compromise.
On the other hand, I can’t really think of a good way to manage this situation – users come from Windows, all the apps are different, they can’t be expected to recognise the names so categorisation is the only way to do so. Also considering the huge amount of software that is required to make the machine useful, it has to be managed somehow.
We’re currently wondering whether to make it easy for installers to create their own menu folders in case the app doesn’t fit into the current categories. I don’t want to see commercial apps put vanity folders in, but Havoc thinks it may be unavoidable
>On the other hand, I can’t really think of a good way to manage this situation
I do. But I still haven’t manage to write that article. I am thinking about it for months now. I think I have only talked to my friend Frans about it… It would require some kind of node monitoring system, maybe attributed fs and a new package system. In other words, it would require some innovation and big decisions to be made (on leaving legacy behind and breaking older packaging systems) and not a hack on top of what is already available.
How about some basics like
start -> programs -> office, multimedia, etc
start -> settings -> preference, configuration, etc
not the current situation where
start -> office, multimedia, graphic, etc….
The current menu setting is too much for most ppl.
How about some drop and drag menu configuration.
Is there any way to change the menu hierarchy via GUI, like the Mandrake’s menudrake ? Imho it is the best solution (and the menu hirarchy of MDK 9 also relative good).
Nope you have to edit the xml file by hand.
Why
http://www.bluethi ngy.com/linux/rh8menu.html
thats why
Is there any way to change the menu hierarchy via GUI, like the Mandrake’s menudrake ? Imho it is the best solution (and the menu hirarchy of MDK 9 also relative good).
You will be able to go to applications:/// and just drag and drop. (start-here, applications)
You will be able to go to applications:/// and just drag and drop. (start-here, applications)
It is sounds good. Under RH 8 it doesn’t work.
You will be able to go to applications:/// and just drag and drop. (start-here, applications)
You can do this already in Konqueror in KDE (Go->Applications), but nobody does – almost everyone uses the specific menu editor app.
Similarly in Windows, you can do this in the file system from Explorer, but nobody does – it’s a pig. Instead almost everyone (apart from administrators who need to sort out other users’ menus) right-clicks on the menu and uses the edit-in-place functions. Personally I think this is a superior approach to a separate editor, and the KDE people agree – editing-in-place should be coming in KDE 3.2.
From a usability point of view, editing your main menu by rearranging icons in a file manager is a real step backwards. They may be .desktop files you’re messing about with, but the user doesn’t see it that way, the user thinks of them as buttons to press to start an app. Classic Unix usability mistake. The OS thinks everything is a file. The programmer thinks everything is a file, and thus assumes that the user thinks everything is a file. Wrong!
vfolders are a complete disaster. All that was necessary to achieve a standard menu system everywhere was to standardize on one hierarchical filesystem layout for placing .desktop files in, and then desktops or distros that wanted to deviate from this layout could symlink their menu structure to the standard one, hiding the original structure. Applications drop their .desktop files into the appropriate place in the standard hierarchy, and then they magically appear in the right place in the menu. Works fine, easy-peasy for the admin to understand, and not too dissimilar to the way Windows does things.
But no! Instead we now have this insane dump-everything-into-one-folder system, each .desktop file sets its own category inside the file, and then it’s up to each desktop to work out how it wants to arrange these into menus. Great! Now menu-editing code is made way more difficult to write, because it’s no longer simply shifting files and symlinks around but instead parsing and writing .desktop files and XML, and if the admin wants complete control over the menus, they have to get dirty with a text editor!
Way to go Red Hat!
Sigh… here’s hoping AppFolders (a la OS X) or filesystem Extended Attributes make this all obsolete shortly.
>>>Personally I think this is a superior approach to a separate editor, and the KDE people agree – editing-in-place should be coming in KDE 3.2.
Plans are underway to disable that feature in Redhat 8.2
We dont want to upstage Gnome with all these KDE features
…I want to see the GNOME 2.2rc1 AND the new Samba tool screenshots.
(smb:// in Nautilus is kicking a** now that gnome-vfs2-extras supports authentication dialog on 0.99.7)
@GetOutofHere
I heard rumours that KDE will adapt GConf (Wind-Registry) and GStreamer (MM Framework) in their next comming releases. What do you personally think about that ?
I would also like to listen to other KDE people’s opinion.
i always used rh until 8.0 came out. If i wanted to do my stuff the way compny X wanted icould have used Windows or MacOS. Now i’m a happy Gentoo user and i will not change distro.
But anyway, linux is about choice, if you like the way RH does his stuff then use it.
Anyway i’m a kde user and i don’t see anything bad in GConf if i can bypass that stuff and still be able to edit my apache.conf by hand on my palm with my cellphone without the need for a full graphical tool to do it.
System tools and preferences: what is so confusing about system tools? wouldn’t one ASSUME that they’re tools RELATING to the operating system? think about it for a moment.
As for the preferences, I personally would have called it “User Preferences” to indicate preferences for the user to customise their desktop/theme or any other part of their desktop/user environment.
As for the gentoo crowd. Get a life. I am sick of the same crap over and over again. Gentoo is nothing more than an overhyped, sourced based distribution. No more exciting than what RedHat provides.
As for Joe and Jane user. Redhat is providing them with what they want. An OS which they can install, run without the need to worry about compiling or tweaking crap.
>>>I heard rumours that KDE will adapt GConf (Wind-Registry) and GStreamer (MM Framework) in their next comming releases. What do you personally think about that ?
I’m a Gnome user since version redhat 6 so I wouldn’t care.
I’m just telling the truth.
I’ll boot mandrake or suse if i was going to use KDE.
I don’t think KDE is likely to be adopting GConf, not without some serious changes to it at least.
Perhaps KConfig might be extended to use the same XML files as GConf, but the general feeling, I think, is that it doesn’t actually do anything useful – I mean, what does GConf actually do that you can’t do already with KConfig and ordinary text config files?
KConfig already uses a key/value system from the application’s point of view, the admin can mark files or parts of config files as immutable, the config files can be exported from a server by exporting home directories over NFS, which is the normal way user roaming is done on Unix (assuming you’re using local workstations with file servers rather than X terminals), and KConfig can use FAM to monitor for file alteration, even over networks. It does all this without having to resort to hard-to-parse and harder-to-edit XML files. It doesn’t bring anything to KDE, just a lot of extra dependencies.
Of course, I can’t say what will happen with Red Hat’s KDE fork…
GStreamer is a different matter – although it’s been adopted by GNOME, all the important parts of it have no GNOME dependencies, so there’s a good chance something will come of it. Having said that, most KDE multimedia developers seem quite keen on solutions revolving around arts and xine or mplayer/mencoder – the video playback system that KDE has in 3.1 is all based around xine.
In the opposite direction, there was talk of adopting DCOP or a variation of it in GNOME, it’s a real killer feature in KDE – apps can identify and talk to each other easily and at length, you can look inside running programs and inspect and manipulate the objects that make them up, it makes it really really easy to add scripting to just about any app.
@Matthew Gardiner
As for the gentoo crowd. Get a life. I am sick of the same crap over and over again. Gentoo is nothing more than an overhyped, sourced based distribution. No more exciting than what RedHat provides.
C’mon, Gentoos userbase is exploding in size so there are bound to be a couple of us speedy little penguins around, and same way as you praise RedHat, we kind of like our little Gentoo.
Overhyped? Nah. It’s one of those “You got to try it” type of deals, and when you do all the other distributions kind of just fades away =) (more hype, this really must be bugging you).
I don’t use KDE so I can’t say if that’s been updated in 0.58, I think I like the slightly new style looks alittle better actually so I hope they’ll stay with it instead of old.
Also, is there a way to run a pure version of KDE 3.1 (not the crippled redhat version)?
Yes there is. The solution is to not run redhat.
“Overhyped? Nah. It’s one of those “You got to try it” type of deals, and when you do all the other distributions kind of just fades away =) (more hype, this really must be bugging you). ”
Yeah, I tried it. I wasted weeks on Gentoo 1.4RCwhatever and discovered the perfmance gain wasn’t nearly what the hype claimed. I compiled every last application with -march=pentiumii -mcpu=pentium2 -O3 -pipe and you know what I went back to RedHat. 8.0 was JUST AS FAST as Gentoo, and you don’t have to wait weeks for a usable system. Gentoo’s great if that’s what you like, cool but don’t hype it as the all mighty Linux when it’s not. 😉
Anybody here has tried the ReHMuDi (Red Hat Multimedia Distribution) beta_0.9 ? ( http://www.agnula.org )
That has to be the ***Real Linux Desktop*** that I’d like to see hacked by the Red Hat team. I guess it’s all happening on kernel and apps land, no GUI tweaks?
Will ReHMuDi and Phoebe fork into separate systems once they become stable or merge? A lot of Destktop talking has been going on but RedHat is not being very vocal in the media about this ReHMuDi thing, “secret weapon” or alpha (not beta) stage?
Bugger. Galeon just froze and I lost my post! <sigh> Well, if you live on the cutting edge, sometimes you bleed I guess.
First things first, Eugenia why do posts have to have a subject? When I do batch replies I can never think of what it should be.
@Eugenia:
“I do. But I still haven’t manage to write that article. I am thinking about it for months now.”
Cool. If you could write it up sometime in the next couple of months that’d be good. As menus are currently in flux, and packages will be in flux soon (i hope!) NOW is the time to do it! If it really is workable, you’re system might end up being adopted
“I think I have only talked to my friend Frans about it… It would require some kind of node monitoring system, maybe attributed fs and a new package system. In other words, it would require some innovation and big decisions to be made (on leaving legacy behind and breaking older packaging systems) and not a hack on top of what is already available.”
That sounds incredibly complex for a menu system, but ok. Node monitoring is in Linux now (if you mean what I think you mean). Attributed FS, ditto, was in the pheobe release notes in fact, but there would have to be a good reason for it. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, we’d probably need to write an attribute indexer. As for new package system, well we’re working on that one aren’t we.
If it’s a cross between appfolders and metadata sorted/LiveQuery system then….. well, maybe. The emphasis on the filing system though makes me nervous – why should users see the internals of the system? If an app is installed, it’s installed, I don’t see why files should be used to represent that. I could be wrong of course
@LC:
“It is sounds good. Under RH 8 it doesn’t work.”
No, RH8 shipped about 2 weeks before this feature was finished. Sucks, but as it only had a shelf life of 6 months they probably considered it acceptable.
@marm:
“From a usability point of view, editing your main menu by rearranging icons in a file manager is a real step backwards.”
Yeah, maybe. I’d consider having to think about menu organisation a usability problem in itself. At least vFolders does that automatically for you.
“vfolders are a complete disaster. All that was necessary to achieve a standard menu system everywhere was to standardize on one hierarchical filesystem layout for placing .desktop files in, and then desktops or distros that wanted to deviate from this layout could symlink their menu structure to the standard one, hiding the original structure.”
I don’t get what this buys you. You’d need to agree on a standard menu structure (which was a sticking point in early discussions) and you still end up reorganising it, except using directories and symlinks which imposes unnecessary restrictions on you.
“Applications drop their .desktop files into the appropriate place in the standard hierarchy, and then they magically appear in the right place in the menu.”
That’s exactly what they do with vFolders in fact.
“Works fine, easy-peasy for the admin to understand, and not too dissimilar to the way Windows does things. ”
The vFolders way has advantages you are probably not aware of unless you watched the discussions closely. In particular it allows for finer grained control of menu layout by admins, and it strikes a balance between automated positioning, admin control and user customisation.
Centralising app metadata in .desktop files also has other advantages for things like mimetyping I won’t go into here.
@oGALAXYo:
“I heard rumours that KDE will adapt GConf (Wind-Registry) and GStreamer (MM Framework) in their next comming releases. What do you personally think about that ? ”
I’ll ignore the inaccurate characterisation of GConf as a registry clone for now. Let me clear this up for you:
* GStreamer has KDE bindings written by a KDE hacker, and it was proposed to the kde multimedia team. It was received warmly but they thought GStreamer is not yet mature or API stable, so for now they are going with xine I think which is stable, both in terms of API and generally (due to its advanced use of threading gstreamer has problems on a few systems i think).
* GConf. Although it’s unlikely KDE would adopt it in its current form, it’s quite possible that a NewConf system would be designed as a freedesktop standard based on top of the new message bus (think dcop) protocol that’s being designed and built now. Along the way it’d lose it’d become desktop-neutral. I for one would like it to be based on a more flexible data model system, so making it easier to share bookmarks etc.
This stuff is at least 18 months away (for both of them) so don’t sweat the details yet.
@marm:
“I mean, what does GConf actually do that you can’t do already with KConfig and ordinary text config files? ”
A lot. I did type out an explanation of this, but my post went to /dev/null and now I can’t be bothered. Do some research into both systems, you’ll see that GConf is actually a lot more advanced both in design and implementation. FYI sharing text files for configuration over NFS with FAM poses all kinds of icky issues with locking and security (which is why gconf doesn’t do it this way).
“In the opposite direction, there was talk of adopting DCOP or a variation of it in GNOME, it’s a real killer feature in KDE – apps can identify and talk to each other easily and at length, you can look inside running programs and inspect and manipulate the objects that make them up, it makes it really really easy to add scripting to just about any app.”
DBUS, a replacement for DCOP that will be proposed for inclusion into all desktops is being built now. The primary advantages are not just those you described, but that it can be used as a foundation for other technologies, like NewConf (which is btw currently vapourware, something that’s been talked about and would be cool but there are no hard plans yet).
“Of course, I can’t say what will happen with Red Hat’s KDE fork… ”
Redhat “forked” KDE because the KDE people were unable to add in support for fontconfig and vFolders in time for the rh8 release. Those features are now integrated upstream, and the “fork” is over unless you count the rebranding, which they are perfectly reasonable in doing imho.
ReHMuDi and Phoebe cannot fork, ’cause they are not one right now, I meant: will they go separate ways? I understand Phoebe (as a Psyche successor) is more or less targetting the Desktop.
Why don’t you report the suggestions to bugzilla?
Last beta before 8.0 I reported a whole lot of bugs and each one was fixed in the new beta.
For info – menus can be edited in phoebe in two GUI ways (been in gnome for a while)
Via nautilus for everything
In place editing for everything except new categories
Been like this since gnome 2.0.2
> DBUS, a replacement for DCOP that will be proposed for
> inclusion into all desktops is being built now. The
> primary advantages are not just those you described, but
> that it can be used as a foundation for other
> technologies, like NewConf (which is btw currently
> vapourware, something that’s been talked about and would
> be cool but there are no hard plans yet).
You seem to be building a house of straw. Self-referential arguments will NOT get anything included in KDE. Why would we replace DCOP?
> Redhat “forked” KDE because the KDE people were unable to
> add in support for fontconfig and vFolders in time for
> the rh8 release. Those features are now integrated
> upstream, and the “fork” is over unless you count the
> rebranding, which they are perfectly reasonable in doing > imho.
This is full of inaccuracies. Redhat made a lot of changes, many of which cause problems, and no we haven’t and won’t accept those changes upstream. We get worse reports about the stabiity and speed of KDE on RH compared to every other distro, and often these problems disappear when people build KDE themselves on the same installation.
I have still to see any reasonable argument as to why GConf is any use at all to KDE. It looks slow and clumbersome to me.
Rich.
RedHat should just pull KDE out of their OS, and let KDE’s marketshare go in the toilet with Mandrake. Give it a rest people, all they did was try to provide a completely integrated solution. Would you have heard the complaining from the GNOME people if RedHat modified GNOME to integrate with KDE? No, because they did that too and no one’s whining about it.
Hello Aitvo, the problem is that you are missing the point here. The changes made by RedHat caused KDE to work totally unstable. It also caused problems for users to compile new KDE applications on their own because of heavy changes and the users complained this issue at the KDE people instead contacting RedHat first. The slightly difference here is also the terminology ‘Desktop Environment’ an Environment comes with Standardapplications which fit and operate nicely with the Desktop to give them a consistent and seamingless operation. RedHat so I know, totally split the ‘Desktop Environment’ up by mixing the applications with GNOME, 3rdParty etc. This all is not in the means of a seamingless integrated Desktop Environment. It’s like grabbing a simple Windowmanager and configure all kind off applications to work on it that RedHat thinks is nice. From RedHat 8.x view of point it wouldn’t make any difference. The philosophy of KDE is to have a consistent Environment of applications that work under one Desktop, integrate, communicate and behave equal such as Windows for example. Of course RedHat was allowed to do what they like no doubt the GPL stuff allows them to do so but the User who may be new to Linux don’t know about it, they see KDE and the first thing they gonna report issues, help etc. is the KDE people and it’s understandable that the KDE developers are upset about this situation. It may have been easier for them if RedHat integrated KDE as is. I also think it is quite not mature of you writing things like “let KDE’s marketshare go in the toilet with Mandrake”. It’s easy for an outsider like you to say this but there are a lot of People behind Mandrake that don’t like to loose their job. I would expect a bit more mature reply from you but the way you replied make you sound like some early 20 years old. This is definately no Troll even if you may feel upset now but I think that many readers will agree with me after they thought about my sentences for a while.
Here is how to edit redhat menu straight from the
horse(jackass)s’ mouth
http://www.bluethingy.com/linux/rh8menu.html
FYI, I’m the author of that page. I’m not affiliated with Red Hat in any way, so it can scarcely be considered from the horse’s mouth, much less the jackass’s ;o).
Re: menu editing in Phoebe, it’s still broken – according to a recent bugzilla report, it may not be fixed soon, so the directions I give on my page will probably still be needed for a while.
“You seem to be building a house of straw. Self-referential arguments will NOT get anything included in KDE. Why would we replace DCOP?”
Because:
* It’s not suitable to be a desktop standard
* It’s tied to Qt
* It’s possible to do better
Any of those reasons seem good enough to me. I never said you *would* replace it, I said KDE might and one was being built with that proposal in mind.
“This is full of inaccuracies. Redhat made a lot of changes, many of which cause problems, and no we haven’t and won’t accept those changes upstream.”
Details would be nice. I know for a fact that vFolders has been integrated, and I’m sure fontconfig is going into Qt (why wouldn’t it?).
I keep hearing about these “problems”, but so far the most specific I’ve been able to find is what Eugenia said about rendering errors in the Bluecurve theme engine for Qt. Considering that their KDE hacker decided to quit because seemingly he didn’t agree that Redhat having their own brand and trying to get some standards accepted was a good thing, I’m not surprised they made a few mistakes.
“I have still to see any reasonable argument as to why GConf is any use at all to KDE. It looks slow and clumbersome to me. ”
Then you should try it. Like I said, I did type out the advantages of GConf and then Galeon froze (i hope it gets stable soon). Slow and cumbersome it isn’t, it has a lot of features that KConfig seemingly doesn’t and is key to the instant apply UI that seems to work so well (at least in my experience). If you have any specific questions or objections to GConf, I’ll be happy to try and address them.
Finally, you must remember that there is in fact a world outside of KDE. Redhat doesn’t give a toss what’s best for KDE, they are trying to forge a Linux desktop, and they approach problems from that view – what is best for the Linux desktop as a whole, not what’s best for KDE or GNOME. Key parts of the desktop are being standardised and shared, and this is a good thing. Yesterday it was startup notification. Today it’s icon theming. Often the technologies produced by this process are superior to the ones that came before it.
Anyway, like I said, this is all speculative, nothing is planned and if DBUS is accepted it’ll be on its own merits.
“This is definately no Troll even if you may feel upset now but I think that many readers will agree with me after they thought about my sentences for a while.”
Why would I be upset? I’d actually have to give a damn first. LOL I’m just sick and tired of all of the infernal whining, they didn’t do anything wrong, and there have been tons of people claiming that KDE is infact NOT broken in RedHat. It’s only broken in a few very vocal people’s eyes. If you don’t like my opinion too bad, I am just as entitled to share mine as you are yours. 😉
“The changes made by RedHat caused KDE to work totally unstable.”
Could somebody please explain these changes further? I seriously doubt Redhat made KDE less stable for the hell of it.
“The slightly difference here is also the terminology ‘Desktop Environment’ an Environment comes with Standardapplications which fit and operate nicely with the Desktop to give them a consistent and seamingless operation. RedHat so I know, totally split the ‘Desktop Environment’ up by mixing the applications with GNOME, 3rdParty etc. This all is not in the means of a seamingless integrated Desktop Environment.”
You seem to be missing the point. The reason they’re sponsoring all these desktop standards efforts is so we can all have a seamlessly integrated desktop without needing for them all to be KDE or GNOME apps. Where Redhat changed apps, they did so because they believed the 3rd party apps were better. Do you seriously believe that Konqueror is a better web browser than Mozilla? That KMail is a stronger mail client than Evolution?
We’ve all been over this one time and time again. When the desktop technologies are standardised, it won’t matter whether your app is based on GTK, Qt or a DIY toolkit – they’ll interoperate seamlessly. That’s the goal.
“The philosophy of KDE is to have a consistent Environment of applications that work under one Desktop, integrate, communicate and behave equal such as Windows for example.”
Yes, that’s what Redhat want as well, except they recognise the world is not made entirely of KDE applications. There are GNOME apps, there’s Mozilla, OpenOffice, even Wine apps. They aren’t second class citizens. Right now this process has only just begun and there are rough edges. Well, someday soon we’ll have a nicely integrated desktop no matter what apps you use.
” I also think it is quite not mature of you writing things like “let KDE’s marketshare go in the toilet with Mandrake”. It’s easy for an outsider like you to say this but there are a lot of People behind Mandrake that don’t like to loose their job”
What he said was harsh, but considering the bitching I’ve seen I wonder if some people would be happier if Redhat simply didn’t distribute KDE at all. Most people say that SuSE GNOME isn’t up to much, compared to the Redhat gnome for instance, that it’s badly integrated and so on. I don’t here Gnome users complaining about that. As I said earlier, considering their KDE hacker decided to quit the fact they are working on it as much as they are is surprising.
I first wanted to reply to you earlier then I anticipated from doing so but now I do at least to a certain grade because you added a special reply to me.
Yes, I think that KMail and Konqueror are far superior. I don’t give you any reasons why since you didn’t gave any reasons why they are not. And I don’t like to have a conversation about applications with you now since we both have prejudices on the one or other side and the People reading this may get a wrong impression.
As for the so called “standards”. This is a questionable discussion. Look these so called standards on Freedesktop was set up because someone wanted to have a base for all sort of specifications stored on one place. These specifications got enchanced over the time and is mostly a share- and knowledgebase for KDE and GNOME these days. Most of these standards are made and decided by the same 5 people who talk on the mailinglist. 5 People that decide for millions of users and developers outside. Not everyone who develop applications ever heard of that place or know about these selfdeclared arangements (standards) of two teams where I know that not everything decided is adopted by both sides. We can hardly speak about “official standards here” because many of these enchancements that move into KDE or GNOME break a lot of other applications outside and if you gonna report it to either sides bugzilla then you get a replies like:
“report the bug to the applications author because he is not following the standards which are set up and declared on freedesktop”.
I must admit that I only got 2 such replies from GNOME and from the same person (whose name I dont mention now). And the guy who programmed the app then replied to me:
‘Sorry but I don’t care for KDE or GNOME and I don’t accept selfdeclared and claimed standards which are not signed by anything. Who tells me that these standards are good standards or even offical ones”.
I really see a need for standards, things that are reworked, updated, kept up to date etc. But these standards must be set up correctly by a commitee of people that seriously know what they are doing and why they are doing it and not from the same 5 people (as mentioned earlier). I was following freedesktop for quite a long time now and that is the impression that I got.
It’s a big difference having ANSI or DIN deciding on things or having 5 people playing trivia with selfdeclared things.
Sorry for my longer reply but my english isn’t the best so I probably phrased sentences longer than necessary. Anyways you may get the context out of it.
“Office” should be renamed to “Productivity”. Office is the name of a product (MS Office) not the name of the team of any applications that do a similar job.
Office is a common noun first, a name of a product second. Are you saying that once Microsoft uses a common word to name a product that others shouldn’t consider using it? Besides, in this instance it makes sense to call that menu entry “Office”. For better or worse, most computing users understand what Microsoft Office is and will likely make the connection between the menu name “Office” and the fact that it contains links to word processor, spreadsheet, etc… applications. Especially since the “Office” menu contains applications from OpenOffice.org.
“Productivity” is a bad choice for the menu name because it implies that the only way to be productive on a computer is to use it to write word documents or make spreadsheets. My work day is spent mainly in 3ds max and Photoshop. I’m productive in those applications. Putting a word proccessor in a “Productivity” menu entry for me would be counter-intuitive. The programmers down the hall spend their days in Visual C++. Their “Productivity” menu would contain programming tools, not an office suite.
“Yes, I think that KMail and Konqueror are far superior. I don’t give you any reasons why since you didn’t gave any reasons why they are not.”
Well, you’re justified in your opinions, I used to use KMail and it was a fine mail app. I think Moz is better than Konq because it renders more pages, has tabs, can be themed to look cool etc. All personal stuff really. I believe Konqueror was still in KDE yes, as the file manager? So you can still get to Konqueror if you like, or you can install it yourself. So really this is about defaults and menu placements I think.
Considering that my autopackage site is desktop neutral, and about 3-5% of the hits are from Konq, and about 60% are from Mozilla, I think redhat made the right choice here, but they didn’t stop you from making yours.
“Most of these standards are made and decided by the same 5 people who talk on the mailinglist. 5 People that decide for millions of users and developers outside. Not everyone who develop applications ever heard of that place or know about these selfdeclared arangements (standards) of two teams where I know that not everything decided is adopted by both sides.”
The forum is open, I can and do take part in the process. The specs, when created, are voluntary. The KDE and GNOME usually decide to implement them, because they’re good. Waldo Bastien has implemented vFolders in KDE, Mattias Ettrich himself proposed the DBUS project I believe. So no, it’s not some closed cabal forcing their decisions on people, it’s as open and democractic as you can get.
If a developer disagrees with the standards put up there, then they should take up their problems with the KDE leadership, as they were the ones that took part in the decision making process.
“And the guy who programmed the app then replied to me: ”
I’d love to know who this guy was, he sounds like he needs to be clued in. No, the standards aren’t perfect, nothing is, but if freedesktop.org has been around for literally years and it’s not a secret what they do there. If he cared about this stuff, he should have participated. He didn’t, so other well respected individuals did it for him. I don’t see the problem with this.
“It’s a big difference having ANSI or DIN deciding on things or having 5 people playing trivia with selfdeclared things.”
Why? Standards bodies like the W3C produce standards with small working groups of experts. Are you going to tell me that Waldo Bastien, Havoc Pennington, Owen Taylor and the rest aren’t the closest thing to experts we have? Anybody can take part in this, it’s a lot more open than ANSI or DIN.
So, if you have been following the group and have *specific* problems with one of their specs, then join in and point this out! Questioning them after everybody has agreed to move forward doesn’t help things.
“Sorry for my longer reply but my english isn’t the best so I probably phrased sentences longer than necessary. Anyways you may get the context out of it.”
Don’t worry, your english is great, I have no problems understanding you.
I’ll try redhat again as soon as they have a package management system equivalent to how good freebsd’s ports collection works.
http://psyche.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=244
“Yes, I think that KMail and Konqueror are far superior. I don’t give you any reasons why since you didn’t gave any reasons why they are not.”
What a troll.
<cite>Yes, I think that KMail and Konqueror are far superior. I don’t give you any reasons why since you didn’t gave any reasons why they are not.</cite>
You cannot hold a conversation about whether Konqueror is better than Mozilla or not. At least not when it comes to correct rendering and interpretation of HTML and CSS. In this particular case it is not a subjective matter. Mozilla is just better. It applies the W3C specifications for CSS and HTML much better than Konqueror.
Maybe Konquerors implementation is superior, maybe Konquerors coding is leaner and meaner. Maybe Konqueror outshines Mozilla in rendering speed. These are other issues, but as a web designer who cares about implementing standards I build to specs, test in Mozilla, then dumb down for every other browser, including Konqueror.
However, given a year or two, I am sure Konqueror can become a great browser, but it is not there yet.
I think Moz is better than Konq because it renders more pages, has tabs, can be themed to look cool etc.
Konq have tabs, and I think everyone agree that Mozillas UI skinning idea was a bad one from day one, from a buisness standpoint (Company X can totally customize it, brand it, etc) it makes sense but for us regular users it’s just that extra nudge to make us use Phoenix, K-Meleon, Galeon etc rather then plain Mozilla, which is a shame really.
Mozilla does however render pages better, and not noticable slower either, which is why I type this in Galeon.
The dumbest feature in my mind mozilla is the ability to change the look of the browser. I don’t know why one should skin their browser. Music players maybe, but browser no way. I don’t really care how cool my browser looks. The important thing is the content of the web site, not the look of the browser. In that regard the Safari is pretty cool, as well as other browsers of course. However it seems that Safari really stressed on this issue, that is not getting between the user and the web content. Their interface is really clean.
Just get the mozilla-crystal skin at http://www.kde-look.org ; Was good enough to make me quiet about mozilla (which was’nt integrated well into bluecurve as well).
The answer is simple: Unlikely. The best way to really disaprove and approve of a rumour is to read their mailing lists. This isn’t Apple ya know, this is KDE.
Besides, while rather revolutionary for GNOME, neither GConf and GStreamer is all that great for KDE to adopt it.
Office is a common noun first, a name of a product second. Are you saying that once Microsoft uses a common word to name a product that others shouldn’t consider using it?
Isn’t Apple a common noun? So it is okay for Red Hat to use it right? Nope. Office have much better trademark backing than Windows mainly because no product before Office named their suite something similar to Office.
Besides, the point was not to respect Microsoft intelectual property and trademarks but rather to tone down on the confusion. If I place that menu infront of my mother or father, they would probably think that it contains Microsoft Office.
Especially since the “Office” menu contains applications from OpenOffice.org.
So why not name the menu OpenOffice.org? What’s wrong with Productivity? As if new users coming to Red Hat wouldn’t know what it means. Office, ask any average Joe, is normally a product from Microsoft. Nobody ever ask “What office do you use?” (except when asking what version in Asian countries :-).
“Productivity” is a bad choice for the menu name because it implies that the only way to be productive on a computer is to use it to write word documents or make spreadsheets.
Microsoft calls Office their productivity app. Apple calls AppleWorks their productivity app. Gobe calls their product Productive. Hancom calls Hancom Office as their productivity app. ’nuff said.
> > “Yes, I think that KMail and Konqueror are far
> > superior. I don’t give you any reasons why since
> > you didn’t gave any reasons why they are not.”
> What a troll.
Your answer disqualified you totally. There was a good reason for me to NOT give any reasons why I think it’s superior in first case. I don’t think calling me a troll is changing anything on this situation since I’m only explaining my point here which I think is my good right.
I agree to other writers here that KHTML may not be the BEST rendering engine but on the otherhand it’s not bloated as Mozilla with XUL and slow UI etc. From a design decision, speed, integration KHTML was well thought and perfectly integrated in KDE and for me as user who only likes to browse the one or other page it’s enough. I haven’t found one page so far where it failed and I have around 750 Links bookmarked. Some of the GNOME people still belive they that they could seamingless embedd Gecko into GNOME which is not possible and even GALEON or EPIPHANY (Marco’s new Webbrowser – The founder of GALEON) won’t change anything with this. Since Mozilla’s framework doesn’t allow seamingless integration. You still have to deal with XUL and other stuff and how many times in the past years (since GALEON saw it’s light) I heard from people wishing that Gecko would come as a separation little library without the need of Mozilla around it. All in all these applications aren’t bad and it’s not my intention to say anything negative about them. Just a clear sight about the situation. And yes Konqueror supports TABS for over 4 months now.
As for Evolution. Hell yes I love Evolution it’s a cool application if not one of the best apps available for GNOME my respect to the little team of hackers working around Evolution. But I also see a couple of sideviews in Evolution which makes me think that KMail is once again superior. In first case Evolution is a fully featured and integrated PIM and I personally tend to use the Email and Addressbook feature only. The rest is not necessary for me. That’s the power and advantages I see again in KMail, KAddressbook etc. The new KDE-PIM (will look like Outlook with the future comming versions of KDE but it still allows to run the apps as single one as used before) e.g. I can still run KMail because I only need the mailer and I can still run KAddressbook when I need too. I also think that these tiny tools (even if you run it in PIM mode (Outlook like)) are far supperior since all these apps could communicate amongst them. I can Sync my Palm, PocketPC (this Evolution can not), Cellphone. I can start KOffice and use my KAddressbook if I like to write a letter to a friend all this is not 100% possible on GNOME yet since most of the apps are still standalone applications. They could communicate over bonobo by using special written controls but not all apps support that. We need to think about these aspects too when we compare the applications over the Desktops and not limit our views on some fancy icons and coolness.
Once again I want to clarify that I don’t want to make the one or other look bad I only gave a clear objective unbiased (?) view of the things since I know both Desktops more or less perfectly good.
Evolution is a GREAT PIM, but it breaks way to often to really even be considered a 1.0 let alone 1.2. Example, why should I have to oaf-slay before starting evolution? Shoot on my desktop at work I had to switch to BALSA because no matter what I did the app wouldn’t start. It has potential, but they really need to get those bugs out.
[i]Isn’t Apple a common noun? So it is okay for Red Hat to use it right? Nope. Office have much better trademark backing than Windows mainly because no product before Office named their suite something similar to Office. [i]
A menu entry name isn’t a competing product to Office. Therefore, it isn’t a trademark infringement. You need to understand trademark law before you make comments like the one above. Trademark disputes only comes into play if someone creates a product or service that is similar to the one bearing the trademarked name. I can’t make a restaurant called “McDonalds”, but I can certainly sell writing intruments called “McDonald’s Fine Ballpoint Pens”. I can’t make a computer and call it an “Apple”, but I can certainly start an orchard and sell “Delicious Apples”.
You have talent Eugenia, that mockup is a clear improvement over original, the “Logout | Screenlock” could be alittle controversial though but it’s still sensible (bigger buttons for System/Important tasks etc).
All your suggestions are good, it was made as it is now for a reason but I can’t see why every single recommendation can’t be implemented (except the Logout|Screenlok which would require a bunch of custom drawing additions to menu).
Shame it was made against black bg, kind of makes the black border invisible and gives somewhat less good overview.
I read GUI design/layout at university a couple of years, judging by your mockup I assume you have done the same?