The official release is here and you can start downloading the KDE 3.2-beta2 from here.
KDE 3.2-beta2 Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I hope they’ve done more usability cleanups. These are the most important changes they could have been implemented IMHO. Not to flame, but I believe KDE are in desperate need of a HIG like GNOME. Probably a lot of GNOME users would flock to Konqueror, Kmail and all the rest if this was to occur.
Otherwise, it’ll be nice to see a new version of Kolf (the only KDE application I regularly use) :$
OSnews bombarding the FTP master server, great service. Please use http://ftp.kde.org or any other mirror.
My main concern is the startup speed. For the rest KDE needs OpenOffice intergration, make Konqueror render pages correctly (like Mozilla does).
Oh, yeah, why not clone Evolution to qt/KDE??
Yep KDE realy needs an HIG… GNOME is on it’s way to become mutch better than KDE.
KDE has a HIG, despite of you denying it. Guess how inconsistent the KDE apps would look otherwise.
There is a KDE Evolution clone at http://www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera/
I think Aethera might start being pay to use, since The Kompany is a company from what I can understand, and Aethera is labeled as a “product”. But for now, you can download it for free.
> My main concern is the startup speed.
It was improved. For the full speed use prelinking.
> Oh, yeah, why not clone Evolution to qt/KDE??
Try Kontact which is new in KDE 3.2.
> GNOME is on it’s way to become mutch better than KDE.
A long stony way.
> KDE has a HIG, despite of you denying it. Guess how
> inconsistent the KDE apps would look otherwise.
I think what you’re referring to is an implied HIG that incorporates features like the Application Framework, standard escape sequences and menu names for options like “Quit”, “Save”.. etc.
GNOME has a standard (the HIG) for non-standard buttons that are specific to individual applications. Some examples:
Removal of non-essential information from menu names:
— Original: Help System, Revised: Help
— Original: GNOME Search Tool, Revised: Search Tool
The use of status bars:
— Use status bars only in application or document windows.
— Do not use them in dialogs, alerts or other secondary windows.
— Only place a status bar along the bottom of a window.
— Only use status bars to display non-critical information.
Capitalization:
— Capitalize all words in the element, with the exceptions:
—- Articles: a, an, the
—- Conjunctions: and, but, for, not, so, yet
—- Prepositions of three or fewer letters: at, for, by, in, to
The list goes on. Does KDE have an equivalent standard’s document? Last time I checked it doesn’t. BTW, it’s irrelevent unless most apps abide by it.
GNOME HIG: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/
sorry, but the HIG from KDE ir really really bad. I really like konqueror, and some kde-application (korganizer looks cool!, k3b ist really sweet!), but i allways switch back to gnome, or window-maker because
– The menu in kde are too overloaded (they are also overloaded in kde 3.2, even it’s on the way to become better).
– There are too much icons. I know, u can customize it. But the default gnome looks *much* easier – and is still powerfull !
I also think that gnome is getting better and better. KDE has to react! What kde needs :
– a cleaner interface
– more frequent release
– more themes, icons (why not use the themes from gnome??)
HelloWorld
KDE3.2 will have Kontact ( http://www.kontact.org/ ). The website is not up-to-date but Kontact is a great PIM frame work and integrates nicely with Kolab ( http://kolab.kroupware.org/ ). It would be nice if Evolution would do the same…
> – The menu in kde are too overloaded (they are also overloaded in kde 3.2, even it’s on the way to become better).
I don’t understand. The menu composition depends on the application you have. The comment should be : “There is too many small apps which does the same thing (3 text editors, 2 image viewers…)”, in which I completely agree.
KDE should be much less tolerant and remove by default all the non useful apps.
> – There are too much icons. I know, u can customize it. But the default gnome looks *much* easier – and is still powerfull !
I don’t understand it either. Icons of KDE are soooooo much better than the Gnome one. Taste and colors…
> I also think that gnome is getting better and better. KDE > has to react! What kde needs :
> – a cleaner interface
Interface is great. Don’t touch it ! :o)
> – more frequent release
I agree with that.
> – more themes, icons (why not use the themes from gnome??)
See http://www.kde-look.org
A huge repository.
By the way, gnome themes are ugly. why gnome doesn’t use the one from KDE ?
And, and I would like to have more KDE-aware apps (I have never enough of them).
Why is every KDE post in this forum met with cries over KDE’s (supposed) lock of a HIG, overcrowded menus and toolbars, etc…? People, get over it, please.
For once I’d like to see some discussion on what makes KDE so damn good and better than anything that’s currently available for *nix, namely their _awesome_ architecture — KParts, DCOP, XMLGUI, etc.
For once, I’d like to see some of the GNOME fans out there actually compare KDE and GNOME in terms of their respective underlying technologies instead of focusing on HIGs and toolbars.
Klutter.
That’s the main issue of KDE + applications.
For Gentoo users it’s already in portage!
When installing it will place itself on side of any stable KDE installation, so you can play around with it without messing your existing KDE up.
…Now I’m off compiling, thanx good for distcc
Yeah the thing I find bad is the big K in the kicker and the toolbars, I can’t get used those toolbars.
Also Konqueror doesn’t feel like a web browser, instead it feels like a file manager that happens to be able to embed HTML.
I would love for someone a program that feels and acts like what we know as web browser, but uses KHTML, and is incredibly lightweight so redraws are minimised.
PS. KDE apps behave quicker when they are not in their own environment. eg. Fluxbox. What I do is launch fluxbox, type kdeinit in an xterm, and KDE apps launch quicker than in KDE and also are more responsive. I hope this is addressed in future KDE’s. Of course by then I may no longer have a K6-2 450Mhz.
BTW, HIG = Human Interface Guidelines
for those of you who hate acronyms.
For once, I’d like to see some of the GNOME fans out there actually compare KDE and GNOME in terms of their respective underlying technologies instead of focusing on HIGs and toolbars.
Don’t you understand, they’re the only things going for it, apart from the hype. When it boils down to it, we have GNOME in one corner with applications hobbled together and collectively called “GNOME Desktop” and on the other side we have KDE with applications that develop in direct tandem with the desktop itself and as a result, everything is nicely integrated.
As for an office suite, IMHO, nothing would please me more than KOffice become a competitor to MS Office and OpenOffice.org. For all of OpenOffice.org’s good points, IMHO, it is still a bloated pig and lacks an integrated DB and Outlook/Notes clone.
Really, it irks me that people go on, and on, and on, raving that gnome has a HIG. KDE has one since KDE 1, and the whole infrastructure of the desktop is such that all apps conform automatically to the style-guide.
Anyway, I use the CVS version, and a lot of effort went into uncluttering the menus and simplyfing the interface — without diminishing user control. KDE in The Interface done right. At least the UNIX interface : components, reuse, power and network transparency.
Just to troll a bit : windows is horrid : neither simple nor powerfull, macOS X is simple, but much too unpowerful for me (the most important piece of the env is the Finder ; and compared to konqy, it sucks so hard it is not funny ; comme back to me when it previews everything under the sun and browses everything as well…)
> Why is every KDE post in this forum met with cries over
> KDE’s (supposed) lock of a HIG, overcrowded menus
> and toolbars, etc…? People, get over it, please.
Supposed lack of a HIG? What is this HIG of which you speak? Simple, KDE has no HIG. Overcrowded menus and poorly designed/cluttered toolbars are a reality (in KDE anyway) that frighten newbies and hinder the productivity of experienced users.
> For once I’d like to see some discussion on what makes KDE
> so damn good and better than anything that’s currently
> available for *nix, namely their _awesome_ architecture —
> KParts, DCOP, XMLGUI, etc.
“Better than anything that’s currently available for *nix”?
Your words, not mine. This is purely subjective and I would appreciate if you think before you type. This kind of zealotry will not help KDE.
> For once, I’d like to see some of the GNOME fans out there
> actually compare KDE and GNOME in terms of their respective
> underlying technologies instead of focusing on HIGs and
> toolbars.
Yes, KDE is very modular and so is GNOME to a certain extent. GNOME is cleaner under the hood IMHO.
This brings back another point. Are these desktop environments for the developers or for the average end user. Usually, ease of use and stability will help the end user more than the underlying technologies.
Supposed lack of a HIG? What is this HIG of which you speak? Simple, KDE has no HIG. Overcrowded menus and poorly designed/cluttered toolbars are a reality (in KDE anyway) that frighten newbies and hinder the productivity of experienced users.
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/
And I suppose this is a recipe for lemon cream tart ? Frankly, raving about whatever PR comes from the GNOME project is just as absurd as raving about the PR of Apple or microsoft.
And yes, the architecture is important for the end-user : people complain about the GTK file-dialog. Rightfully so. a new one will come out, having a cleaner interface. Except it still wont be it, because KDE’s file-dialog is not better because of its layout but because it is network transparent and allows you to save through fish:// or https://.
It is frequently said that DEs are for average users. Except there is no such beast as an average user. But all users, beginners and gurus alike like homogeneity, things that are orthogonal and pervasive. And this, architecture gives you “for free”. rewriting your interface to conform to the HIG is a waste of time. It is a waste of time because this time is better spent writing a framework that will generate the proper interface automatically :
– menus in the same order, at the same place
– toolbars at the same place with the same buttons
– same services available for all apps.
Of course it is important that the dialogs be well designed. But again, architecture allows you to rebuild the UI without touching the code. wich in turns allows people interested to redo wathever piece of the app independently of the developper.
And it is what is happening in the CVS.
Just as an aside, it’d be cool if there was a project that would split konqueror from kdebase and make it a viable standalone browser like opera. That would be a fast and light browser, faster than any of the Mozilla-based ones even.
http://dot.kde.org/1055539007/1055544932/1055545303/1055546879/1055…
If you apply GNOME’s HIG to KDE (see above URL), KDE is actually quite compliant to it. Of course, some parts of KDE will never match how GNOME does it (things like reversed buttons, and perhaps instant apply), but overall KDE fits the GNOME HIG. Note that this was a comparison done with very early versions of KDE 3.2. There were a lot of usability cleanups done in it later on.
Note that this is a list of where KDE does not match the GNOME HIG. A list of where KDE matches the GNOME HIG would be MUCH MUCH bigger.
> http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/
> And I suppose this is a recipe for lemon cream tart ?
> Frankly, raving about whatever PR comes from the GNOME
> project is just as absurd as raving about the PR of Apple or
> microsoft.
A Kream_Tart indeed. While I acknowledge that this is a start, it doesn’t hold a candle to GNOME’s HIG. This KDE guidlines thing that you mention mainly discusses implementation details and such with accompanying code-examples. It barely discusses common UI problems faced by users, their causes or their solutions.
This isn’t raving about the GNOME project’s PR, just common knowledge acquired from using GNOME for many years.
Also Konqueror doesn’t feel like a web browser, instead it feels like a file manager that happens to be able to embed HTML.
Funny, IE feels like that to me too….
> GNOME is cleaner under the hood IMHO.
Ah, that’s the reason for having two different html rendering engines in GNOME desktop and with the inclusion of Evolution in GNOME 2.6 maybe soon three different html engines.
You say you don’t want to flame, but you do it. 🙁
> Removal of non-essential information from menu names:
> — Original: Help System, Revised: Help
> — Original: GNOME Search Tool, Revised: Search Tool
Funny examples, just showing that you never used KDE. It’s called “Help” and “Find Files” in KDE and I can’t remember it was ever called “KDE Find Files” or “Help System”.
> The use of status bars:
> — Do not use them in dialogs, alerts or other secondary windows.
> — Only place a status bar along the bottom of a window.
I never saw a status bar in a dialog or at the top of a window.
> Capitalization:
Good point. KDE is far more consistent with capitalization rules and trailing ellipsis than GNOME. Just compare some random GNOME applications, “About…”<->”About”, sentence style capitalization in file dialog captions, sentence style in groupboxes and so…
> > GNOME is cleaner under the hood IMHO.
> Ah, that’s the reason for having two different html
> rendering engines in GNOME desktop and with the inclusion of
> Evolution in GNOME 2.6 maybe soon three different html
> engines.
I agree that this is a suboptimal situation. But remember, Konqueror has two (when Konqueror-Mozilla is taken into account) and KDE ships with 3 text editors by default. Kedit, Kate and Kwrite. I could continue but I believe that these examples cover the point.
Your posts prove that you are a YAAG, Yet Another Angry Gnomer. You post about a project you have little knoledge of, you did _not_ try the beta 1, you are probably _not_ trying beta 2. You don’t know about the kde usability improvements, you don’t care about kde-usability list, and you say the same thing over and over again.
I have been running KDE CVS for a long time. I have a Pentium 350 with 128mb. KDE 3.2 is much faster, even compiled with debug info. And Konqueror is great. Fast, and very usable. Context menus have been cleaned a lot, toolbars too. Try the new plastik style. Lot less flicker, more usable. Integration have been improved (example: kopete – kadressbook). Did you notice KDevelop?
People, it is great. I have been contributing a bit with context help for dialogs (.ui files).
Kontact won’t be 100% ready in terms of groupware, but we will see a Pim only release later with full kolab integration out of the box. Client and server. Free. Easy to manage. No paid connector. And the ability to talk to Outlook clients (if you pay for the Outlook plug-in) or Aethera for Windows. If you want full groupware support today, you can do it today. Try the kde-pim kroupware branch. It is very stable, and well tested.
All this without so much companies money, proving that the framework is better. Less code, more work.
I hope the next pim release integrates better Kwallet and Kgpg tools to Kmail and Kontact. I hope for a shorter release cicle too.
Funny examples, just showing that you never used KDE. It’s called “Help” and “Find Files” in KDE and I can’t remember it was ever called “KDE Find Files” or “Help System”.
Take for example:
KMix: “Help->KMix Handbook” (KMix is unneccessary)
Noatun: “Settings->Configure Noatun” (Noatun is unneccessary)
> I never saw a status bar in a dialog or at the top of a
> window. [in KDE]
I gather you’ve never used KMid then.
> Good point. KDE is far more consistent with capitalization
> rules and trailing ellipsis than GNOME. Just compare some
> random GNOME applications, “About…”<->”About”, sentence
> style capitalization in file dialog captions, sentence
> style in groupboxes and so…
You complain about GNOME placing “…” after about but KDE does this too: “File->Open…”
Note: Before accussing me of being pedantic and taking little breaches of these UIGs, take a look at a number of KDE applications and observe for yourself how almost all of them have inconsistencies like this at some level.
Again, OSNews covers KDE rather badly, for whatever reason. No, let’s not wait for the announcement (I mean, it’s not like KDE.org could possibly have reasons for the announcement not being up yet, hm?), yeah, let’s link to the master server (mirrors? who needs mirrors?).
This is not intended as “trolling”, mind you – this is criticism and very relevant to the topic at hand. I consider this both bad journalistic behaviour on your part, and also bad for the site itself – without the announcement, this thread is almost bound to become another pointless Gnome vs. KDE treadmill.
Hasn’t it all been said already? I’d rather have some *content* to respond to. I hope you will update the news posting once the announcement is up
.
I use KDE all the time and I think there is room to improve, but the whole criticism about clutterd menus confuses me.
I download all the new builds and the first thing I do when its up is use the menu editor and cutom the menu to my liking, which is clean and only has the apps I want.
I can even add menus. Customizing KDE is somewhat idiot proof,
and even the users who don’t want to customize it themselves there are distros out there that do a good job of packaging a clean KDE desktop for you.
So in my opinion please KDE, do not remove choice from the desktop.
I think KDE 3.2 is going to be a pretty solid release.. there is a lot of new stuff and stuff changed. Most of it polish to existing apps or needs, and that is a very good thing. What I particularily like:
Konqueror (or perhaps khtml) is MUCH faster now, especially in rendering. The new tab system in Konqueror is like Mozillas, and includes a close button in the tabbar (very key). It has a faster feel than firebird does these days. I still keep Moz around for the occaisional broken page, but i’ve replaced it for Konqueror as my main browser now. What I really miss in Mozilla now a days is integrated spell checking of forms, which Konqueror 3.2 and Safari do very well. It’s a MUST have feature after you use it for a while. Also Konqueror includes SVG support now
Kontact (KDE’s new PIM suite) is pretty damn good. I was skeptical that merging in several different apps using components would not have a integrated feel, but they’ve done a very nice job of making sure everything is integrated well so it feels like one app, and not five. Kmail and korganizer have almost caught up with Evolution’s feature set, including nice things like disconnected IMAP and eGroupware support.
Juk is a very nice new music app. It’s a lot better than KDE’s past offerings in this area (erm, Noatun). It’s the only music app besides xmms that’s been able to handle my 4600 song playlist. I’ve tried things like rhythmbox, but it simply isn’t optimized well for long playlists.
Kopete– Finally KDE includes a multiprotocol playlist. Again, KDE’s past offerings in this area (kit/ksirc) have been crap. Kopete is a very nice app however. Older versions were quite featureful, but quite unstable. The one in CVS seems to be quite stable for me. It compares very well with GAIM, which is also a nice app.
Plastik – a very nice theme that is included in KDE 3.2. It’s somewhat like a little less flat Industrial. I love it. It’s clean, it’s pretty, and it’s slick. I really hope the next version of KDE makes it default. They couldn’t for 3.2 since they had JUST switched in 3.1.
Crystal 1.0 – a new pure-SVG version of the old Crystal icons. I wasn’t a big fan of the old Crystal icons, but the new ones, which are default in 3.2, are great. Here is an image of it: http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?file=8341-2.jpg
khotkeys – yup, global mouse gestures and macros in any app. I have five gestures for Konqueror, and three for kwin. Works great 🙂
Usability improvements – a lot of usability changes were made in the base desktop (kcontrol, kicker, konqueror) especially. Konqueror 3.1’s horrendious context menus were cleaned up to a very optimal size, the kmenu has labelled catagories now (very key for usability, but not as invasive as XP’s startmenu), and many control panels were cleaned up. There is a new interface to use control panels in 3.2: the settings:/ kioslave. It works great!
> and even the users who don’t want to customize it themselves there are distros out there that do a good job of packaging a clean KDE desktop for you.
Indeed.. It’s pretty much the distros or system admin’s job to do what they want with it. It’s extremely easy to do with KDE, because of KIOSK mode, which lets you strip down KDE however you want. It’s easy to do from the end user’s point too, but you can do more through KIOSK.
Matthew Baulch: I hope they’ve done more usability cleanups. These are the most important changes they could have been implemented IMHO. Not to flame, but I believe KDE are in desperate need of a HIG like GNOME. Probably a lot of GNOME users would flock to Konqueror, Kmail and all the rest if this was to occur.
Why is it that everytime KDE is mentioned here at OSNews, someones mention this, another post a link of something that somewhat resembles a HIG, and yet this is repeated over and over again? Besides, HIG doesn’t promise anything besides consistency. And the amount of KDE i use, I sincerely don’t think consistency is where KDE is lacking.
HelloWorld: – The menu in kde are too overloaded (they are also overloaded in kde 3.2, even it’s on the way to become better).
A HIG won’t help that. Mac OS has a very good HIG, and there’s some applications that follow it right to the last detail yet have overloaded menus. Tell me, which part of GNOME’s HIG tells how loaded GNOME’s menus should be? Is it so that GNOME’s menus aren’t that loaded because they have less features? Oh, gasp, perish the thought!
Romain: I don’t understand. The menu composition depends on the application you have. The comment should be : “There is too many small apps which does the same thing (3 text editors, 2 image viewers…)”, in which I completely agree.
KDE should be much less tolerant and remove by default all the non useful apps.
Uhmm, when I installed KDE, I probably know what I’m doing. I don’t mind many mulitple types of text editors and whatnot. But for newbies from Windows and Mac, you can’t blame KDE. Blame the distributor. There’s nothing in KDE blocking distributors from leaning the KMenu.
Besides, how can KDE remove non-default applications in GNOME? I use GIMP on Linux, but certainly don’t use it as default to open all my image files. Does it mean that GIMP would not appear on my menu?
Rich: Klutter.
That’s the main issue of KDE + applications.
Heh, KDE doesn’t seem all that cluttered to me. A lot of features yes? Many times poorly arranged? Yes. Cluttered to a point where is confusing and uncomfortable to use? Nope.
John Blink: Yeah the thing I find bad is the big K in the kicker and the toolbars, I can’t get used those toolbars.
Yeah, I hate that too. But when I’m using KDE, I don’t even consider using Konqui for web browsing (Opera fanatic here)
John Blink: KDE apps behave quicker when they are not in their own environment. eg. Fluxbox. What I do is launch fluxbox, type kdeinit in an xterm, and KDE apps launch quicker than in KDE and also are more responsive.
That’s because there are more backgroun apps that require more memory than fluxbox. Why remove that? Why not just create “KDE-lite” or something, based on Fluxbox, those who like a minimalistic desktop can use the Lite version…
Matthew Baulch: Supposed lack of a HIG? What is this HIG of which you speak? Simple, KDE has no HIG. Overcrowded menus and poorly designed/cluttered toolbars are a reality (in KDE anyway) that frighten newbies and hinder the productivity of experienced users.
Geeezzz:
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/i…
There’s also workgroups on usability and accessiblity:
http://accessibility.kde.org/
http://usability.kde.org/
Suprising isn’t it? And if you followed what’s going on behind the curtains, there is a lot being done about usability.
Matthew Baulch Yes, KDE is very modular and so is GNOME to a certain extent. GNOME is cleaner under the hood IMHO.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black. Just a few lines ago you said “his is purely subjective and I would appreciate if you think before you type.”
Matthew Baulch: A Kream_Tart indeed. While I acknowledge that this is a start, it doesn’t hold a candle to GNOME’s HIG. This KDE guidlines thing that you mention mainly discusses implementation details and such with accompanying code-examples. It barely discusses common UI problems faced by users, their causes or their solutions.
Go to usability.kde.org. And I read through GNOME’s HIG – there aren’t many code examples there. Mac OS X doesn’t have any code samples in their HIG, is their HIG inferior to GNOME’s? That’s news to me. Besides, you said KDE didn’t have a HIG, not KDE had a terrible HIG. And the fact that you probably just glance through it (after all, you just realize its existance) makes your opinion hard to accept.
Besides, the main reason of having a HIG is consistency. That is already achieved in KDE. Just say KDE developers feel their current file dialog (which is very good, IMHO) stinks the high heavens, they could easily change it with minimal effect on other developers. You see, that’s the difference.
And besides, what’s the point of a HIG when most applications don’t follow it to the last detail?
And KDE 3.2 has a lot of usability goodies in it. The menus, while nothing to write home about, it visibly cleaner and more arranged. There seem to be more thought in KControl, while core default apps like Konqueror had many things cleaned any changed.
>Icons of KDE are soooooo much better than the Gnome one. >Taste and colors…
Everyone has his/her own taste. And my taste tells me that KDE icons/theme can’t even compare to the stuff Jimmac and Tigert create. The only wat to log in to KDE for me was that I found out Korilla theme (klone of Gorilla) and Plastic them (thanks for it’s creator). Thanks to them KDE looks like something now. Again, this is only a taste which is different with everyone.
>Interface is great. Don’t touch it ! :o)
It is not, read my lips: IT IS NOT. Why does konqueror change all the icons on toolbar and other stuff when I click on new tab button? Where is the setting to turn off the status bar in Konq? How can I disable window titles on task bar displaying bold? KDE’s feature is beaing configurable but actually it is not
Everytime I launch KDE kontrol Center I look at it just like seing it for the first time in my life. It is not memorasable. Yet there are many other issues with interface so it is far from perfect.
> – more frequent release
No need for that if you do the right job but in one year.
>See http://www.kde-look.org
>A huge repository.
>By the way, gnome themes are ugly. why gnome doesn’t use >the one from KDE ?
Can you please show me a theme for KDE that is comparable with Industrial, Gorilla or even Simple theme for Gnome?
No, there is not. I am a graphic designer and this is my point of view. I find KDE’s themes too colorfull (like it tries to attrackt 6 year old). This is bad from the side when you have to produce something.
>And, and I would like to have more KDE-aware apps (I have >never enough of them).
What do you mean by this?
Please note that I am not a Gnome fan. I try to use both.
I’ll tell you things I like about KDE:
1.Interface is fast. Yes, QT feels much faster than GTK for me.
2.It just works: for a strange reason I never managed keyboard swither, Printscreen and file assoc. to work in Gnome. Sometimes Keyboard shortcuts don’t even work. It never happens in KDE though.
3. Kbabel, K3b and other great software that don’t have any clones on Gnome side.
4. Development system: Especially the process with CVS. It is much easier to work for me as a translator with KDE CVS system thatn Gnome’s.
Again, I am desperately waiting for the time KDE gets polished in interface and themes point. After that it would be a great pleasure to use it.
As one has said here months before. Open Nautilus, open Konqueror. Select one file in Nautilus and do the same in Konqueror. Feel the difference, the smoothness of Gnome. I am waiting for the moment I can’t feel any difference desperately.Let’s see what 3.2 brings to us.
Thanks for your time.
<< For once I’d like to see some discussion on what makes KDE so damn good and better than anything that’s currently available for *nix, namely their _awesome_ architecture — KParts, DCOP, XMLGUI, etc.>>
Don’t you see, people argue these “HIG” points endlessly because they don’t actually understand the underlying technology. So all they’re really qualified to do is enter into a big p*ssing contest about who has better icons and nicer themes.
As freedesktop.org becomes more mature, we’ll see KDE inheriting some of the elegance of GNOME, and GNOME inheriting some of KDE’s tight integration. Those guys are doing a lot of work to make Linux more useable for everybody.
> I find KDE’s themes too colorfull (like it tries to attrackt 6 year old). This is bad from the side when you have to produce something.
Have you seen KDE’s color control panel and icons control panel? Try icons->Advanced->Set Effect->To Gray. You can make everything lose it’s color that way
I don’t think KDE is going to become any less colorful anytime soon. This is because a main complaint that KDE versions before 3.1 looked too bland. That’s why things like Crystal and Keramik were made default in 3.1 in the first place.
> Go to usability.kde.org. And I read through GNOME’s HIG –
> there aren’t many code examples there. Mac OS X doesn’t have
> any code samples in their HIG, is their HIG inferior to
> GNOME’s?
You seem to think that I’m advocating code samples in HIGs. No, I’m saying that a HIG shouldn’t have code samples. HIG are user design guidelines not developer design guidelines. GNOME’s HIG is largely inspired by Apple’s, hence I have a lot of respect for the Apple HIG.
> That’s news to me. Besides, you said KDE didn’t
> have a HIG, not KDE had a terrible HIG. And the fact that
> you probably just glance through it (after all, you just
> realize its existance) makes your opinion hard to accept.
I have read KDE’s usability guidelines in the past. It’s just that they don’t qualify to me as a HIG in the way that GNOME’s and Apple’s do.
If you like KDE, use it but if GNOME suits you better, use it. I’m merely explaining why I don’t use KDE and prefer GNOME. This is intended as a hint in the right direction, not a stab in the neck.
I use KDE as my desktop since few months, before it was all WMaker. Im happy with KMail, Quanta, KDevelop, Konsole and KGolf.;-) Is KDE slow? It’s as responsive as W2k was on my box before I’ve leave my MS episode behind me. Is it fat? My / partion where all stuff sits (mind 2.4.22 and 2.6.0 kernel sources) eats up around 2gb. That includes users homedirs, e-mails, webpages, KDE and my work. Should KDE dump 3 editors? Why? I think running Linux is all about choices. For fast editing I’ll choose KWrite, while my friend will stick to Kate. When it comes to code I’d go with Quanta — someone else will run vim. You like Gnome HID? Go Gnome. Dislike it? Go elsewhere. Dislike KDE? Join the krowd and help developers. Ranting won’t help.
well, the architecture is great but it is not implimented properly across the board to make a streamlined under experience. Gnome is doing this.
KDE ships with 3 text editors by default. Kedit, Kate and Kwrite.
Actually that is two.
KEdit and Kate. KWrite is just a single document view of a Kate editor.
KEdit is still needed becaue Kate lacks BiDi support.
Some languages are not written from left to right
I don’t think anyone using a left-to-right language is using KEdit, so effectivly there is only one text editor in KDE.
Of course you could say that one is still one to much, but I hope you thinkg as well, that one text editor is nice to have
> > I never saw a status bar in a dialog or at the top of a window. [in KDE]
> I gather you’ve never used KMid then.
I have KMid of KDE 3.2 in front of me and don’t see a status bar at all.
> You complain about GNOME placing “…” after about but KDE does this too: “File->Open…”
You don’t understand it. I said nothing against “…”, they symbolize further required input, but inconsistent usage and misusage in GNOME (what information does an About dialog require before it’s displayed/executed)?
> ake a look at a number of KDE applications and observe for yourself how almost all of them have inconsistencies like this at some level.
“Almost all”? And you want not to flame? Have a look into the mirror/on GNOME first.
Geez, guys! Why can’t we all just get along?
Here’s OSNews telling us (prematurely) about a new Beta release of KDE and hop, everybody starts pissing on everybody else’s work…..
Can’t you guys put all that pent-up frustration in to putting some muscle in freedesktop.org? If you prefer Gnome, more power to you! Gnome has a indusrial quality HIG, has a ‘business’ feel to it, comes with a couple of GREAT applications, no doubt about it, but coming in this tread just to say ‘KDE sux, Gnome rules’ is very childish indeed. And Matthew’s ‘I’m merely explaining why I don’t use KDE and prefer GNOME’-excuse for bashing KDE doesn’t fly because this tread is for the launch of a KDE 3.2 beta. WTF would anybody care why someone prefers Gnome. This news item is not about Gnome! Take it somewhere else!
Ah, well… now look. I’m doing it myself. Dang!
>I don’t understand it either. Icons of KDE are soooooo much better than the Gnome one. Taste and colors…
ok, if u like crystal, it’s great. But what is, if i dont like crystal ? And is almost inpossible to get ride of it in KDE. Change u icon theme, take for example lush, coolgorilla, or slick, but then, there are *still* this ugly crystal-icons remaining. Thats because there are not good complete themes yet.
And About the menu – I thing we meaned something else. go under File, file, and u will see a big big menu. open u bookmarks under konqueror, and u got for each submenu 3-4 items like : add bookmark, delete bookmark. Thats not usefull ! I think, there a not more as 4-5 entry needed . File, edit, view, Bookmarks, help.
Option is under edit. full screen under view. It’s easier, takes less place.
p.s. : my english is really bad, sorry!
I’m emerging kdebase-3.2.0_beta2.ebuild on my Gentoo box as we speak and look forward to test the *greatest* desktop for Linux.
However, I do get the impression that OSnews is biased towards GNOME. This is unfortunate, since KDE is on many aspects superior to GNOME, especially in architectural sense. This cannot be denied.
The fact that GNOME has decided to cut configurability to a minimum has offended me: I want control over my DE and KDE offers that flexibility.
GNOME has put hard work into the look-n-feel of the desktop rather than underlying architecture, and they have succeeded: GNOME looks cute, but not professional.
KDE, on the other hand, focuses on implementation, functionality and structural cohesiveness of apps in the DE. GNOME is cute, but light years behind.
One thing I would like is for the Internet Konq and the File Manager Konq to be somewhat seperate. Yes, similar to Windows. Windows has “Internet Explorer” and “Windows Explorer” they both use the same underlying engine, but they behave more appropriately than Konq.
For example, Internet Explorer doesn’t have hundreds of options for file management in its preferences menu, Konqueror does however. Why can’t there be a switch “-internet” for example, that starts Konquerer in “web browser” mode, and adjusts the menus and preferences accordingly?
Don’t get me wrong, I hate Internet Explorer, however, I think the idea of seperating the interface of the web browser and file browser is a good one, whether or not in reality they are the same application.
Until then, I will continue using Opera.
I think this one is getting a bit off-topic, but I will never understand why some people like Gnome. I used Gnome back then, 1.4 I think, but dumped it as soon as KDE 3.0 became available. KDE is very powerfull and integrated, Gnome is a toy. I installed Gnome 2.4 on my girlfriend’s PC some weeks ago, now I’m installing KDE. Why?
– Gnome printer setup is nothing compared to KDE’s.
– Gnome office is laughable. Abiword crashes all the time, making it impossible to write even one, short letter.
– The menus are nothing to write home about, they aren’t clean, there simply is _no_ functionallity. I had to try three Gnome apps to print a PDF, ’cause the first two apps I tried had the ability to render PDF’s, but no ‘print’ button.
Gnome reminds me of Windows 3.11, it seems to be an everlasting ‘work-in-progress’ trying to become some sort of a usable interface anytime 2012. I don’t like GTK (slow, to simplistic, always butt-ugly), I don’t like the themes (they all look mostly alike, and a blue pig will still look like a pig), I don’t like the icons (come on, who could even try to compare those to Everaldo’s or Carlitus’ icons) – and last, but not least, the Gnome HIG is all about removing funtionality, usability and choices…
Don’t talk about toolbar icons not being replaced! In GNOME almost every theme uses those horrid GNOME default icons.
If you had ever visited KDE-Look.org you’d see that the KDE icon themes are far more complete and comprehensive than GNOME’s.
As for the themes, I can’t tell you how annoying it is that I can’t just fire up a color scheme changing program when I am using GNOME. Why can’t I change my damn color scheme like Windows and KDE allow me to? Why does everything have to be boring grey?
Many people seem to since it is being adopted at a much more rapid rate than KDE.
-G
With all this talk about the underlying technology, I think it comes down to QT being OO (C++) and GTK being C
Inaccurate example to follow….
item.colour = “FF00FF”;
gnome_canvas_item_set_attribute(GNOME_CANVAS_ITEM(item), “colour”, “FF00FF”);
It may not seem like much, but when you are trying to do something non-trivial, then read the code later, I think i’d perfer QT.
Oddly enough I program for and love Gnome, but I fear that it’s days are numbered because it is not OO. Managing the increasing complexity without object orientation is going to be a nightmare IMO. Maybe gtkmm will become the defacto standard for it. Even then, it’s a wrapper, not a solution.
That doesn’t make it any better…
Remember, Windows is used on about 90% of all PC’s, but it still sucks. 😉
I used KDE for quite a while, it’s pretty nice and not much slower than Gnome. I use Gnome now though simply because I change themes so much and it’s difficult to find gtk and qt themes that look close to the same. Since most of my apps are GTK anyway, I just use Gnome.
I’m also starting to like the interface better. Both KDE and Gnome currently lack something that really needs to happen:
A NEW INTERFACE IDEA.
But seriously, an easy improvement to KDE:
Include at least 50 themes with GTK themes to match them. You’ve got a great group of themers at kdelook.org.
item.colour = “FF00FF”;
People who do OO-programming will slam that in your face. You write getters and setters, because it is very bad programming if you can do that. :^)
But seriously, an easy improvement to KDE:
Include at least 50 themes with GTK themes to match them. You’ve got a great group of themers at kdelook.org.
That’s nonsense. Talk about a usability nightmare. If you’re into theming, you’ll know where to get themes.
As far as your reason for using GNOME, that just makes no sense. You use GNOME because it has fewer themes that look like KDE ones. Why not just use KDE apps only or use KDE and pick GNOME themes that resemble KDE ones.
In reality they both need to be integrated with each other.
> As for the themes, I can’t tell you how annoying it is that I can’t just fire up a color scheme changing program when I am using GNOME. Why can’t I change my damn color scheme like Windows and KDE allow me to? Why does everything have to be boring grey?
color can be changed with themes, and there are a lot which or not grey. But u have a point there, because it’s really sad, there is no possibility to change the colors individualy under gnome.
But what belongs icons. I can really not believe that u find the ones from kde-look nice ! Because I tried for very long times to change the look from my kde, but I never got something good. Perharps, if i change every button individually, I would get something that looks nice, but that takes to much time. The matter with cristall is that it’s too colored. Than u change to an other icons-theme, there are still cristall-icons remaining, and they are bleeding u eyes because they are yellow, orange, blue.
I think it’s not true that icons under gnome looks bad, but it’s my opinion.
I tried :
Lush, Sandy, Gnome, Amaranth, Nuvola, and wasp under gnome and they are all consistent.
Under KDE, I tried slick, CoolGorilla, noia, aqua, but it’s allways the same : lots of icons from crystall stay here, and that looks ugly ! that is needed is an option like :
* I want to use the icons [place here the icons theme u want] with Crystall/”Old KDE icons” :
so u can choose from which icons u want u theme to herit if there’s no icon available.
Oh, and i don’t write all that to troll, because I really think kde is a nice thing, even if i use gnome. I think the the printer manager under kde is superb, konqueror is a nice app, and Kate is one of the best editors available under linux. What I don’t like is arts …. (why don’t all application not use the same sound server??? I need a arts plugin for every application if I want to play sound under kde!)
> Also Konqueror doesn’t feel like a web browser, instead it feels like a file manager that happens to be able to embed HTML.
please don’t. the reason I use KDE is because it is all integrated and not like gnome where you need a different app for everything. FTP file manager should be one,they both manage files-thus taskwise they already are. . Please use Gnome if you like Gnome but don’t turn KDE into Gnome.We need some difference.
Actually, it sounds as though you don’t like the style used by those who make KDE icons. In fact, almost all KDE themes include their own icons for just about every widget. This is not true for GNOME. If you go and look inside the icon directory for each theme, you’ll see that GNOME themes have about 1/3 as many icons (except for Gorilla). Many GNOME themes only change the folder icons and a few mimetypes. Almost none of them changes that godawful home directory icon which looks like a melted rubber dollhouse.
Almost all icon themes that are available for GNOME are on KDE, too. Lush, Amaranth, Nuvola are there for instance
to amiror :
I completly agree with u
That was, what I wanted to say !
The problem with most KDE iconsets is that they are not complete. The latest Noia is pretty complete, and so is Crystal SVG, Kids and some others…
And you’re right, it’s really sad you can’t change all colors of GTK themes, I wanted to use GTK Galaxy ’cause it’s pretty close to KDE Plastik, but the colors don’t match (I don’t like Galaxy’s colors, so changing KDE’s colors was out of question). I’m emerging KDE 3.2beta now, so I’m finally able to dump Evolution (it’s the only GTK app I use, anyway).
BTW, Arts is not so bad, I’ve set Arts to sleep after 3 seconds of inactivity, so I’m able to use OSS/ ALSA/ whatever apps without any hassle. And Gnome’s esound doesn’t like multichannel soundcards, so it’s unusable (using an Envy24).
>Actually, it sounds as though you don’t like the style used by those who make KDE icons.
True.:-(
> If you go and look inside the icon directory for each theme, you’ll see that GNOME themes have about 1/3 as many icons (except for Gorilla).
No. I tried, nuvola, Sandy, gnome-plain, gnome-old, gorilla, nuvola, amaranth and wasp, and they cover all mimetipes.
And, yeah, they are also the high-contrast icons … They are also important. (My desktop is everythere high contrast, with white brackground, that looks like an old amiga
)
>Almost all icon themes that are available for GNOME are on KDE, too. Lush, Amaranth, Nuvola are there for instance
And there is again my old matter : Than I select them, they are again this ugly crystall icons remaining. A complete Lush Theme under kde would be nice, I thing, I would switch when.
> BTW, Arts is not so bad, I’ve set Arts to sleep after 3 seconds of inactivity, so I’m able to use OSS/ ALSA/ whatever apps without any hassle.
Oh, that’s a great idea.
. perhabs I should also do that
And there is again my old matter : Than I select them, they are again this ugly crystall icons remaining. A complete Lush Theme under kde would be nice, I thing, I would switch when.
Examples, please?
One reason that KDE takes longer to release is that all of the applications are upgraded at once. GNOME apps tend to be released individually. The best example of this is the so-called GNOME Office which, in reality, has almost no integration whatsoever. The applications do not function similarly.
You talk about HIG. GNOME doesn’t follow its own guidelines. Just look at where its most famous productivity apps put their preference menus.
Abiword: Tools|Preferences
Evolution: Tools|Settings
Gnumeric: File|Preferences
Nautilus: Edit|Preferences
Not to mention the fact that every one of these apps also has different pneumonics (underlined letters).
If the GNOMEs on this forum (including Eugenia) would ever bother to actually use the applications for a while, they’d see that KDE applications are much more consistent.
I don’t want to hear another GNOME complaint about consistency until all of these bugs have been fixed.
and KDE ships with 3 text editors by default. Kedit, Kate and Kwrite.
This are not “only” text editors. The “only” text editor is kedit and it’s very usefull.
Kate is a near professional programing editor capable off open 4 – 5 + files with a tab bar, it does syntax highlight which kedit does not. Its goal is to edit program files and ‘make files’ all together with a dockable ‘opened files’ dialog. Not for text editing!
It’s a very powerfull file editing app with no correspondance on Gnome.
Kedit is for writing plain text FAQ or README and text files for eamil. The goal is a RAM lightweight and fast start text editor
Kwrite has syntax highlight and is a more for shell scripting (csh or bash, awk/sed, javascript, etc.)
Therefore, there is no repeating apps here, unless you use KDE very much you will not understand it and will think they all do the same, they don’t.
The same goes for KMail and Knode, etc.
Konqueror is the file browser, khtml is the html/web browser (not a very good browser I just admit
.
You can change this “application purpose” in Window > Change ??profile?? > Web Browser (can’t remember for sure). No such fast and simple option on Gnome Nautilus.
KDE is klutered in some areas but it can get slimmer if on a diet. (Hope it doesn’t lose its power as a nice DE for many users).
Dave, try using pyGTK or GTKmm for your GUI set then. you get your OO gui kit and can program the back end with what ever you like. I just wish GTK would get a ObjcGTK
I just wish I could get a standalone Kate package so I can just install QT and Kate rather than KDEbase as well.
Try mandrake (cooker?). You will need qt and kdelibs, but no kdebase.
I don’t believe you guys are bickering over icons.
I much prefer application names like kword, kspread, kmail to names like sodipodi, epiphany, gnumeric etc. From kword, kspread and kmail it is obvious what you can do with these programs. How should a newbie know what sodipodi or epiphany are doing?
That said, I really look forward to KDE3.2. I was perfectly happy with 3.1.4 until I saw KDE3.2. Now I can’t wait to get the final;-)
I completely agree, the K-labeling is silly, and seems really unprofessional. Not to mention, none of the names of programs give any indication as to what the program actually does. Without prior knowledge, what does “Kate” do? What about “Kopete”?
I think any standard base application should have a generic name that actually reflects what it does. I understand the developers want to have their little bit of personalization, but they do this at the expense of the usability.
But, other than a few minor annoyances like that, I love KDE.
I much prefer application names like kword, kspread, kmail to names like sodipodi, epiphany, gnumeric etc. From kword, kspread and kmail it is obvious what you can do with these programs. How should a newbie know what sodipodi or epiphany are doing?
That said, I really look forward to KDE3.2. I was perfectly happy with 3.1.4 until I saw KDE3.2. Now I can’t wait to get the final;-)
How should a user know what “Outlook” means?
Exactly.
Same goes for Epiphany and Sodipodi.
Once they’re known, there’s no problem with the names.
KWhatever looks silly and childish.
I don’t believe you guys are bickering over icons.
I completely agree. If you recall, I said in my initial remark that it’s absurd to reject a desktop environment solely because of its icons.
The reason that everything in KDE is called K … is that it was intended to be a wholly integrated system from the ground up. The K in the name signifies this integration.
Remember, though, that KDE by default will choose to display progams in the KMenu with a description in parentheses following the name.
Took me 3 seconds to find this…
http://kde.ground.cz/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Pseudo-HIG
Discussion to this point is to take away kedit. Kwrite and Kate are more than enough.
>> The reason that everything in KDE is called K … is that it was intended to be a wholly integrated system from the ground up. The K in the name signifies this integration.
You know, another reason I very dislike this K in every word is because I can’t quickly find a program name in my menus.
It’s known that people only read the first and last characters when reading a word (quickly), so the only thing this K really does is making people more Konfused.
>> Remember, though, that KDE by default will choose to display progams in the KMenu with a description in parentheses following the name.
That makes things even worse.
“But the default gnome looks *much* easier”
And “SEEMS” more powerful. Unfortunately, “looks” and “seems” don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
I think you’re right about that.
One thing I would like is for the Internet Konq and the File Manager Konq to be somewhat seperate. Yes, similar to Windows. Windows has “Internet Explorer” and “Windows Explorer” they both use the same underlying engine, but they behave more appropriately than Konq.
For example, Internet Explorer doesn’t have hundreds of options for file management in its preferences menu, Konqueror does however. Why can’t there be a switch “-internet” for example, that starts Konquerer in “web browser” mode, and adjusts the menus and preferences accordingly?
konqueror –profile filemanagement
konqueror –profile webbrowsing
These should do what you want. You can customize them by making the appropriate changes during your sessions, then selecting ‘Save View Profile “filemanagement”…’ or “webbrowsing” from the “Settings” menu.
How should a user know what “Outlook” means?
Exactly.
Same goes for Epiphany and Sodipodi.
Once they’re known, there’s no problem with the names.
Actually this is why menus are supposed to have descriptive names in Gnome. To quote the HIG:
User testing of MIT’s Athena system revealed that users had difficulty finding the file manager because they were unfamiliar with the name “Nautilus”. Because users did not associate the word “Nautilus” with the concept “file manager” the menu item did not help them….
Example 2.1. Including functional description in menu names
Original menu item
Nautilus
Revised menu item
Nautilus File Manager
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/desktop-integration…
Kde apps have a name and a description. You can make it appear like:
Konqueror (Web Browser)
Web Browser (Konqueror)
Konqueror
Web Browser
I believe gnome apps will have separate name and description too. This is a freedesktop.org standard. And also another example that even when the standard in not written down, kde apps are compliant.
konqueror –profile filemanagement
konqueror –profile webbrowsing
These should do what you want. You can customize them by making the appropriate changes during your sessions, then selecting ‘Save View Profile “filemanagement”…’ or “webbrowsing” from the “Settings” menu.
Excellent, I should have known there was an option for it. Funny, it’s exactly the way I described it “should be”. KDE is great.
I don’t have a Linux system up currently, but I’ll be sure to try it out within a week or two when I do.
Thank you very much. Especially for kindly and politely filling me in, instead of saying, “KDE all redy has that u fscking n00b!!1!”
>>And there is again my old matter : Than I select them, they are again this ugly crystall icons remaining. A complete Lush Theme under kde would be nice, I thing, I would switch when.
>Examples, please?
I cannot believe u asked that. Everyone can see that ! Ok, i give u a list from icons that are lacking.
I donwnload the plain lush theme from kde-look. I switch the theme. I even restarted kde. So, let’s see. On my Desktop is a big orange Icons for “Settings” while directory and most over icons are green. wow. Green and orange. I open the konqueror to browse the web. The icons :
find, zoom in, zoom out, lock belong the crystall’s themes.
worser, then i open the control center, there are almost NO lush icons.
Power control, regional accessibility, security and privacy, system admininistration. All are elorado’s icons.
Even worser. Lush is an SVG theme. Crystall also. Go now under Sound an mulitmedia. Do u see ? sound system ?? this IS AN PNG ICON ! yes, really ! what has it to do where ! go now under reginal and accessibility. Do u see the ugly icon for keybord shorcut ? it’s also png ! and that is ONE OF THE icon u see on u splashscrenn than starting KDE. U see it big, with all his big pixels ! beurk !
ok, u don’t have enought, want more ?
Under system administration, they are no lush icons.
I open now juk. let’s see
copy, cut, paste , find, edit, play, stop, start, back, forward are cristall-icons.
Copy cut and paste … this are “base icons”. They are everythere ! thats means, then i open an app, I now have, than using the “lush theme” a green icon for new, an over one for open an existing file, and after copy cut and past – 3 YELLOW icons. U see the matter ?
I’m starting kwrite now
-new command, about kde, about kwrite, “whats this?” , configure toolbar, configure kword, configure shorcut, find next, find previous, new command. Everything crystall.
Konsole :
bell, schema, bookmarks, monitor for activity, bookmarks: crystall
The KMenu :
Do i really have lush as icon theme, not crystall ?
I site : system setting, multimedia, run command, quickbrowser, kwirte, kate, menueditor, more programms, Kalarm, TNEF file vieweer, everything under settings.
Ok, i think, i stop here. don’t say me the themes under kde-look.org are complete – They are not. The reallity is that crystall is the only one that is complete, because it IS the one used in cvs . And there is no viable alternative.
For the record, I just installed the latest Knoppix live cd with KDE and this is the first time i’ve even used any version of KDE after the 2.x series. I’m impressed. I like the theme and it’s actually pretty fast.
I used to use just fluxbox and had tried Gnome 2.2 on Redhat 9.0. Gnome was just so sluggish. I don’t know if it’s the lingering gtk+2.x issues that make it seem so slow, or just Redhat.
The problem with KDE though is the qt issue. The license isn’t business friendly and that’s why Novell will probably standardise on Gnome for their desktop(Suse).
On another note I find it somewhat comical that you have the dip.dial-in’ers and the .de’ers always coming out swinging if there is any bit of criticism of KDE. It’s like some kind of national pride for them or something.
I don’t know why Gnomers get all worked up about the HIG issue. The biggest grip seems to be that the menus are too cluttered. Big deal, a distro maker or corporate administrator can just make the menus appear however they want. KDE still seems more polished and integrated then Gnome, but Gnome seems to have a lot of corporate-backing so future DE wars should be interesting. I wish one of them had already won the war. Yeah, yeah, choice, choice. Blah, blah. You can run whatever want, but I wish there was only one dominant desktop. I wish it had been KDE, but the qt license just borks things.
First, some responeses:
“Yes, KDE is very modular and so is GNOME to a certain extent. GNOME is cleaner under the hood IMHO”
———–
No way! Take, for example, your Kate/KEdit/Kwrite example. KEdit is gone in 3.2 (at least, its not there by default) so its down to Kwrite vs Kate. They are actually just two front-ends to the same text editor component. KWrite is a simple editor (along the lines of notepad) while Kate is a programmer’s editor (along the lines of BBEdit). Meanwhile, KDevelop, which is a full IDE along the lines of Visual Studio, also uses the same editor component! That means once you learn one editor, you know them all.
“GNOME has a standard (the HIG) for non-standard buttons that are specific to individual applications. Some examples:”
————
To some extent, I agree that KDE needs one of these, but to a lesser extent than does GNOME. KDE accomplishes a lot of the functions of the HIG directly through the application framework. For example, whereas GNOME’s HIG encourages apps to use No|Yes style button orders by convent, KDE enforces its Yes|No convention through the framework. In this regard, KDE is *way* ahead of the competition (GNOME and Windows, anyway, don’t know about OS X) in consistency, because you gain so much just by writing to the KDE framework. Of course, you can’t have the framework do everything, so I definately agree that KDE needs to adopt some higher-level standards for stuff that can’t be automatically enforced. KDE’s overall level of polish is definately behind GNOME and OS X, and it really needs to do work on this aspect. My biggest complaints are toolbar and context menu clutter. The whole point of these two UI widgets is to hold the most commonly used actions, so you can invoke them reflexively. If there are so many items that you have to actually scan the toolbar or the menu, they’re totally useless — you might as well use the main menu.
@chicobaud: Kate is the rox0rz. I had to do a website project for a class last week. I had Kate edit my files directly on the remote server (thanks KIO!) and just went to work. The dynamic word-wrap feature, which preserves XML-style indentation when word-wrapping long lines, is just killer! When I needed to take some screenshots of OOo graphs, I opened up KSnapshot and saved the PNG’s to the server directly (thanks again, KIO!). I had to do some last minute edits on our lab machines (OS X), and I could just feel my productivity plummeting…
@weorthe: Again, that’s GNOME trying to solve through human means what KDE does through technology. I hate the GNOME names because they make the menus so large. I *know* the names of the apps I use. In KDE, I can have the menus display descriptive names (Konqueror web browser), or nice short names (Konqueror), just by selecting an option.
@HelloWorld: Um, the Crystal SVG icon set isn’t finished yet. That’s why its a beta. There are still icons which don’t have SVG’s — they’re using the old PNGs. Everlado is hard at work finishing the icons. He just released beta2, which fixes most of the stuff that’s missing in Kontrol Center.
@Roy Batty: Let me ask you a question: Which desktop would you want as default? Most OSNews’ers would probably go with GNOME, because its simpler and more streamlined. Yet, KDE is still the most popular DE among the Linux crowd, and has a much more active user community (look at dot.kde.org vs http://www.gnomedesktop.org). KDE and GNOME are fundementally different. GNOME is going suuper-simple, and alienating a lot of power users as a result. KDE is getting more simple and streamlined (3.2 is a big improvement), but they are unwilling to compromise power-user features. Its not just a matter of choice being good, its a matter of choice being inevitable.
A couple of comments about 3.2:
Kwin III is annoying. Its a lot nicer in some ways, but its slower. Thanks to the latest patches, performance is now tolerable, but its still not as fast as kwin III. @Bascule: I think I see now why you were so big on buffering all windows — I notice the expose lag now with the latest kwin.
Usability is up. Konqueror is a bit better, other apps are a lot better. Some apps are great in the polish department (Quanta), while some apps are not so great (KOffice). Konqueror and KOffice (as of beta1 anyway) is hideously unstable. The “stock” KDE needs to be better. If it weren’t for my customizations (custom Plastik, patch to Qt, custom toolbars) I probably couldn’t stand to use KDE either.
I wrote…
Also Konqueror doesn’t feel like a web browser, instead it feels like a file manager that happens to be able to embed HTML.
M replied…
Funny, IE feels like that to me too….
You have got to be kidding, Internet Explorer is different than Windows Explorer when using it. The menu’s and configuration changes to show that it has switched to Internet mode.
Whereas Konqueror still behaves as a file manager, and has the same buttons and menu options as a the file manager mode when surfing the Internet.
Don’t get me wrong konqueror is a great piece of technology, it just needs to make it more obvious that when it switches to Internet mode, that everything changes with it, not just the khtml part.
I am surfing the Internet and I press the home button and it takes me to /home/john/ instead of my defined home page. That is just one example.
I have to say this release has fixed almost all the problems I had with beta 1 like inconsistent font sizes in konqueror while browsing, hangs on http://www.espn.com, flash not working etc.
Konqueror seems to be the most improved app in beta2 from beta1. the only problem I have is I am using the developement version of fedora and the RPM’s for fedora core 1 do not support ALSA which is now supported by developement/rawhide version
Looking forward to final release
That problem is fixed in 3.2. Now, in browser mode, home takes you to your home page, while in file mode home takes you to your home. As for the distinction, Konqueror is a general document manager, while Konqueror web browser is a web browser. If you want to surf the web, click the file browser program (the home icon). If you want to surf the web, click the globe icon.
Mark Murray wrote…
konqueror –profile filemanagement
konqueror –profile webbrowsing
These do not by default make the profile for web browsing act as a web browser, it still as a file manager.
Yutt,
Although this answer your question about konqueror -internet switch, it doesn’t answer your question about the behaviour.
It does not act as a web browser.
Thanks Rayiner,
I haven’t used KDE 3.2 yet so I don’t know of the changes.
In your opinion is konqueror –profile webbrowsing a lot cleaner than it used to be. What I mean is there less buttons by default now.
Also are you still able to change font size for the filemanager icons from with the web browsing component. I hope they remove such abilities from the web browing component, just to make it cleaner.
Its cleaner now than before, but I see your point about the configuration dialog. Its still a mix of file manager and web browser. I guess I just don’t notice it because I customize my toolbar.
That both KDE and Gnome have matured to the point where the only thing you can complain about is the icons.
Ok there are still some things that need fixing but we’ll probably get most of them within a year.
KDE and GNOME are fundementally different. GNOME is going suuper-simple, and alienating a lot of power users as a result.
About this toughts, I have had the feeling in a recent past that Gnome is turning more to a XFCE like DE, not very complete on the feature-rich departement
A big annoyance I have with Gnome is the file/directory browsing dialog, I found myself needing to create a new dir for backups or for extracting .zip or .tar on /usr/local or /tmp so many times and having to create the dir with an xterm if under Gnome. On KDE I just click “Make New Dir” and name it, nice, clean and fast. That can’t be a very hard feature to add to Gnome and it’s so usefull daily.
One feature I personally enjoy on KDE is my mouse middle button can have (if you add it on the KControl Panel) my own list of apps to launch with the name I want them to have! You just click the middle mouse and choose the app you want to use (no start button needed), nice, clean and fast. No such thing on Gnome.
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I wish it had been KDE, but the qt license just borks things.
I agree 100% that this is the most sad aspect about KDE development acceptance.
It’s all just a matter of personal taste. Live and let live.
With kde, you are the designer. With gnome, you either like it or hate it. There isn’t too much you can do about it.
So try them both and use the one you like. Don’t take away my choice. thank you.
Roy Batty: I wish it had been KDE, but the qt license just borks things.
Hmmmm, what’s so wrong about QT license? GPL works with every compatible licenses, and for commercial applications like those made by theKompany, $2000 for a commercial Qt license isn’t too much to ask (besides the fact that with that $2000, their product can be made to work in Windows and Mac OS X with minimal changes)
Personally, I prefer BSD License, but frankly how is Trolltech gonna make money out of it? Besides, many core developers have said if there is a better altenative to Qt out there with a reasonable license that doesn’t require a rewrite on the scale of KDE 2.0, as well as being able to run on other UNIX operating systems other than Linux, a move to it would be considered.
So far, nothing of that sort fits the bill.
‘It’s all just a matter of personal taste. Live and let live.’
ISV must choose which one to write. which one more popular. etc..etc…
someone say linux will be ready for desktop in 2006? then one of them must die or merge into one or another DE/GUI shows up that look/behave more than just ugly windows clones!!
‘It’s all just a matter of personal taste. Live and let live.’
ISV must choose which one to write. which one more popular. etc..etc…
someone say linux will be ready for desktop in 2006? then one of them must die or merge into one or another DE/GUI shows up that look/behave more than just ugly windows clones!!
Does anyone think KDE will ever fix their copy&paste so that it works like it does in ever other WM/DE for X11 (i.e. left button select, right button copy and middle button paste)?
Also, will they ever make it so that the exit sound can playback fully before the desktop exits (unless it is really short it always gets cut off)?
BTW don’t get me wrong, I really like KDE and use it regularly , I just don’t understand why they don’t do this.