KDE Blogs 

For KOffice2 we had a huge todo list. Where various core technologies are in need of basically a rewrite. For KWord the most interresting one is the text-engine. The old one had serious problems and using Qt4 would allow me to write a better one in not too much time. The progress on the new text engine is proceeding nicely, with just some advanced features missing like variables and inline images. The text engine will now support styles much better then the previous one did; with character styles being available as the biggest change. Read More

Novell Open Audio has a new half an hour episode about the openSUSE 10.2 release featuring openSUSE evangelist Martin Lasarsch (and also a new mention of the missed KDE episode).

This evening I've created a new klik recipe, for Opera 9.1. It makes the klik client fetch from Opera's download site their current weekly snapshot of the upcoming 9.1 release and transform it into a typical "1 application == 1 file == 1 click to download+run" klik bundle. Read More

As I predicted, the offer of game porting specialist Runesoft to do a Linux port of "Ankh" if at least 200 pre-orders could be achieved, has been met with sufficient demand on the side of Linux gamers. Read More

The openSUSE 10.2 Release Guide is a nice description of the openSUSE 10.2 goodies whose box edition is meanwhile also listed by shops (North America/World Wide, Germany). I updated my popular VMware image to KDE 3.5.5 with KOffice 1.6 on an openSUSE 10.2 base. If you did not play with the new KDE start menu Kickoff and Kerry yet, now you have no excuse anymore! :-) Read More

Having been working on Gwenview for six years, I finally came up with the decision that it was time to move on. It has been a tough decision, but I realize I don't have enough free time to manage such a project by myself anymore. If you want to know more, have a look at the message I posted to the mailing list. Read More

Diary entry for Dec 12, 2006. OpenOffice.org version 2.1 has been released. 1st Question: Is there available, or will there be a suitable OOo 2.1 RPM package for my good ol' SuSE 9.1 box? 1st Answer: No, there is none, and most likely there will never be one. SuSE/Novell don't support that "old" system any longer. 1st Solution: Download probono's ready-made klik package from the klik website and use this. Works like a charm for me, on SuSE 9.1. 1st Consequences, (I): Makes me loudly shout "Cool!" and "Great..." and "Oh look! They've improved their PDF export here!" 1st Consequences, (II): My guttural noises poke my collegue's curiosity, who now starts to look on the web for native packages of his Linux test system. Read More

A recent story on the Dot sparked a conversation about which branch KDE application developers should be developing against (3.5 or 4.0). My usual stance on what developers "should" be doing is that they should do whatever they like. Most of us are hobbyists, so go ahead and scratch that itch. Trying to tell volunteers what they "should" be doing is at best futile and at worst, insulting. Read More

The screenshot below seems boring, but it is not. It means something nice and will start a useability discussion. The topic is 'files in files'. How should the gui deal with files in files? Well, so far, KDE does a sloppy job of dealing with them. Different file types have different kio_slaves and some have none. Read More

In recent months I acquired a habit of poking around from time to time on the Guardian/Observer website. Here is a collection of info atoms I picked up today: Some updates to Princess Diana's last 24 hours alive: the night she died, the American secret service was eavesdropping her telephone conversations. (What's funny is that the source article says this happened "without the approval of the British security services"... Remember, the night she died she was partying in Paris, which is neither part of the US nor of the UK last time I checked). the driver of her Mercedes, Henri Paul, (who also died in the crash) had a second job (I bet without having told her): he was in the pay of the French secret service. his 14 (!) bank accounts had a combined balance of +100.000 £ (that's roughly +150.000 €, or +200.000 $US) in between them.Funny coincidences, huh? The UK government used human Guinea pigs for chemical weaponry experiments, for more than 30 years. While initial tests of Sarin's effects on the human skin were conducted with German prisoners of war, up into the 80s the 'research' was conducted on British soldiers. One of the known crime sites was the Porton Down military base. There are hundreds of known victims who suffered health damage from these Mengele-like experiments. Their current diseases include memory loss, flashbacks and lethargy. I'm no longer surprised about the way these people are 'defending Western freedom' in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Just don't claim I agree with you.