I have been following the development (or non-development) of KDE's help system for over a year now. I was hopeful that something would change with all the advancements that were occuring in the past months and year. But alas, I installed KDE 4.5 beta and nothing.

I have searched the web to find out what the authors (listed in the "about kdehelpcenter") were up to... but there is no information about any of them working on kdehelpcenter. In fact, the last record of any change to this piece of programming (which, I believe, is unfortunately a part of the KDE-runtime) happened way back in 2002. No wonder it's looking a bit antiquish.

Okay, I thought, maybe there is a reason for this non-development... maybe KDE is following a different route for helping their users (especially the beginner or first time app user)... but again, if there is a direction that is being pursued, it seems vague. My feeling is that there's an assumption among those directing KDE: that if the users have a problem or a question they will look it up on the web. Personally, I think that's a big assumption to make and a little unfriendly-user-like.

There could be a few small improvements to the help center, which would help to bridge this gap and make documentation for KDE and it's supported applications a whole lot more accessible to the general user.

These are just my observations... maybe I'm way off target. Are there any future plans for KDE help... does anyone else have more enlightenment on this subject then I do?