XiniX wrote:Maybe this is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4

My personal opinion: KDE4 is about revolution, not about evolution. The devs have decided to take new, untrodden roads. There may be some bumps on the way, but the glimpses of our destiny promise that we are heading for something beautiful.

I do agree about kde4 being a revolution, but after just finishing testing openSuSE 11.1 Beta 5 with kde4 4.1.3, I am really left wondering, "A revolution for what?" I am all for a certain amount of gee-whiz and cool desktops. I am a complete devotee to compiz and think from a usability standpoint it has done more to bring multiple desktop use to many more people than would ever have conceptually gotten it before.

With kde4 however, I am still searching for the benefit, the improved efficiency, the faster way to do things -- and I have yet to see it. Take konqueror for instance. In detailed view, you can no longer left click in the space to the right of the file name and place focus on the file without it launching an application. The supposed rational was that "small file names were just too hard to click on." Really?

To place focus on a file in konqueror without launching it, you now must ctrl+click where before a simple click would suffice. It matters a lot if you only have one hand.

Next, there are other idiosyncrasies. There is no way in kde4 to simply add a preexisting application 'menu' to the taskbar. Not your favorite internet menu, your favorite editors menu nothing. Before, it was a simple right-click -> add application -> add this folder [done]. Again, a loss of functionality.

The hallmark of kde has always been it's ability to be configured just as the user likes it. That is fading too. For years, I always configure my multi-column view of files with the field width for files limited to 525 pixels (default is 600). The ability to set the field limit to your preference is now gone as well, replaced by "small" "medium" and "large". Feels more like T-shirt shopping than configuring a desktop. These are just a few examples of many many changes in kde4 that decrease functionality or decrease the ability of the user to configure the desktop to their preference.

Now I know new software does not yet have all the pieces of the puzzle all at once and that kde4 continues to improve and have new functionality added, but honestly, I don't see where it is headed and I don't know what the developers were thinking when functionality or configuration options were simply discarded or where the desktop has been made more difficult to use as in the examples above.

I know it is still too early to make a final call and I have been devoted to kde since kde2, but I hope the devs start showing us a little more of where this thing is headed before too long. openSuSE is in its second major release and I'm still left guessing.

Dryfit wrote:

blackbelt_jones wrote:

Tomaz wrote:Robin: on the apps side, launch a few apps, for instance gwenview, and compare them with the 3.5x versions.
on the desktop side, try to configure your panel, or the screen, put a few plasmoids on the screen and see it`s shine.

you still failed to tell us what you did on 3.5 that you cant do in 4.x

Okay, I have to be frank.

You know, I've only seen a couple of widgets that can do anything that a panel applet can't do. There's very little enhanced function, but at the same time those widgets are annoying with all that adjusting, resizing, locking and unlocking. Those little handles or wings or whatever, those little tabs you grab the plasmoid by... well, maybe it's my old machine, but they have a way of eluding me, of flicking in and out as I try to grab them. I get that someday these plasmoid doo-dads may have some real functional advantage and certain things like the "notes" plasmoid demonstarate that now. But right now it's lots of annoyance, lots of frustration, and very little enhanced function. And it's all about eye candy.

Whenever I bring any of this up, I hear about how great it's going to be in the future. Great applications coming. I don't disbelieve this, but I don't believe it either. I don't have any opinion on technology that doesn't exist yet, and I don't make decisions based on, though apparently Kubuntu does.

Ubuntu is a real distro. Ubtunu is as real as it gets.

In kde3 you had karamba widgets where you can't change size, you also needed to lock them unlock them before you could place them, you needed to lock them 1 by one. You could not put them on kicker panel. Could you place kmenu on the dektop without writing a extra application for it?

And one of the plasma themes also follows system colors so you could make kde4 look like kde3 with that theme. And people just starting to make plasmoids some usefull some not.

But still there are changes that you cannot rewert, like you cannot use kicker background png:s as its svg format that plasma uses.
and you cannot make some apps looke like the kde3 counter parts.

and still thers no domino widget style engine:/(and yea im pushing for it everywer i can;))

drankinatty wrote:With kde4 however, I am still searching for the benefit, the improved efficiency, the faster way to do things -- and I have yet to see it.

The thing is that the first few releases of KDE4 are about making the desktop usable. People complained that 4.0 was not good, so they improved it in 4.1, but they kept on complaining that it doesn't do everything 3.5 does, so they went on to implement that stuff, which will mostly manifest in 4.2. There hasn't really been that much time devoted (yet) on making KDE4 the "next-generation" desktop, since most time has been spent on finalizing the technology and implementing the KDE3-stuff that some people demand for.

People have this weird idea that KDE4 must be "revolutionary" right from the start. Well, KDE4 is now about 10 months old. 10 months. 10 months after OS X was released, it was still ****. But look at it now.

The hallmark of kde has always been it's ability to be configured just as the user likes it. That is fading too.

Many config-options lost their GUI during the transition to KDE4, but those are being added back in as well. That said, configurability is just a means to an end, not the end of means. People configure things because the defaults are not suitable for them. That tweaking is not needed if the defaults are good.

I don't think the goal should be to create a desktop that is as tweakable as possible. The goal should be to create a desktop that is as functional as possible. Many times that functionality is best achieved by giving users config-options, but not necessarily. IF the defaults "just work", there is no need for config-options. The moment the user reaches for config-options is the moment when the defaults have failed.

I know it is still too early to make a final call and I have been devoted to kde since kde2, but I hope the devs start showing us a little more of where this thing is headed before too long. openSuSE is in its second major release and I'm still left guessing.

What does OpenSUSE have to do with this? If you want revolutionary features in OpenSUSE, you should talk to OpenSUSE, not KDE.

Fact is that KDE4 has had ONE major release after 4.0. Fact is that KDE4 has been available for just 10 months. That's WAY too early to make any sort of judgement about KDE4 as a whole.

For comparison:

GNOME2 is almost 6.5 years old
KDE3 is over 6.5 years old
OS X is almost 7 years old
KDE4 is 10 months old

Tomaz wrote:Robin: on the apps side, launch a few apps, for instance gwenview, and compare them with the 3.5x versions.
on the desktop side, try to configure your panel, or the screen, put a few plasmoids on the screen and see it`s shine.

you still failed to tell us what you did on 3.5 that you cant do in 4.x

It does not have to look stunning. First of all, it is supposed to work properly. If apart from that it looks good then it is nice, but it really is a side issue.

apps side
Just one example: compare Kdvi (kde 3.5) and its kde4 replacement - Okular. Both of them look OK to me, I do not really care so much, as long they work well. The trouble is that Okular does not support essential dvi features: inverse and forward search (clicking on dvi file takes you to the proper place in the tex editor and vice versa, these features are crucial for every latex user). Both these features worked perfectly in kdvi. But kdvi is missing in kde 4. So, this is a step back. I have read that these features are going to be implemented in Okular, too. But how long do I have to wait? I have to work and not to admire the desktop. I do not understand the philosophy of an "improvement" when a perfectly good application is replaced by something which lacks main features. Why couldn't both have been kept until okular matures?

desktop side, appearance
Trying to configure the panels: Still quite a lot is missing. For example panel hiding buttons, and I still haven't figured out how to change positions of the buttons so as to leave free space between some of them or how to group open windows on the task bar. How to change the colour of the panels?
The default scheme for kde in Fedora 10 is oxygen. It gives most singular appearance. The windows and panels really do not match. I will have to test some other schemes.

What I do not like about kde 4 is that it requires a lot of "clicking" e.g. in kde3.5 I can change a position of a button just by right clicking the button, choosing "move" and moving it to a proper place. Here I have to click on the panel, choose panel settings, then click on the icon and move, and finally, click somewhere else, so that the panel settings disappear - twice as much work. And if the widgets are locked then it is even more. The same with the new kde menu, or with system settings -- to go to a different group I first have to click to go back.

And I am really missing old kconfig. All the config options in one place, easy to find.

At the moment, as an ordinary user, who does not understand what is inside, and only sees the final effect, I really do not see any advantage of kde4 over 3.5. (I understand, though, that it may offer better opportunities in future.)

Perhaps the problem is not really with kde4. Version 4.5 may well be better than 3.5. The problem is that many major linux distributions do not give any choice any more. They switched to 4.1 which is still very much "under construction" and not yet fully usable. And if I want a system which is being supported, or new applications, I have to switch, too. I think that this is the only reason, why kde4.

Regarding Okular, you may wish to read this which gives some insight into how this functionality may not be immediately obvious.

How to change the colour of the panel? Changing your Plasma theme is the only way ever planned at this point. Someone might make a theme in the future that can be manually colour tinted and used in Plasma though. Auto hiding, and application grouping is in 4.2, with the settings area also being redesigned ( although to move an applet it is still [ unlock applets if needed ] -> click cashew -> drag + drop required applet -> close configuration -> [ relock applets if wanted ] )

drankinatty wrote: With kde4 however, I am still searching for the benefit, the improved efficiency, the faster way to do things -- and I have yet to see it. Take konqueror for instance. In detailed view, you can no longer left click in the space to the right of the file name and place focus on the file without it launching an application. The supposed rational was that "small file names were just too hard to click on." Really?

To place focus on a file in konqueror without launching it, you now must ctrl+click where before a simple click would suffice. It matters a lot if you only have one hand.

Wy not just point the mouse over the icon? It gets an plus (+) sign over it. Click on the sign and you have selected a file with a single click.