After 3 weeks kde4 (4.2.4 from debian testing) on some notebooks (asus eepc 900, 900a, x61s, t60p) and a classical desktop computer I am not very pleased with kde4. I will try to point out the worst flaws, in no particular order, as any of these are a no-go for me:

1) how can I disable these anoying "infobubbles"? add/remove power cord and there's a bubble, move the mouse over an icon in the controlpanel (=bubble), battery runs low (=bubble) etc.
on kde3 there were 2 checkboxes to turn off that stuff. where is that on kde 4?

2) move the control panel from the bottom to the left side of the screen. open some windows. look at the window list in the control panel. not much to see, uh. any window gets 2 lines, some decoration around it, but nearly no text. ~ 5 windows eat the whole place. there is a way to force the windowlist to be 1, 2 or 3 or three lines high, but when the panel stands upright, it's interpreted as 1, 2 or 3 rows! cool ...
compare this to kde3. there the window list is usable for 20 windows and more.

3) kate session manager: on kde3 I could place a button on the control panel that popped up a list of kate sessions. nice and useable. now this list is in the control panel, nearly unreadable ('cause it's cut off), and way too small. And why should I want the session list always visible ? I need the place for my windowlist!

4) knotify4 can not be stoped. no matter what I do, if I kill it or try to disable it, it comes again. simply anoying. (it makes infobubbles, too)

5) automounter: where has he gone? on kde3, I could define a behaviour for a type of removable device (cdrom, usb storage device etc) and tell kde not to bother me again when that device comes up, but just do what I've told. no way to that on kde4, it seams. when that nifty "device manager" plasmoid is not running, I'm not even told that there was a device plugged in. no automount, nothing. thats not funny, that's braindead. even windows can do that.

6) desktop: both "aspects", folder & workspace, are unusable. folder view is so buggy, it looses icons from session to session. and the icons move. when I change the aspects, I loose icons. they simply disapper. "workspace" has the look&feel of fvwm2 - didn't know that it was so beloved.

7) control panel: why to hell can't I have a plane, simple, semitransparent controlpanel??? I dont like the look of any controlpanel designs available. I simply want to disable all that stuff and have a plain, simple panel ala kde3.

8 ) knetworkmanger is missing. what comes with kde4 just pops up a dialog saying "Cant read xml file".

9) why are all settings for the user interface splatted over dozendsof places? thats plain stupid! e.g: try to change the apeance of the control panel. it gives you a dialog that tells you to go to another place and set the design there to "user defined". you have to do that not once, but every time you change something! funny programmers, really, good joke.

10) kde3, dualhead setup: a new program opens its first window on the screen where the mouse is. kde4 ?

11) kde3, virtual desktops: when a program opens a new dialog, it is opened on the desktop where the main window of that program is. kde4 opens it on the current desktop. really funny, when I have some dozen programs running and the dialogs start mixing up. probably a feature, i guess.

12) why is it so slow ??? it's about half the speed of kde3 on the same maschine. thats anoying.

13) plasmoids on "desktop": why do they all have an "infobubble", when I move the mouse over such a thing, that I cannot turn off? that info in the bubble should go in the plasmoid, thats why that thing has a place on the screen, otherwise it's useless (well, most are, anyway).

14) cashew: i-hate-the-cashew, thats true. for heaven sake that plasmoid works (the only useful I found).

15) is there a reliable way to change the apereance of the current theme or is the text editor the only thing that works?

16) why is the focus model broken? it behaves funny when compared to 3.5.

ok, thats the top part of my list. I tried to make kde4 usable, but it's no way.

I'm used to have 9 virtual desktops on my dualscreen computer and am ~ 20 windows open at a time. there's no way to do that on kde4, it simply leaks basic usability.

1. Alt-F2 - type 'notific' and open notification settings dialog

4. See 1

5. There is a plasmoid: Device Manager with Automount. KDE 4.3 also allows actions to be added per device type. If you use Lancelot, you can have a widget 'Places' on the desktop that shows all devices / partitions.

6. No idea what you are talking about. Distro related bug? Maybe an issue with icon sorting. You can try to change the behaviour. Again, KDE 4.3 may be a lot better here.

7. Customize your theme, or disable Desktop effects.

8. Use wicd. It is supported in KDE 4.3 in that it allows KDE to read the network status.

12. I definitely feel KDE4 performs better than KDE3 on my machine

13. Lock widgets. Context menu will no loger pop up

14. Hating a cashew. Quite some strong feelings for an unobtrusive thing in the corner...


Just some quick reactions. Also noticed you did some testing on netbooks. There is a project to redefine the plasma interface specifically for smaller screens. It will probably take away issues regarding real estate consumption.

1. I am not entirely sure what you mean. There are thumbnails that appear when you hover over something in the panel, I do not think these can be disabled. Notifications can be disabled by right clicking on the "i" icon by the system tray and unchecking the "popup notices" check boxes. But this means you will not get those notices at all.

2. This is a known problem with the task manager widget, but people have not been able to agree on a solution. Try using stasks instead. It is also called the "panel", not the "control panel".

3. I don't have this problem. I put the kate session manager widget on my panel and I get a little icon that I can click to get a list. Did you submit a bug report?

4. No, you can't, it is a central part of KDE. Why would you want to disable it? As I said in 1, you can disable the notifications.

5. Automounter is being moved to kdereview as we speak. It should be available soon. It is already available in playground.

6. I don't have either of these problems with folderview. Did you enable "lock icons in place" in the folderview settings. Did you submit a bug report? I do not know what the "workspace" is.

7. The only themes available are those that people made. I'm not sure what else to say.

8. This is a problem with your distribution or your installation. Networkmanager works fine for me.

9. There is already a bug report about this.

10. KDE 4 does this for me as well. Check the multiple monitors configuration under display, I think you can change the window placement rules there.

12. The speed varies enormously, some people report it being much faster, others slower. I guess it depends on your hardware.

13. These are part of plasma, I don't think they can be turned off.

14. Why is this a showstopper? It sounds like this problem is fixed for you. My distribution, opensuse, also has a containment that lacks the cashew entirely.

15. What do you mean? You can change individual elements in system settings->advanced->desktop theme details.

16. "Different" is not the same as "broken". You can also change the focus settings in system settings->window behavior->focus.

Last point: why can't you do this? It seems pretty simple to do to me.

1) @XinX: dont know what you mean. "notific.." just starts notification-properties (the thing that popps up kernel warnings etc). I didnt find a way to disable these thumbs. If there is a way to do it then please tell me how to.
2) nice thing. but have you tried it with 10 konsoles open ?
3) thats when you use kate from 3.5.
4) no, I cannot disable the notifications. The only way as far as I know is to remove the binary. why is it a central part ok kde?
5) nice to hear. I dont use lancelot, neither these fancy "places" (they do not in any way go with my work)
6) yes, lock in place does not prevent it. maybe the panel on the left side causes it?
7) desktop effects are diabled. i do definitly not want to create my own theme for the panel, thats plain stupid. i can stick with fvwm2, if i have to that by hand.
I installed knetworkmanger from 3.5, that works, too. maybe the problem is solved in 4.3 already.
9) good.
10) ok. might be fixed in 4.3, then.
11) still a problem.
12) speed is like vista. some can live with it. i cant.
13) nice design bug. it makes plasmoids useless as it is.
14) that thing is anoying, like that infobubbles.
15) I can select parts of other themes to be used for parts of my user defined theme, but I cannot change apereance of a theme. i.e. no blend color, no transparency, no pixmaps etc.

well, it's slow. there's no usable window list. it's not konfigurabel - oh, jes, i can use vi for the settings - these are 3 no-gos.

Notification behaviour can be tweaked in system settings > look and feel > notifications. It has further improved in KDE4.3

Popups in taskbar can be disabled by right clicking taskbar > settings > show tooltips

The plasma infobubbles... I take it you mean the side bar that allows you to move, resize and access settings. As said in my previous post, that can be disabled by locking the widgets.

notifications: light on the horizon if they can be turned off in kde 4.3. i'll have to wait for that till it shows up in testing.

Popups in taskbar are the one and only popups that can be turned off. All others are unaffected. e.g. move over the kmenu or some other icon in the panel and some seconds later there is a popup.

The sidebar, too, but i meant the plasmoids. Place a clock on the desktop, hover over it. There comes a popup with the date on it. Nice, but i need the date on the clock, not on the popup.

That sidebar is a pain in the ****. if i disable it, i cannot move the icons/plasmoids/watever around. if i aktivate it, that useless deco comes up.

2) That is what grouping is for
3) Why are you using the KDE 3.5 version of Kate? And of course you can't use KDE 3.5 panel applets with KDE 4. By definition, KDE 4 is not compatible with KDE 3. That is what it means to change the major version number.
4) Because KDE applications need to have a way to let you know what is going on. You are trying to break KDE.
5) You can configure the places to be whatever you want. You can also use the lancelot part to just show removable devices. Just add lancelot (temporarily) to your panel, open it, hover over "computer", and drag the label for the "removable" section to your panel. You must have a removable device in to do this. Then remove lancelot (not the lancelot launcher).
6) Sounds like a bug. Please report it to bugs.kde.org
7) You cannot have transparency without compositing enabled. Compositing is a fundamental requirement for transparency. If you want a theme with transparency, then turn on compositing.
12) No, speed may be like vista for you, but for others it is faster than KDE 3.5.
13) How do they make plasma useless? This seems to be a fairly tiny gripe to me.
14) Then turn it off. There are at least two ways to do so. Once again, it is a tiny object, it might be slightly annoying to some people, but it can hardly be considered a showstopper.
15) That is because the themes are all made of svg files. KDE can't change them, although I think some follow your system colors.

What distribution are you using, by the way?

ad 2) I have plenty space on my desktop - it's 2400x1024. on kde3 the panel upright on the right side of left screen. I can access 35 windows with one klick. can you tell me why I should appreciate grouping that shows me 9 groups of windows - not the windows themself - so that I need to make 2 klicks and an additional move to activate a window?

3) you took me wrong. on kde3.5 I ise kate from 3.5. on kde4 i tried kate from kde4. and luckily kde3 and kde4 are more interoperabe than it is said.

4) what's so essential about them? tell me an application crashed? that I plugged in the power cord? kde3 has a knotify, too, but there I can tell it to shut up. why can't I do this on kde4?

5) that would result in copying the folder tree to "places". no good idea.

6) ok.

7) composit is enabled. anyway, there is no such thing like a semitransparent panel theme. and there seams to be no easy was to make one.

12) interesting. would be nice to know on what hardware it runs faster than kde3.5.

13) the only reason for plasmoids - as i see it - is presenting information in the background. i.e. make a window semitransparent - look at the plasmid shining though - make it opaque again. when I have to move over that thing to get the missing infos, what are they good for?

14) yes, I did. the openSuSE way did not work, just the i-hate-the-cashew plasmoid worked.

15) i consider this a basic design flaw.

I'm running debian testing. kde3.5 is from stable, kde4.2.4 is from testing.

3) Under KDE Trunk the Kate Sessions applet behaves correctly. It was likely fixed in KDE 4.3, or has already been fixed in Trunk.

15) This is not a basic design flaw, since it allows more flexible themes such as Air. This would not be possible without the SVG theming system. Transparencies are provided by Plasma when compositing is enabled and the theme supports it, and are controlled by properties of the SVG's. Colours are coded directly into the SVG or use appropriate "System Colour" hints, which cause system colours to be used.

3) "behaves correctly" does mean it works like on kde3.5?

15) it probibits the user to adapt any theme. ok, you have that on vista, too. but thats bad design, anyway. even when the themes are in svg you could blend it with a RGBA value.

3) "Behaves correctly" means "behaves as intended by the developers", not "behaves like KDE 3.5". KDE 4 is KDE 4, it is not KDE 3. Many things have changed. "Different" does not mean "bad", it just means different. In this case, though, they are pretty much the same. Except there is no button to refresh the list of sessions, this is done automatically so the button is not needed.
4) As I said, you can "shut it up" by disabling notifications in the system tray (at least in KDE 4.3). But you won't be able to keep track of file moving progress in you file manager, find out about events in your applications, or get really any other notifications if something happens in your system. That is your choice.
5) I'm not following you. You put the folders you use often in places. It is also used for removable storage and network storage.
7) I don't know what you mean by "semitransparent", I have a lot of themes with varying degrees of transparency.
13) First, no, that is not the only reason for plasmoids. They are mini-applications, allowing you to do a wide variety of tasks, everything from file management to microblogging. And you don't have to move over the plamoid to present "missing info". Some have tooltips to provide additional information, but I am not aware of any that provide essential information that way. If you want a digit clock on your desktop, put a digital clock on the desktop. There is no reason you need to use the tooltip to get that when there is several plasmoids dedicated solely to providing different types of digital clocks. If you need to use the tooltip to get information that cannot be obtained any other way then that is a bug and should be reported.
14) Then that is a bug with your distribution or installation, it works fine for me. You should file a bug with your distribution.
15) Which color would they blend? Say you have a rainbow-colored theme. Which color would you change? It sounds easy when you are thinking of the simple, very inflexible KDE 3.5-style panel, but to make it work well across the pretty much unlimited range of panel themes possible in KDE 4 would not be anywhere near as easy.

3) ok, will have to wait for 4.3 till it shows up in testing.
4) no difference between information (hey, you plugged the powercord) and system information (copy files) ? who designed this ???

5) I do not use the "palces" concept. I have my stuff ordered in folders, thats what they are for. And I make heavy use of konsole. The problem is, without automounter (e.g. usbmount) I cannot access the removable devices from the console.

7) Yes. One degree of transparency per theme. But lets say I like "Oxygen", but the panel background should be transparent 50% instead of opaque. No way to do that. But I can change transparency of then window decoration. This is inconsistent.

13) "They are mini-applications, allowing you to do a wide variety of tasks, every ...". That implies that my Desktop has no windows on it. But it has. This moment about 20, on 6 virtual Desktops. Most Fullscreen. I usually do not see the Desktop.

15) Just the usual way. Paint it, blend the resulting image, put text on it, display it. No rocket science.


To summarize:
1) kde 4.3
2) no solution in 4.3, maybe later.
3) kde 4.3 (hope I got it right)
4) no solution
5) maybe 4.3.X (automounter)
6) bug. works on 4.3
7) no way.
8 ) kde 4.3. (wicd works, too)
9) bug already reported. maybe 4.3.X
10) kde 4.3
11) nobody knows
12) nobody knows
13) no way.
14) solved.
15) no way.
16) nobody knows

looks like waiting for kde 4.4 is the best way to deal with it, as 4.3 leaves too many no-ways.

I think that's all to say for my list. Thanks for the answers.

4) I didn't say that. There are two different check boxes, one for notifications, the other for jobs (things that take time, like transfers). But if you disable everything, you disable everything.
5) Then either user automount from playground or use one of the device notifier/manager plasmoids that includes automount. There are at least two of the latter, the device notifier without automount plasmoid and the device manager plasmoid.
7) Different parts of the theme can have different levels of transparency. Which part of the theme should be changed? You can't just arbitrarily change the whole thing, because it is set up to use different relative levels of transparency (and in some cases not transparency at all in places).
13) That does not mean they are useless. It just means you choose not to use them.
15) It is not that easy for themes using a wide variety of different colors in different places. Doing that would look horrible on many themes.

As for 16, I already explained how to change it.

Just a note that by policy, KDE patch releases are not permitted to contain new features or strings for translation, only bug fixes. As a result, new features are only added in major KDE x releases ( such as KDE 3 or KDE 4 ), or minor releases ( KDE x.x releases, such as 4.3 ) so the auto-mounter will not be available until KDE 4.4, assuming it is included.

People can still use it, it just won't be included in the default installation. Distributions can also include it if they choose to, and I suspect at least some will. I know it is already in both the arch kdemod playground and opensuse KDE4 playground repositories. I personally have it installed on both distributions, although I have not tried it on either.