KDE Blogs 

I am watching the static vs dynamic typing wars with some curiosity. On the one hand, I can't understand how to write any large application without the help of static typing. The lack of information in the code, especially the imprecise and fuzzy specification of APIs, reduces the confidence that my code will work in all situations. It also does not fit my usual coding style for large programs and applications: I tend code for days, weeks or even months until I have a usable state, without executing the code even once. I RELY on the compiler's ability to find all typos during that time. On the other hand, I see that there are many people who prefer dynamic languages. Most of them have a write-a-little/test-a-little style, which I know from writing JSPs, so I can understand the style at least somewhat. I think I found a very simple concept to allow dynamic typing in a Java-like statically typed language. The following examples are based on Java, but with two additional features: Read More

I upgraded to KDE 3.2.1 when the RPMS appeared on kde-redhat's repositories. It seems snappier, and a lot of my pet peeves with 3.2 have disappeared. Here are some notes... some may be kde-redhat specific, or may actually have already been in 3.2. Read More

KDE artists is an interesting project limited by the number of people who are actually talented enough to create high quality artworks (not me). There isn't much coherency to the group, people who know what they're doing are often too busy to reply to those who don't and posts to the list can go unanswered. The website is quite limited too. Changes to improve this include a wiki page and hopefully the bugs.kde.org entries will soon point towards the mailing list. There's also an IRC channel #kde-artists on freenode which may or may not catch on. Read More

One thing that recent dicussions about usability have highlighted is how much our decisions are currently based on personal opinions rather than hard facts. Aaron has recently been trying to address this by asking people how much they use the various buttons in the konqueror toolbar, but this is both labour intensive and inaccurate. So, I've written the 'Usage Monitor' plugin. The Usage Monitor is a KParts plugin that records a log message whenever a KAction is fired. The log simply notes the action that was activated and how it was done - eg. was it via the toolbar, a menu or a keyboard shortcut. By analysing this log it is possible to measure which parts of an applications GUI are being used, and which are not. If a reasonable users can provide sample data using this tool, then we can build up an acurate picture of things we could previously on guess at. The plugin itself is tiny at around 150 lines of code, and works with any application that supports KPart plugins (which covers most KDE apps these days). No modifications are needed to the application itself, and you don't need to tweak the monitor for your app either. The code is a good example of the power of the XMLGUI framework as it shows how easy it makes creating tools that can apply throughout KDE. In this case, it even lets you track the use of actions provided by plugins and embeded kparts as well as the main application. Here is a sample log recorded from Konqueror: Read More

Well now that I have been working with getting Kolab to handle my spam and virus issues I think I have finally found a nice solution. A few weeks ago when I was testing my email spam filters here I went out on usenet and posted my name a few times. Now that I get about 1500 spam messages a day I have a very nice test set ;) Read More

A common complaint I get from developers is that their work isn't showing up in the digest. I'll explain how the whole thing is done, and then get to the question. I go through the 2000 or so commit emails from kde-cvs list, and select commits that are either bugfixes, new features, optimizations or security fixes. With bugfixes, any that have a bug number are selected. I then run a script that builds the html, statistics and other stuff, edit, add a few things here and there, then publish. This works reasonably well, although there are imo too many trivial bugfixes highlighted. Read More

Aaron has posted a blog entry about developes 'fearing' usability teams, I've replied to his post itself by a comment but I'd like to provide a fuller view of things here. Read More

ok... so as the recent thread on kde-core-devel re: kcfg showed, people FEAR usability efforts. that's right, people FEAR it. that word was actually used in relation to the topic. they are afraid some people will screw it up, that KDE can't cope with a drive towards being more usable without becoming pure shit. i really feel like ranting about thickheads, but that would just be adrenaline speaking. as much as that would feel good ;-) , i'm going to try to be constructive instead: what can be done to gain the trust of people in KDE? or is that a pipedream? Read More

ah... finally in my new house and it's feeling good... now to start putting the wraps on various bits of code i have laying around ... committed small things to kjots and kcm_kicker the last two days, and have bigger chunks of kscd, kicker, TOM and systray patches awaiting my attentions. i also have that bookmark code lypie's been patiently waiting for me to commit. =) Read More

ok.. so, i'm sick of waiting several seconds for kwrite to pop up whenever i do a View Source in konqueror. yes, one might be correct in saying kwrite should open faster. but i've got a different idea: why not have a simple viewer window that runs IN the konqi process ala Mozilla? i've had this on my slower box at home for some time now and BOY does it make a nice difference speed-wise. i need to add some basic viewer functionality to it like Search and Print. perhaps just a nice little toolbar with a couple of buttons on it (and an incremental search line? hrm...) anyways... i'm pondering whether it's worth polishing up and attempting to convince the Konqi maintainers that this is a better approach than launching an external editor. here's my benefit/cost summary: Read More