All right, topic is Windows 7, Google Chrome, and KDE4, instant observations from a KDE user background perspective without a flameing bias. So let's go!

Windows 7

So I've played around with Windows 7 RC more inside VirtualBox and the more impressed with it I am as I see more of what it does.

The file manager I really like. The Libraries concept is interesting. It does previews, all of that. And of course it has file versioning and file tagging and star rating and built in file searching using that meta information. I guess this is all kind of like a slim version of GnomeZeitgeist+Nepomuk are supposed to be some day, but already implemented and ready to go. So that's nice.

And of course I think the taskbar is great. I use STasks/Smooth Tasks instead of KDE4's taskbar on my main desktop. Can't wait for these to get better.

But one thing that REALLY irks me is the fact that Windows 7 actually surprised me on this: I browsed to a social networking to a place to upload photos. I opened up the file-open dialog and just to try it, I pasted in a http URL rather than navigate the local disk and to my surprise, it actually downloaded the file and made it available to upload just fine. The same happened in various places for external apps: AIM, Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. And it all just worked. I opened the Microsoft image viewer application whatever it is and did the same thing and it opened up a copy of the online image and was ready to view/edit. Ok..

In KDE of course this would be referred to as KIO slaving "magic" or some such. But guess what. KDE fails. Open Kate's file-open, paste in a URL, it gives an error about not being able to list the directory then oddly actually downloads the file and loads it in Kate. Well strange but at least it works in KDE, right? Not true either. Open KolourPaint, file-open, paste http image URL and I get lister error, image open error, multiple problem-opening -http:// something or other errors. Gwenview: again, error. And so on. WTF?

You know I thought KIO slaves was one of the major KDE standard features, whether it's file:/ or http:/ or fish:/, this thing is supposed to work. I'm looking at KDE apps and although I'm probably wrong on this, it SEEMS to me like there's like 2 or 3 different standard dialogs-one for opening a file, one for opening a URL specifically, and one for directories. Each dialog works slightly differently so you don't know what you're going to get trying to use a KIO slave, and what's more, each application kind of decides whether it tries to care about KIO slaves or just bombs out with weird errors if you don't give it the file:// URL it expected.

Where's the KDE network transparency supposed to be, nowadays? Where's the standards? Ie, why can applications get away with ignoring/forgetting about KIO slaves? I'm only even trying this with http://. I can't imagine what happens with the other KIO slaves.

And here having first imagined KIO slaves from long ago, I imagined the possibility being able to open up some KDE media player file-open dialog, either navigate through an online server or enter an URL to a http://.../file.zip, choose a file from within the archive (after downloading the temporary archive or whatever and transparently navigating through it), then viola, I'm playing a zipped MP3 or MP4 or whatever. But here it is KDE4.x.y.z and yet not even the first step of this fantasy is without unpredictable application-specific errors.

So my jaw was on the floor at the comparison. Of course Microsoft Media Center or whatever it is doesn't even have an open dialog as far as I could tell so otherwise I didn't try online archives or audio/video, so that much was disappointing. But maybe I saved myself from having an irrevocably broken jaw or something who knows; I'm skeptical it'll work anyway.

Anyway, Windows 7 is also very clean, seems stable, and is a pretty good experience. Incidentally, there is notification that Virtuoso backend for Nepomuk is coming along and I can't wait to test it, because like KIO slaves should have been, I'm excited at the potential...even if the ultimate reality falls short.

So that's that.

Google Chrome

WOW. Who else has tried this (linux development version)..? I find myself coming away very impressed.

Ok. First thing you notice is the clean and pleasing interface of course, but the second is just the incredible speed. HTML rendering is great, plugins are working well - but I did unfortunately have infrequent Adobe Flash 64-bit crashes. Unlike other browsers, just reloading the page often brought the plugin back to life though which was a plus. Right now Chrome is a slightly advanced browser still in relative infancy, no plugins or GUI profile support but web rendering is still fantastic.

And yet with as relative little as it offers, I note how much better it is than Konqueror and how much it does for what it does better than Firefox, whether in just speed (though of course that could change after plugins start getting implemented), or the observation that the single website tab that freezes can just be closed rather than destroying the whole browser session as in both Firefox and Konqueror for example. Then there's the better implementation of Incognito mode on a per-window basis which blows away Firefox's per-session mode and Konqueror's non-existent mode. Some features just go a long way.

But the most eye popping Chrome feature I like of them all that I have been aching for forever in a web browser, here it is by example: Open a video sharing website in a new tab. Play the (likely Flash) video. Now drag that tab outside the window into new window of it's own. The video is still playing - in fact the entire state of the site is untouched, including browsing history (and instantaneously). FINALLY. It feels like the web browser is a modern application on linux. I tried this on even the Windows version of Firefox and it failed, instead reloading the entire page altogether. This is something I've always needed in a worthy browser, having found a page - often video or audio - that I'd been watching/controlling for a while then deciding I'd rather have it on a second monitor to continue browsing other tabs I had open in the main window while watching/controlling it uninterrupted on the side. The previous reasons I'd seen given for the impracticality of this kind of feature is the various underlying core linux libraries are too limited. Well Chrome did it. Actually I assume it can do this because of its process-per-page rendering approach that Firefox claims it will now get eventually and who knows what Konqueror is going to do.

So now I'm looking at Konqueror and its slowness even opening and closing tabs, the extension approach that requires compiling plugins, and lack of even any kind of basic profiles, as well as other limits caused by lack of extensions or whatever (like tree tabbing or Incognito style mode). And I'm looking at what I've always thought was the biggest problem it had being considered a serious browser candidate: lack of serious open security testing against potential online malicious attacks and 0day exploits. And I'm looking at Firefox which manages to get slower as tabs and extensions increase, and which I still am apparently forced to self-compile to get an official latest 64-bit linux version (which itself must have its bin process killed otherwise hang on every shutdown). I look at both of these and I can still see the value in extension-feature-full Firefox but not much need for Konqueror, since Dolphin will work better for my file management and Chrome can work better for now as quick site viewer (and hopefully some day as a feature-full, secure, all around better browser). I'd rather like to see KDE integrated into Firefox's shell through Mozilla's official qt branch, which would solve all my Konqueror concerns, and I would assume (or would hope anyway) allow it to also integrate useful Konqueror-specific features like KPart embeds and better split viewing than Firefox's available extensions.

Anyway, all in all Chrome is an excellent browser on linux even for its present state, and I am eagerly awaiting its continuing development. If you haven't checked it out, I say go give it a shot.

a little more KDE 4

So KWin is eventually getting WINDOW TABBING - all I can is are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet. The YouTube videos for this look so awesome. I'm so excited about this one and it's going to be so sweet. Nothing more to say on that.

So there you have it, some random musings.

Now I'm off to try to convert my Nepomuk sesame2 database to virtuoso, cross my fingers and hope it doesn't destroy all my metadata..!

Very nice review, i much certainly will go and try Google Chrome.

peaches wrote:,

WOW. Who else has tried this (linux development version)..? I find myself coming away very impressed.

Personally, I came away feeling rather disappointed. On my machine at least the speed is roughly the same as Arora (sometimes faster, sometimes slower) and the rendering was neither better or worse. What REALLY annoyed me is that the damn thing, by default, turns off the standard window-border and thus standard window management features are not available. Of course, you can turn it on again but then the interface looks horrible instead. I'm getting the feeling Chrome is designed to run full-screen only...oh, and the interface feels kinda sluggish.

I'm sure it will become better, but right now it's a browser that's interesting to check out but I wouldn't use it as my main one just yet.

The reason you recieve a directory listing error is because KDE applications ( or more precisely the file picking dialog ) tries to ensure the file actually exists before opening it, which fails since HTTP doesn't support that.

Well, than it is a bug.

Indeed, and it is also an already reported one:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197945

Kryten2X4B wrote:

peaches wrote:,

WOW. Who else has tried this (linux development version)..? I find myself coming away very impressed.

Personally, I came away feeling rather disappointed. On my machine at least the speed is roughly the same as Arora (sometimes faster, sometimes slower) and the rendering was neither better or worse. What REALLY annoyed me is that the damn thing, by default, turns off the standard window-border and thus standard window management features are not available. Of course, you can turn it on again but then the interface looks horrible instead. I'm getting the feeling Chrome is designed to run full-screen only...oh, and the interface feels kinda sluggish.

I'm sure it will become better, but right now it's a browser that's interesting to check out but I wouldn't use it as my main one just yet.

Hm too bad it's sluggish for you. Chrome works very well for me (dual core 64bit), the interface not really ever feeling sluggish at least not yet. I get the opposite - snappy experience just moving tabs around or to new windows, scrolling, and playing with the New Tab interface. It's also lucky the default non system blue interface works with Air.

bcooksley wrote:The reason you recieve a directory listing error is because KDE applications ( or more precisely the file picking dialog ) tries to ensure the file actually exists before opening it, which fails since HTTP doesn't support that.

Sure, Konqueror has its own prefetching mechanism when you click on URLs to check file existence and decide mimetype for displaying Open With or download dialog or embed into KPart (without listing whatever). Actually Konqueror and Dolphin generally do a good job remembering that KIO slaves are supposed to be a standard KDE feature. Seemingly, most everything else is just still thinking inside a non-KDE constrained box.

Nepomuk

So I did install and convert to virtuoso backened for Nepomuk. Well when it it works, it's faster for example navigating Dolphin is actually usable now. When it's freezing the dolphin GUI or all of kwin or crashing nepomuk enabled apps, nepomuk is not quite so nice to use. But the performance improvement is at least showing it's coming along - not quite the depressing forecast as previous backends, I'd say. Let's see where it goes...