Registered Member
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There is a lot of criticism surrounding Konqueror. But part of the problem also seems to be the lack of development resources. It does not seem to be attractive to develop for Konqueror. Extensions as in Firefox could solve this and are often requested. As I understand it, it will never be possible to run original Firefox extensions on Konqueror, but that it is already possible to extend Konqueror. So I was thinking: How could good old Konqui be more attractive so that people really provide extensions? So I came up with the following idea which I will call „socialbar“ because it will be the most visible feature, even though it would be much more than this.
A contextbar for Konqueror The contextbar would contain features for easier handling of your favourite websites and services. This would be similar to tool-bars in Firefox. The difference would be there would be only one which adapts its appearance according to the context (the page you are on) and your most used tools and sites. This would mean it would have two sections: - The first would provide actions concerning the site you are on - The second would provide integration of your favourite (web)tools you can use on every page like [Share], [SocialHome], [Customize], [LoginOut], [RecepyRequest] [Share] share the link/content of this page in one or more favourite social networking sites, bookmarking services or via Email [SocialHome] Goto the homepage of your favorite social network [LogInOut] Provide autologin, easy login, easy logout, autologout the page you are browsing right now [Customize] Automatically indicate that Greasemonkey scripts are available for this page and offer to show, install or modify them. [RecipeRequest] A button in order to vote creating a recipy for this page so that Recipe devs can where there is demand. Konqueror would deliver a set of recipes for some of the most popular pages and services. It would also automatically [of course it can be turned off] download a list of all available recipes so that it could indicate “Hey, there is a recipe available for this page” and offer to install it. As mentioned contextbar would be more than the bar itself. The recipes could also provide context menu actions in the same way meaning some are for all pages and others which are only for the page you are on. The same could apply for the status bar and the sidebar (personally I do not like the side bar, but some people do). The recipes should made in a way that users without programming knowledge can easily learn how to modify them. For making Konqueror a real easy customizable context browser there would be a need for two important features to be finished and extended. - Implementation of Greasemonkey along with the feature to check if there are scripts for the actual page I am browsing. I read that this was partly implemented in KDE3, but it seems like it never made its way into Konqueror in KDE4. - Fixing of Adblock. Adblock is a nice feature, but it really needs to automatically download new filters, like adblock plus does it. Along with the Greasemonkey implementation there could be a special feature which could help to get rid problems with pages not working in Konqui. There could be a pagefix-Greasemonkey-repository maintained by KDE. Not working pages are an annoying feature and as long as web developers do not fully support Konqueror and fully work with standards there are workarounds needed. These fix-scripts could be provided by everyone who realizes what is brocken, but checked for security reasons by a team working on this. The advantage would be: Users would not need to wait for a new version of Konqueror for a fix and Konqueror would not need to adapt KHTML or Webkit if the site if developed against a faulty implementation in Firefox or Internet Exploiter. The result: Konqueror would be as extendible as Firefox, it would be easier for other developers to add functions to Konqueror without touching Konqueror itself. Users would have more power to customize not only their browser but also there browsing experience. No other browser has this to that extend. At the same time with this way of extending Konqueror cluttering can also be avoided, because extensions are more dependend on the context and manipulation of recipes is made easy. Mockups of this idea are welcome. Please comment on it, so the idea can be clarified and extended. Markum
markum, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Nov.
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Registered Member
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id like a lot to see one day Konqueror beside firefoxe,chrome,opera,safari because his real place is first as is a high quality application.
The first thing that could win users is the speed of displying the sites. If i disable javascript the browsing is extreme fast, so may be is an issue in javascript that should be verified. the other thing is of cource the extensions that will make Konqueror high customized and extensible. My personaly wish is that i like Konqueror to continue with khtml and not webkit for the reason that the browser has to be maintainted internally as in the fast future the browser will be equal as the OS. the importance of this kind of applications will be enormous. I hope that developers have the same point view and they will bring Konqueror again at his (first) place |
KDE Developer
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Konqueror is highly extensible with KIO-Slaves, KParts and KPart-Plugins. The design seems to be very proper. But there should be scriptable KPart-Plugins.
First of all the KPart-features should be accessible using Kross. E.g. normal Qt/KDE Widgets and DOM-access would be very important. Maybe there should be easier possibilities: -A simple button-addon: You could write a .desktop-file for a button and a script is executed/an object is created on click. Such buttons could be placed in toolbars, menus, contextmenu (maybe more powerful service-menus could help) or statusbar -.ui-Browsing: There could be a simple XML-format with the tags to load a script (any language using Kross), to load a .ui-file at runtime and maybe some description-tags. Using existing Qt/KDE-technologies there would be a very flexible addon-format. Such "scripted uis" could be displayed in mainwindow, sidebar or on button-click The onliest Addon I would need in Konqueror would be FireBug with FirePHP. I use Konqueror but for development I still need Firefox. The User |
Registered Member
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Unfortunately I do not understand all about the technical terms, but the argument about Konqueror being highly extendable has been very often. Still there is not much around and we have to ask why: - The few extensions are not widely distributed or used. Some on KDE-apps had really complicated installation procedures -> If there are not many installs, developers do not receive much feedback -> I guess that is not good for motivation. - But what I consider the the bigger problem coming along with that: I do not have the feeling that there is a vision which attracts users and developers. A vision similar to ones behind Plasma and Akonadi which seem to motivate people in providing something. I see a lot of bug fixes in KHTML which is good, but at the same time there unclear messages like: There will be qt-version of Firefox, that Konqueror will switch to webkit or now that Kubuntu will ditch Konqueror in favour of Aurora. I think he question has to be answered: Why does the KDE-community needs its own browser. One part of the answer is and I think that is part of your point: In order to make use of all the powerful KDE-technologies. But having a vision has to further, to answer the question what these technologies should be used for. That was what I was trying to address. To make browsing customizable, this customization easy (only a small amount of Firefox users really use extensions, give the user the possibilities to influence as much as he can, but at the same time avoid cluttering. Since I am not the programming guy I believe programmers will have additional needs. What I think is important about the above proposal that it also contains a repository for addons, but for basic extensions concerning webpages and services to use there is no need to search for extensions. Konqueror would offer (silently) them to the user as soon as he visits the site. More discussion welcome. Markum
markum, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Nov.
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KDE Developer
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KParts: Fileviewers like HTML, WebKit, Kate, Folderview... KIO: Protocols like file, http, ftp or sftp KPart-Plugins: C++ modules integratable into KParts. For example Adblock, validators... Scripting-Support would have some nice aspects: -Especially Web-Developers would be motivated to write Plugins with JS -Other developers may prefer Python, Ruby or Java and could write Plugins in there favourite language in addition to the C++-Addons Of course such scripts would be a bit slower than C++-Plugins. But I prefer a scripted plugin instead of no plugin.
Konqueror really is a great Web-Browser. It's much better than Aurora or Rekonq because of its flexibility. It can show PDF (KPart), modify files (KPart), it can be a FTP-Client (KIO), a webbrowser (KIO-Http and KHTML-KPart) and a filemanger (KIO-file, folderview-KPart). That's a unique concept to be served. I've forgotten an additional aspect: Netscape-Addons like Gnash are supported. But they are neither innovative nor a problem.
Firefox is simply bad without Addons.
There could be a KNewStuff integration. For C++-Addons you normally use rpm/deb-packages. But there is an idea to support C++-Stuff in KNewStuff but it was put into "Submitted", so nobody wants to discuss this great and really important idea. The User |
Registered Member
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I think it would be useful to identify what sorts of websites Konqueror cannot handle; I have used sites all over the world in my work and had hardly any problems; here in the UK there are a couple of railway companies whose sites require Firefox to make bookings and I cannot listen live on the BBC using Konqueror but I can download podcasts with no problem.
John Hudson, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Oct.
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KDE Developer
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Registered Member
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That's ridiculous. Would you also like Konqueror to not use Qt as well? |
Registered Member
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FYI, khtml uses Qt more than QtWebKit does. E.g. there are abstraction layers in QtWebKit (which abstract any toolkit far away), and khtml uses Qt widgets (LineEdit, TextEdit, combo boxes etc) for html widgets, WebKit implements it from scratch. |
Registered Member
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I stumbled onto this post this morning while browsing for something else and I'm happy that I found it. Ever since I made the move to Linux/KDE I've wanted to use Konqueror as the default all-in-one file manager/web browser and did for a while with Konq 11. I was having fun with my computer again after many years of frustration with MSWIN. I like programs with power and flexibility and Konq could do it all. MS (and Norton Desktop) never really pulled it off because the active desktop on my machine was more inactive than active because of crashes and Norton D. stole all my resources. Konqueror was a new toy and workhorse for me. I won't tell the good things about it that you already know. But I want to see Konq brought up to speed by the fixes all of you are talking about. I'm not a programmer so I don't understand all you're saying, but I agree with you that Konq can be the best web browser again. It has always been, IMHO, the best file manager available. I've tried repeatedly to make it work better as my default web browser but it will still eventually crash. An occasional crash is not too bad but not if I'm on my financial websites. That forces me to use another browser so I don't have important data loss. It is however, my default file manager and I can open an internet connection inside of it from a saved link on my HDD or a bookmark instead of opening another browser. This works fine for me and it doesn't crash hardly at all when I do this. I left MSWIN a few years ago in ultimate frustration from the problems we know. The biggest problems I've had with several distros of Linux though, are that I didn't know much about my own computer (P2.4 single core, ASUS P4PE 2GB memory that wasn't enough for XPSP3 but gobs more than I need for openSUSE 12.2, PNY AGP4 (MB is almost 12yrs old but I'm not a gamer)), so that's been the focus of my learning Linux. I've run into a number of problems here and there but nothing that can't be fixed. If I can't figure it out myself I go to the forums and/or the documentation sites and find what I need. I love to work on it so I'm not afraid to dig through the books and learn something new - it's fun. I don't know how to fix Konqueror but I support whatever you guys can do to make it happen. I rambled some but I don't know your technical expertise. Count me in for making Konqueror #1 again!
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