Presentation showing new features of KDE 4

[eddie]

FOSDEM 2007 concluded a few days ago in Belgium. The Linux conf saw KDE's Jos Poortvliet giving a talk about exciting new features that will be debuting in upcoming KDE4 and about their current status.

For people who are interested in knowing what the future holds for the existing and new users of KDE should look at the slides present at the following link

http://www.kde.org/kdeslides/fosdem2...vliet-kde4.pdf

There are 32 slides in all and I must say they really present some neat features. Even though the presentation did not separately talk about Arthur (the new rendering engine of Qt) but it does talk about excellent rendering capabilities that Qt 4 brings along. Also, the way various features integrate and provide a wholesome desktop experience will be a joy to use and watch.

A must see for any KDE or Linux lover

[eddie]

One of the big visual changes just happened in KDE 4, the transition of kdelibs to the Oxygen Icon set. This transition is still in progress, and it includes a massive icon naming scheme change that affects thousands of files. But, the Oxygen artwork project much is more than just an icon set, it's a unified way to do artwork for KDE 4. SVG an essential part of Oxygen, so many applications that are now capable of SVG display are also using Oxygen styled artwork. Read on for more...

Source: KDE.NEWS

Oxygen will bring such an awesome change to KDE 4 user interface that we can just imagine how good things will look in there. Just look at the simplest of things...the logout dialog and you'll know what I am talking about
__________
KDE has always been known as the comparatively poorer counterpart of GNOME in usability discussions. KDE developers along with usability experts from freedesktop.org are making some serious efforts to change that scenario in KDE 4. Their efforts are already showing off colours in form of new products that are coming out. Two of these are Dolphin and "Video Player".

KDE 4 will be introducing an entirely new file manager known as Dolphin. Comparative description and screenshots of Dolphin and Konqueror are available here. Dolphin will be 100% file manager with just one motive i.e. to give you complete file management experience at high class usability.

Another change that you will be able to see is the new default "Video Player" based on Codeine's code and the main focus will be on, once again, usability. You can read about it here

[gxsaurav]

Lolz..just saw Dolphin. So now KDE is copying from GNOME

The new icon scheme is good though, crystal was becoming toooo old & unprofessional

[mehulved]

What did it copy from GNOME?

[amitava82]

^^ the Side Panel n 'breadcrumb'-style directory selector

[mehulved]

Side Panel already exists in Konqueror.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

Lolz..just saw Dolphin. So now KDE is copying from GNOME

Yes and they actually have the balls to admit it.

So, Dolphin's functionality is not entirely new, other than it presents itself in a new way. It can be seen as a hybrid between the power of Konqueror and the structure of Nautilus. Dolphin still builds on a strong KDE base, reusing existing technologies like KIO slaves and so forth. Right-click actions that were available in Konqueror will still be mostly present (except that Dolphin will necessarily load files externally instead of using embedding viewers). And Konqueror can now improve its web browsing experience even more, doing so without losing the file browsing support that has been there since KDE 2.0.

They are not like some other companies who would ape a functionality and not give the credits where it is due I myself mentioned that GNOME is better usability wise but KDE has much better functions and desktop integration. If KDE takes some hints from GNOME...no one would be more happier then KDE users themselves.

The new icon scheme is good though, crystal was becoming toooo old & unprofessional

Yes and it will not be limited to just icon scheme. Oxygen devs will be creating Oxygen style and kwin decoration as well...transforming the whole look of KDE 4
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Originally Posted by amitava82

^^ the Side Panel n 'breadcrumb'-style directory selector

It is not the side panel rather it is the directory selector. The one where you click on the buttons to change directories.
http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol...breadcrumb.png

[subratabera]

Thanks @eddie for the links. KDE 4 is really awesome and it will change many equations...They are really serious this time.

I love KDE.

[hailgautam]

I was searching for Amrok for windows and on many places saw ppl talking about KDE being ported to window with the KDE4..so is/can KDE4 be ported to windows.

What does this mean.....

[mehulved]

Yeah there is already work going on to port KDE to work under windows. KDE uses a lot of qt toolkit. qt is available for win32 platform. Also, gcc is available for win32 platform in the form of ming32. So, porting of KDE is very much possible and I've heard of work being going on already.

[eddie]

Yes KDE 4 libraries will be available for Win32 platform as well so you might see many KDE based open source projects being available on Windows

[hailgautam]

i want to see Amarok.. it is a great application. innovative approach to music play list..rest all KDE applications did not interest much..

[gxsaurav]

umm....KDE 4 with a Hardware accelerated GUI on top of OpenGL is something which can be a real boon to those runing Vista. With this installed on top of Vista & working on even Intel 915G onboard is something promising.

Although I wish they post the composition engine like Beryl or XGL based on OpenGL to Windows first. Hardware accelerated UI for XP & Vista Home basic & for those systems without aero compatible graphics card will be good

[eddie]

I would personally never want KDE 4 or Linux to port its GUI components to Windows. These are the things that should be like USPs for Linux and they should stay this way. We need more applications becoming cross platform so that users don't feel alienated when they work on Windows or Linux but porting GUI should not be an option.

For example: Users should be able to use things like KOffice & Amarok on both Linux & Windows platforms but things like Beryl and Plasma (KDE 4) should never be ported to Windows. This will keep a visible attraction for users to move to native Linux environment which is good for Linux in long run.

[mehulved]

Why not? That would be something opposing the foss philosophy of choice to the consumers.
If people want to port KDE to other OS'es including windows then what's the problem? As far as it is under a foss license I don't see anything wrong.
Rather by making things like beryl and plasma available for other OS'es they'd make a statement that FOSS softwares are not only powerful but they're technologically much superior so can be easily ported over to other OS'es.

[gxsaurav]

Well, actully.....eddie is right. Keep KDE to Linux, explorer shell is better . But do port beryl to Windows. It will help a lot of users in getting a Hardware accelerated GUI on Windows XP SP2 or Vista home basic\Starter, cos Beryl in it's current form runs better then Aero on Intel 945G chipset or even older chipsets such as 915G & 865G

[eddie]

@mehul: My point was about USPs. If we port everything (including but not limited to excellent GUI effects) then what would we show when someone asks "Why should I switch?". Porting only the applications part, otoh, answers the question of "How should I switch?".

For example: If we tell a person that, if you use KWord in Linux to edit your documents, you'll have the same functionality in Windows as well. This will reduce your compatibility problems and lay a solid foundation for switching to Linux environment. On the other hand keeping just the GUI effects unported, we will also have something to show them and say..."Hey, this is what you are missing".

Just look at Mac users for example. Can we give them any reason for "Why should I switch"? They can use (and are using) most of the applications that we run on our distros without leaving their native platform. Does it help Linux or FOSS at all? No it does not. If we can keep something "visibly" unique in Linux environment while making the switch as painless as possible for vast majority of users, then we will have much stronger Linux user base and a much better future.