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KDE Plasma 5

arstechnica.com

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Re: KDE Plasma 5

#61

Post by andmarios »

gcr wrote: post #56
andmarios wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they do so much more. For example with KDE activities you can save states of your desktop (which apps are open, their position on screen, their open tabs, files etc) and restore them whenever you want. So you have ready layouts for your usual tasks and you can start/stop or switch between them in seconds. Another small example that exists since KDE 2 maybe: you get a clipboard with history. How one may live witho…

Does KDE do these? It sounds like the setup you describe is only possible with a huge amount of configuration. With enough configuration, Emacs could do all those things too.

KDE does most of these and many more out of the box. ;)

The only one it doesn't do by default is the Android integration but you only need to install kde-connect and pair your phone. Kde-connect will probably be part of the default installation in the near future, so it will be out of the box too.

KDE always had such cool features. For example when audio CDs were still a thing, whenever you inserted an audio CD in your drive and open it in KDE's file manager it would show you folders with mp3 and flac versions of the songs. Once you tried to copy them, KDE would rip and encode them on the fly for you!

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#62

Post by rikkus »

andmarios wrote: post #61
gcr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does KDE do these? It sounds like the setup you describe is only possible with a huge amount of configuration. With enough configuration, Emacs could do all those things too.

KDE does most of these and many more out of the box. ;) The only one it doesn't do by default is the Android integration but you only need to install kde-connect and pair your phone. Kde-connect will probably be part of the default installation in the near future, so it will be out of the box too. KDE always had such cool features. For example when audio CDs were still a thing, whenever you inserted an audio CD in yo…

Hi, I came up with the CD ripping idea and wrote the original implementation. I remember being dissatisfied with the existing programs that did the job, and preferring the idea of simply inserting the CD and then dragging and dropping the (virtual) audio files from it. You can see [almost] the original documentation from ten years ago here: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/kioslave/au...

I think it probably confused a few people when it looked like their Red Book audio CD contained folders, one of which contained Ogg Vorbis files, ready tagged.

I had actually forgotten about this, thanks for the reminder!

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#63

Post by kbenson »

srean wrote: post #60

As an fvwm user (nothing fancy in my configs) whenever a thread like this kicks up, I scan the comments for other fvwm users. Maybe I will run into one, nope, not one to be found. Fvwm user feels lonely.

Generally an FVWM user, but been running Windows lately for work. I still keep my customized configs[1] around for when I need them though, as whenever I use a *nix for a workstation, it's invariably what I install.

1: Of course, part of the fun of running FVWM is seeing screenshots of other people's FVWM setups or features of other window managers, and then finding someone who's done the same in FVWM and porting their configs or implementing it yourself, usually within a few hours at most. It's hard to explain to non-FVWM users just how versatile it is.

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#64

Post by itry »

smacktoward wrote: post #58

A weird thing about this article is the way it's all "ewww, Unity, that's for tablets, gross." One of the things I like about Unity on the desktop is how keyboard-oriented it is. Features like the Dash and the HUD are specifically aimed at exposing functionality without requiring you to take your hands off the keyboard in order to push a mouse around. Which is appealing, at least to me. But whatever it is, it definit…

If Unity is not aimed at tablets, then why does it have no taskbar?

What reason except to save real estate could there be? Who does not want to be able to see which windows he has currently open?

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#65

Post by shuzchen »

rplnt wrote: post #18
mike-cardwell wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnome, Unity, KDE. I couldn't care less. They all let me launch apps and switch between them quickly and easily. That's all I need from a desktop environment. I don't understand why people feel so passionate about them.

Gnome doesn't let you switch easily (alt-tab is somewhat bad). Gnome doesn't let you see your apps well (huge waste of space for candy graphics). [and the list with Gnome goes on and on]; KDE doesn't let you launch them easily (yay for ignoring super-key). KDE is super unstable. I'm sure there are caveats with Unity as well. Simply, there is still reason to chose one or the other, these systems are not interchangeabl…

krunner has been around forever and lets me launch any program (even command line ones) or switch between open windows. It's bound to alt-f2 by default but you can remap it to super-key if that works for you.

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#66

Post by fafner »

sho_hn wrote: post #14
fafner wrote: post #2

I think KDE is doing the right steps with KDE5 technology-wise. But I'm still very confused by the way KDE split up the project and started to do separate releases. Now we have Plasma5 and I think there is a 5 version of the frameworks but not of KWin etc. I mean sure it will help them get the projects released and tested. But I'd love to hear a "KDE 5 released" announcement and install it. Instead of "One part of KD…

Nah, it's not that hard. There's three parts: * KDE Frameworks 5, which is a modularized, tiered set of libraries and runtime components that complement Qt with functionality useful to building apps and shells. * KDE Plasma 5, a set of shells implemented using Frameworks 5. Plasma Desktop is the most prominent of those. KWin is part of Plasma, FWIW, so sure, it's at 5 now. * KDE Applications. Not yet at 5, but will i…

That does make sense. But it still leaves me a bit wondering what the state of KDE5 is. I mean when can it be considered as released and ready for production? Will Kubuntu ship Plasma5/KF5 next release (14.10) even if the applications are not yet ready?

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#67

Post by jiggy2011 »

itry wrote: post #64
smacktoward wrote: post #58

A weird thing about this article is the way it's all "ewww, Unity, that's for tablets, gross." One of the things I like about Unity on the desktop is how keyboard-oriented it is. Features like the Dash and the HUD are specifically aimed at exposing functionality without requiring you to take your hands off the keyboard in order to push a mouse around. Which is appealing, at least to me. But whatever it is, it definit…

If Unity is not aimed at tablets, then why does it have no taskbar? What reason except to save real estate could there be? Who does not want to be able to see which windows he has currently open?

Windows lost the taskbar in Win 7, OS X has never had one.

In my experience a dock is preferable when you have a small number of windows open for each application and a taskbar is preferable with a larger number. Perhaps tabbed applications have made this switch possible.

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#68

Post by sho_hn »

fafner wrote: post #66
sho_hn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it's not that hard. There's three parts: * KDE Frameworks 5, which is a modularized, tiered set of libraries and runtime components that complement Qt with functionality useful to building apps and shells. * KDE Plasma 5, a set of shells implemented using Frameworks 5. Plasma Desktop is the most prominent of those. KWin is part of Plasma, FWIW, so sure, it's at 5 now. * KDE Applications. Not yet at 5, but will i…

That does make sense. But it still leaves me a bit wondering what the state of KDE5 is. I mean when can it be considered as released and ready for production? Will Kubuntu ship Plasma5/KF5 next release (14.10) even if the applications are not yet ready?

> I mean when can it be considered as released and ready for production?

A fair question :). Let me summarize:

* KDE Frameworks 5 made its first stable release on July 7th, 2014. That's since been followed by Frameworks 5.1 one month later. It's monthly releases from here on out. This is production-ready code.

* KDE Plasma 5 made its first stable release on July 15th, 2015. This was followed by Plasma 5.0.1 one month later. Plasma 5 does monthly maintenance releases, while feature releases are on a three-month interval, i.e. Plasma 5.1 will be released in October. 5.0 is considered a stable release, but it's a dot-oh with some rough edges (nothing comparable to 4.0 at release, though), and the distros are also still doing their integration work right now. The release notes and an errata list provide some guidance there. Most distros will replace Plasma 4 as default with 5.1 or 5.2 later this year, when everything will have settled nicely.

* KDE Applications is doing a 4.14 feature release this month. This will be the last one built entirely on the KDE 4 libraries. Future KDE Applications releases will start shipping ports of apps to Frameworks 5, at the discretion of their individual maintainers/dev teams (some have had porting branches for a good while).

> Will Kubuntu ship Plasma5/KF5 next release (14.10) even if the applications are not yet ready?

I'm not 100% on top of the plans of the Kubuntu community, but I believe 14.10 is still going to use Plasma 4 by default - you might want to look into that more closely though, I'm not certain. I'm sure they'll offer Plasma 5 for interested users in some form as well though. They probably do already. KDE 4 apps still run in Plasma 5, of course, so that's no limitation (and KF5 apps also run in Plasma 4, for that matter).

Yes, on the promo front this does mean we don't get to do a big "BANG! It's KDE 5!" moment, but it also has some advantages for promo - e.g. driving home that KF5 isn't useful just for making apps that run in Plasma, and by implication that KDE Applications aren't useful just in Plasma.

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#69

Post by jiggy2011 »

moystard wrote: post #59
smacktoward wrote: post #58

A weird thing about this article is the way it's all "ewww, Unity, that's for tablets, gross." One of the things I like about Unity on the desktop is how keyboard-oriented it is. Features like the Dash and the HUD are specifically aimed at exposing functionality without requiring you to take your hands off the keyboard in order to push a mouse around. Which is appealing, at least to me. But whatever it is, it definit…

I could not have said that better: I actually love the keyboard oriented approach of Unity. If you further install Unity Tweak Tool / Ubuntu Tweak, you can also get keyboard shortcuts for tiling and organizing your application windows. I used to be a Gnome Shell user, but Unity has definitely convinced me in its last version and I feel more productive than ever, as I rarely have to touch my mouse when coding. If only…

> If only there was a decent launcher on Linux, I could definitely put OSX behind me.

I like synapse, it's very fast and simple.

Re: KDE Plasma 5

#70

Post by andmarios »

rikkus wrote: post #62
andmarios wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KDE does most of these and many more out of the box. ;) The only one it doesn't do by default is the Android integration but you only need to install kde-connect and pair your phone. Kde-connect will probably be part of the default installation in the near future, so it will be out of the box too. KDE always had such cool features. For example when audio CDs were still a thing, whenever you inserted an audio CD in yo…

Hi, I came up with the CD ripping idea and wrote the original implementation. I remember being dissatisfied with the existing programs that did the job, and preferring the idea of simply inserting the CD and then dragging and dropping the (virtual) audio files from it. You can see [almost] the original documentation from ten years ago here: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/kioslave/au... I think it pr…

Thank you for your work on KDE!
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