I have been using KDE4.5 RC2 for some time now, and I am extremely disappointed at it so far. Some design decisions are extremely poor, and if this was paid software, you'd have plenty of complaints for app lock-in.
Allow me to elaborate before making some "clever" remarks and sending me away, and I won't be saying "I won't use KDE anymore", by the way.

First the good. Composite effects are fast and work well, as always, and I can notice the few documented changed architecture changes mentioned in Planet KDE (seriously, the feature preview/talk, except for Mr.Seigo, are barely existent and so far away from each other). The new KNotify system convinces me very much, and an app spamming notifications doesn't bring my system to a temporary halt anymore.
Also, some old plasmoids such as smooth tasks still work without recompiling, which is a great thing©.
And finally, not a single crash. This is extremely good for not-officially released software and beats other RCs by far on stability.

Now the bad.
First of all, a pet peeve of mine. Krunner.
Krunner has seen almost no progress since early versions, saving for a few plugins and the ability to float. Internal changes aren't noticeable at all, and it is a horrible tool to use, and I haven't found a way to disable it for good.
Unlike every other multipurpose launcher, it's locked to KDE apps exclusively. This is good if you use KDE SC apps only, but most users go with Firefox or Chromium for their browsing needs, for example, which Krunner ignores blatantly.
Then it's still barely usable. Press up to run the previous command and find out it won't execute it unless you delete a few characters and allow it to autocomplete, THEN it gives you the option to run the command. This is with 4.5RC2, and it's unforgivable. Feels like nobody has tested it.
It's behavior regarding the tab key is so unique, it's annoying, and this still hasn't been even altered since early 4.x releases.
Krunner shouldn't be enforced unless it's actually mature. I am using Kupfer, a much more mature solution, and uses 24.3mb (loaded with useful functions, with a huge index including firefox bookmarks, files, etc, and it's written in Python, less optimal than C++). Krunner uses 23.1 and if I want it down, I have to shut it down manually.

You have a massive and complex technology to allow plasmoids in python, javascript and whatnot, but there doesn't seem to be any third-party, non-binary Krunner plugins which could improve its shortsightedness.

Then Akonadi. This is a nightmare that doesn't go away.
Can anyone explain to me why is it required to start the whole akonadi system just because I have the clock plasmoid? I don't use any of the KDE PIM suite apps, hence it's eating several megabytes of RAM to have a clock. This is a bug at best, and it can't be disabled anywhere in the control panel or plasmoid options, as Krunner.
Akonadi also brings up the Nepomuk server, which is explicitly disabled in the control panel.
So to have my desired setup I need to take out the clock from my panel, and it's really aggravating.
This leaves us with A) replacing all the akonadi executable files by dummy files, with all the negative implications of such a solution; or B) write a clock with python, I could do that, but it beats the purpose of using third-party software: convenience.

Finally, is KDE Brainstorm still being taken into consideration? It has genuinely good advice, but nothing seems to have been marked as "done" since 4.4 prerelease.

This is a RC2 already, possibly the last one before 4.5.0 stable. I can understand stuff like plasma-desktop eating 140mb of RAM, as it always does that in prereleases, but the things I just mentioned are obviously "features, not bugs", so why no one has even thought of that? What kind of self-righteous assumptions are we dealing with here? This is not Gnome.
KDE already has troubles being "the alternative to Gnome" in several places, decisions like the clock requiring the akonadi server or poor, locked-in, enforced apps like Krunner, aren't going to help much.

I love KDE, I have been using it for several years. But KDE's bread and butter is configuration. Locking us in to KDE SC apps is not doing much for the ideal desktop, or making rather heavy tools mandatory. This must be taken into consideration before stepping further into being a monolithic, locked desktop. It feels KDE is trailing ahead on its own, ignoring completely most improvements in the linux desktop world. It sure gives away (like the new protocols for tray apps), but it seems to be blindfolded regarding other tools, apps, and some standards even if minor.

Now jesting, the next thing will be requiring Mono for the menu applet only.

EDIT: Fine, the solution for akonadi: Give it completely illegal settings, it won't even care to check if they are valid. Still, the clock will keep trying to connect to it (plasma-desktop(12991)/libakonadi Akonadi::SessionPrivate::socketError: Socket error occurred: "QLocalSocket::connectToServer: Connection refused").
I am OK with akonadi being a work in progress, but don't enforce it, please.

KRunner is not locked to KDE applications, not at all. For instance, when I asked it just now to open www.kde.org, it launched Opera, which is the selection I made in System Settings > Default Applications > Web Browser.

Pressing up to run the previous command also worked here, without having to alter the characters of the command at all, or press any other keys ( other than enter to execute it of course )

Code: Select all

ben@grace:~> krunner --version
Qt: 4.7.0
KDE Development Platform: 4.5.60 (KDE 4.5.60 (KDE 4.6 >= 20100627))
Run Command Interface: 0.1

Please note, that KRunner's bookmarks runner, at least in 4.5, is equipped to handle Firefox as far as I know.

Also note, shutting down KRunner has severe consequences for the operation of the KDE Plasma Workspace, as functions such as the logout dialog, switch user functionality and screen locking are provided by it.

For Akonadi, this is done to provide information on upcoming events/etc from your organiser right in the clock. To fix this, a feature should probably be requested to allow this to be disabled.

As stated, using RC2, not trunk. It takes too long to compile to compensate.
You can blame Kubuntu devs, but that wouldn't be tasteful.
Qt: 4.7.0
KDE Development Platform: 4.4.92 (KDE 4.4.92 (KDE 4.5 RC2))
Run Command Interface: 0.1

Why does a program like Krunner handle all those functions, anyway? Shouldn't they be part of the Plasma core? It's like if the quicklaunch applet controlled power management settings.

I am also looking at the plugins...Bookmarks is simply labeled "Find and open bookmarks", there's absolutely no difference or explanation of it supporting anything different from older versions, that should be at least noted in the information pane (instead of just repeating the description one-liner as does currently). No configuration for it either (not for any other plugin but "terminate applications", actually).
Also, considering it's enforced to run Krunner, I am surprised there's not more talk about it on Planet or other passive news sources, if that was the case, we'd be able to know it supports firefox bookmarks, because the program itself is silent about it.

About the Akodani usage, I am aware about it (that's why I mentioned not using PIM, that is, no events defined). Fortunately I was able to solve it by giving it impossible files and no name as "external database", but if later on it decides to check for valid settings, that workaround will not work anymore. What is the right place to place a formal suggestion?

Thanks for clarification and excuse my poor English.

Do you have the Akonadi Google Calendar resource installed or do you have by any chance put some compatibility resources in KOrganizer? This should be the only reason the clock applet loads Akonadi. In fact, it should not work otherwise because it requires the yet-unreleased 4.5 version of KDE PIM.

The formal suggestion is made in the form of a wishlist bug report at bugs.kde.org

The only reason I am aware of the Bookmarks runner supporting browsers other than Konqueror is because I saw the Review Request that was made to add this feature, which was sent to the Plasma Development mailing list.

In this case regarding KRunner's issues, given that developers are currently bug fixing and backporting those fixes, it is likely that KDE 4.5 final will contain those fixes. If it does not work for you after upgrading to that once released, I would recommend removing the KRunner configuration file, ~/.kde4/share/config/krunnerrc whilst it is not running.

Absolutely nothing but the "default" resources on it. The only way I found I could add the clock without it starting was disabling internal MySQL server, and empty out everything in "external MySQL server" (seems there was no need to give wrong data, just leaving it empty works).
Several akonadi helpers/daemons/services were active: imap_resource,, nepomuktag_resource (no nepomuk server active nor tags added anywhere), mbox_resource and others, up to 8 of them. There were, by the way, no errors or notifications related to akonadi, it was silent all the time. It was just sitting there.

I understand then. Thanks for taking the rant in such a constructive/helpful way.

As a final note regarding the Digital Clock, the code which powers it's calendar support, more precisely the "calendar" data engine is *directly* dependent upon Akonadi, querying it directly for the events, todos, and journals stored in it.

At the time this dependency was added, it was not known that KDE PIM 4.5 would not be shipped alongside KDE SC 4.5.0.

As further information regarding the Bookmarks runner, it requires that you set "firefox" or "opera" ( depending on the browser you wish it to read ) in System Settings > Default Applications > Web Browser.

Ensure that "In The Following Web Browser" is selected, and the precise above text ( "firefox" in your case, minus the quotes ) is entered.

bcooksley wrote:At the time this dependency was added, it was not known that KDE PIM 4.5 would not be shipped alongside KDE SC 4.5.0.

That shouldn't be a problem. New KDEPIMLibs are part of KDE SC 4.5 and basically all relevant resources were also part of KDPIM 4.4 (minus the new CalDAV resource).

Olivier_CRR wrote:Unlike every other multipurpose launcher, it's locked to KDE apps exclusively.

Can you elaborate on this?
I use KRunner alot for launching non KDE apps, it is basially my main launcher for them. E.g iceweasel, Qt Assistant, Gimp, etc.

Has never failed so far.

Cheers,
_

first ...i see you use ubuntu...

i don't want image how you have installed kde... in your system..

old kubuntu user here and kde works fine.
it's clear and work really well


RC2 is a RC2 so for example on my computer is slower than kde 4.4 and dolphin has some trouble... like freezing sometime...

but i am sure they will be fixed before the release. like kde 4.4 did damn it's a RC.

you can't think to have kde RC like it would be released.

krunner is nice and works...

plasmoid well ...bah i have to say that i start kubuntu and it works.

no crash..
no problem
low RAM USAGE
super fast.

kubuntu 10.04 kde 4.4.3 rocks. it's a really well made system.