I would like to see an application to analyse and visualise flowcytometry data. There are some Bioconductor packages for R that can handle this, but its awful. Now, I am using WinMDI2.9 under wine for this purposes. I am sure, there is too less demand for this functionality .

Something like ImageJ would also be awesome. To quantify various pixel-image features (e.g. size of bands in an agarose gel; histology stainings ect.)

Re. GIS: Marble is a globe viewer. That's what it does and that's what it's good at.

A nice and useful GIS application is QGis. Technically it's not KDE, but it has lots of features and gets better all the time, largely thanks to sponsors from Switzerland and an active developer community.

Working on a KDE "skin" for QGis (a la Firefox/KDE) is probably a much more efficient use of resources than any alternatives I can think of.

As for other Science/Engineering applications, I think the reason why there aren't many for KDE is that there aren't many for Linux to start with. In turn, this is probably due to it being for the most part vertical software so lots of effort for relatively little gain.

One way to tackle this problem might be trying to "horizontalise" it somewhat, by writing lots of generic libraries intended to solve the component parts common to many scientific and engineering problems. To give an example, nobody is going to be writing a KDE road design application anytime soon, but this could be different if we had quality components like a good geometry library to work with lines, circles, and spirals; a good volume calculation library (for earthworks stuff); likewise as regards digital terrain modelling, vehicle dynamics, etc., etc. Once all that sort of stuff is available, we could start seeing lots more vertical apps.

Just my 2p

Since my time is very limited, I haven't checked if this already exists in KDE somwhere deep down, but I would really like to see a program for making charts. Something where you type in some numbers and then you choose chart type and click on a button and then you get a nice chart, preferably in KDE style, as my teacher likes the style KDE has.

I know there already is such functionality in OpenOffice Calc, but the charts there look like GNOME (to have something to compare with) and it is very difficult to get it right.

Hi.

I begin a PhD in astrophysics and what many scientists need is a full mathematical/plot Qt library (so it's more a Qt project than a KDE project...) with the following components :
- true 2D plots classes (Qwt is quite limited)
- 3D plots classes
- statistics classes (for plots)
- a LaTeX interpreter/displayer
- a full basic plot widget (with the selection of an input file, zooms on the plot, colors etc...)

If the KDE team launches this project it would have a huge success...

Hi,

Do you have a "health" or "medical" section ?
I can suggest to add the freemedforms-project packages. There are in debian wheezy in version 0.7.6 and on launchpad ppa in version 0.8.0.
http://freemedforms.com

Thanks
Eric

TheBlackCat wrote:

• An IDE for script (interpeted) programming languages, particularly python

Yes! That is what is missing!
Something Like Spyder! Easy to use, simple, IPython compatible...

Honestly, none of the linux plotting / statistical calculations hacked it for my last two papers. I went & used Origin and graphpad prism to finish things. I'm so sorry I finished things, I promise always to use OSS from now on. So, I need an application to hide my face on facebook when I'M using non-free stuff.

Alright, that's a little too sarcasitc. But there is some truth. The professional stats/graphing packages cover all the basics and make nice looking plots without too much trouble. Things like QTIplot or the various front ends for R (e.g. RKward) produce very fragile output via fragile procedures. There is always some sort of hack for everything that must be learned by trial and error. At some point, I just give up and go find someone with a working graphing/stats package.

When you look at the internet sales photos for OSS graphing packages, they look fantastic. But, they are way too much trouble, and, I can't send a graph or analysis to a colleague for review if it requires coding skills to change anything. Nor can I ask them to load up multiple packages on their windows/mac boxes where the output isn't that good looking. If KDE had a program that made legitimately good looking scientific graphs (includes all the fancy box plots, inserts, stacking plots, symbol alteration by color, shape, size) and had the basic biostatistics (ANOVA, ANCOVA, post-hoc tests, clustering analysis, 2-way ANOVA, outlier removal, etc.) that would be a huge help. Every year, grad students & cash strapped professors look around for a cheaper alternative. If you look at ImageJ / Fiji, you'll see a product that originally a photoshop clone that is now dominant throughout the scientific world for editing and quantifying images.

What I'm proposing doesn't even need to be a new package. There are many OSS projects that sort-of have all the graphics sort-of working, some that write to file formats that can be exchanged with professional packages, some that have biostats tests (although usually not at all straightforward to key in data). There is a huge code-base but no finished product. I guess that's the point.

@jdaniels do you know labplot? The last stable version is from kde3 times but there are some recent good news. Have a look, maybe it's what you are looking for.

Joan

The first beta release of LabPlot 2 is out! http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/mess ... d=31541915

stefan.ivic wrote:

TheBlackCat wrote:

• An IDE for script (interpeted) programming languages, particularly python

Yes! That is what is missing!
Something Like Spyder! Easy to use, simple, IPython compatible...

Well, KDevelop does that since a while.

I'd love to see a version of a webbrowser as good and reliable as firefox, but with a modern user-interface and a focus on defending me and my privacy against tracking, spying, malware, ads, ... On a level down to "doesn't need a custom hosts file, because the entry itself will already be filtered before any server is asked".... and so on.

integrated with links, images, 2D and 3D effect.

Hello!

Right now i'm using KAlgebra in my university math class (Linear Algebra and spatial geometry). Basicly we model 3D shapes from formulas (like x² + y² + z² = 2 gives a sphere). I just love KAlgebra, it's fast and really easy to use.

One thing i would see is a kind of mathematic "completer". Sometimes we have questions like "give the central point of a sphere with a radius of 2 units and that touches the points (x1,y1,z1) and (x2,y2,z2)". I would think of a selector, where you can choose a shape, and then some sort of form where you would fill the info you have and leave the rest empty, and clicking some button "generate" would fill up the blanks according to your first inputs. Bonus point if there's a window to modelise the shape in 3D environment (like an oval or a prism or a waveform.)

Maybe that exists already, tell me if you know.

Hope my idea may help the community.

Thanks.