KDE Blogs 

Lots of programs in and out of KDE suffer from a condition that I call software arrogance. Consistently, I find such applications completely unusable and thus refuse to use them. Software arrogance is when a program feels it is more important than its user's document. How is it that a program is written such that the user may feel that the importance of the application is greater than of eir document? First of all, the document has what is seemingly a minor role in comparison to its container. This is obviously apparent in MDI (window-in-window) applications like KDevelop in which you can minimise source windows. What? Why would you want to minimize the source code window but still have visible all the tools for editing the source code? It is reasonable to want to show two at a time, and to hide one while looking at another. Then lots of horrible user interface restrictions become apparent as a result of the two documents becoming inseparable from the other. You can't move one of the documents to another virtual desktop, the taskbar becomes meaningless, and, like KDevelop and Microsoft's Visual Studio, your application uses valuable real estate like Starbucks. Now, some of you may say that you like this window-in-a-window thing because logically, when you use KDevelop, you aren't editing just a source file, but you're editing your entire project, and each window of source code you're editing is fundamentally linked in that regards. So, I ask, what really is the document? Is the document the project, or is it the source window? Hopefully, at this point in my rant, you'll agree that both are the document. However, KDevelop (and for that matter, Kate) don't treat the project as the document, they just treat the source code as the document, and then add a few tools to manage the project (almost like an afterthought). Take a look at this screenshot of Kate, and let's look over some of the silly things in it. Read More

I'm currently doing some research focused on marketing and promotion for a KDE related project, and I'd really love it if people reading this could help me out. I'm looking for the opinions of primarily windows and apple users who have switched to using KDE on UNIX-like platforms. There are two main points I'd like to collect data about: Read More

Sad news today, but... Matt, just thanks for all your contributions in Kopete. You dude rock. I hope to see you in Akademy. Good luck in your new projects! We will miss you a lot. Read More

KDE developers: If you ever log off from your current KDE-3.4cvs session, think again! Couldn't you keep it running? For Konqui's sake? Because if you really log off, you'll bring Konqui into big danger. He is about to take a nap on a crescent moon. But the poor guy will be falling off the first moment his sleep will be deep enough! The reason: Konqui has a rest position that is completely unbalanced. He is starting to pass into napping mode high up there with not even the slightest natural equilibrium! Ever since I have this logout pic, I never dared to actually complete a logout – I always was forced to cancel it due to my deep concern for his enduring health. To make Konqui safe (and let me logout and sleep well again), the dangling leg and the dangling tail should hang down on different sides of the crescent, no? So anytime he could start loosing balance towards one side, a small lever-increasing, even sub-conscious movement of the limbs on the opposite side would easily restore equilibrance…. Take a look at any breed of cats of prey: all those who can climb and sleep in trees disollows its juniors to let hang down all dangling limbs on the same side of the bough! ;-P Cheers, Kurt P.S.: Oh, and please dont start explaining to me “Konqui is a Dragon, and dragons can fly! Read More

I was talking Ian Geiser last night on IRC about ways to allow you to dynamically query KParts for their interfaces. This would for example allow you to avoid having to link special interface classes, or to use marker classes to identify your capabilities. Read More

I've been fortunate enough to get my hands on a replacement laptop thanks to someone who has now secured my life-long adoration. My venerable dell latitude csx that has served me for much of the last year has been acting up lately eating up batteries and having the charger malfunction. Not very good and rather frustrating. Read More

We lost the dot/wiki host for the week-end thanks to the software wonder called Zope, so let me tell you for the case you don't know already that KDE 3.4 Release Candidate 1 was released. I updated my small Klax Live-CD and also Konstruct so there will be hopefully someone testing it and reporting showstoppers. And no, not all known bugs will be fixed before the final release. Update: OSDir.com is the first to have screenshots of KDE 3.4 RC 1. Read More

It looks like the upcoming 3.4 release will have a gorgeous new default look and feel to it. Stephan Binner produced a "sneak preview" live CD with KDE-3.4RC1 called "Klax" (375 MByte size for the iso image), and OSDir now features an excellent series of updated screenshots. Read More

Tonight on KDE eye candy watch... Basse produces a rocking new Konqi image for the logout dialogue: Then follows it up with this cute little number for the About KDE dialogue: Read More

How was I living without snow all this time? This stuff is amazing! The essence of beauty. Truly the best things in life are all around us, why do so many dislike such a lovely gift from nature? Read More