cies' blog
This is the web-log (blog) of Cies Breijs. You can find his homepage here: http://cies.com (not)2006-11-26
KDE4; some ideas
in this post i come up with some "just ideas" that cross my mind for KDE4. i have not thorrowly investigated anything, and i may have not the time to implement at least one of these. yet i do want to share them.
so, here i go:
please note that i have by no means the skills nor the time to implement these proposals. i also didnt discus these ideas with anyone. so basically it is just dumping some ideas. feel free to comment!
so, here i go:
- try to minimize the use of small modeless dialogs. like the find and replace dialogs, like "connection problem X" dialogs, like some password dialogs, like download dialogs. most of the time the interaction they request, or the information they provide, can be done from the main window of the app (like the firefox searchbar), and dont need to steal you attention so bluntly by hanging over your workspace
- change the current modules stucture of KDE (again: just an idea)
- only groups of apps that share their specific libs should have a module (kde-pim, koffice)
- ofcourse we need kde-libs and kde-base
- the rest could be in app repositories that show the state and/or level of inclusion into kde (something like: kde-apps, kde-apps-testing, kde-apps-unstable, kde-apps-unmaintained and the same for contibuted-apps-*)
- name (at least) the KDE4 release (i like Roberto's "Kaleidos", so it will be "KDE Kaleidos") -- we can always name KDE5 something else... this way KDE becomes the 'brand' name, Kaleidos the central product.
- i once (on the 2004 aKademy) saw a CIG (corporate identity guide) about the use of colors and logo's... i really liked the ideas in there, i loved the colour pallet.
- KDE4 should do notifications well, all notification must run though a notification manager (maybe a part of plasma) that can decide based on user preferences how a notification should be handled (probably using notification categories)
- co-create (probably together with the gnome team, through freedesktop.org) and comply with unified DBUS interfaces for some desktop services like: the notifications handler, the wallet, the system tray, ... (more ideas anyone?) the portland/DAPI looks like strong force in that desktop service infrastructure direction.
- do something to unify KIO-slaves and gnome-VFS, probably using "fuse", see my last post.
- kwin4: master of eyecandy (maybe rename it to something hip), i have good feelings that KDE can bring the eyecandy we've all seen with beryl/compriz to defacto userland; usable, configurable, sensible, with good defaults and a fall-back mode.
- do mimetype-application associations good (using a minimum of popups). i have never liked they way assosiations are handled in KDE, i dont know why but it somehow always annoys me -- maybe it is just my inability to set it up properly.
please note that i have by no means the skills nor the time to implement these proposals. i also didnt discus these ideas with anyone. so basically it is just dumping some ideas. feel free to comment!
posted by cies # 14:25 
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okay now some more ranting about mis-use of dialogs... i just hate them like popups on websites. ofcourse we need some (settings, file open/save) but many we dont need. like all the dialogs showing me a 'status' (saying: "loading...", and sometimes a progress bar), didnt we invent the status bar for that? also all the dialogs telling me about some error (like timeouts on websites in konq), cant i just be noted of the error in the main window of the application? the same hold true for notifications, the line between informative and annoying is very thin, and different for every user.
I agree wholeheartedly on the dialogs — the overuse of the download/examine dialog is one of the things that irks me to no end in KDE3. It’s also a pain to keep it from taking my keyboard focus, and it doesn’t remember the settings (“stay opened”, as I’d actually prefer it in the case of Kopete, for example). So yeah, most of the time it’s completely useless, and when you want it, it doesn’t stay the way you want it and doesn’t provide enough information by far.
kwin4 is currently a 4-in-a-row type game, by the way, at least on debian/ubuntu.
kwin4 is currently a 4-in-a-row type game, by the way, at least on debian/ubuntu.
as to names. i think it's a nice idea. koffice could be kde office with kde word, kde presenter, kde spread and so on. also other applications - kde recorder for example. of course in menu it could be without 'kde'. in my opinion it would be much clearer :)
# posted by 
: 19:33
: 19:33
I think the D in KDE shold be re-defined to Development: The K Development Environment. The whole venture can then be the KDE Project and tThe KDE COmmunity, with the core offerings being The KDE Platform (i.e. the libs), The KDE Desktop, The KDE office Suite, The KDE PIM Suite, etc. Then each release can have its marketing code name.
I agree with the re-grouping of packages, some splits are currently rather arbitrary. As Aaron pointed out for Kde Graphics, there's core and non-core programs in there, and stuff that shold be in libkde anyway (why is KDE Print in libkde but KDE Scan is in libkdegraphics, isn't scanning a core task?).
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I agree with the re-grouping of packages, some splits are currently rather arbitrary. As Aaron pointed out for Kde Graphics, there's core and non-core programs in there, and stuff that shold be in libkde anyway (why is KDE Print in libkde but KDE Scan is in libkdegraphics, isn't scanning a core task?).
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