KDE 4.1.2

[kubicle]

Noticed today that KDE 4.1.2 packages are making their way into intrepid repos, which should mean intrepid will ship with the latest stable/bugfix release of KDE.

KDE4 starts to feel like a capable replacement of the KDE3 series. There are still some bugs and missing features (compared to KDE3), but I've read that most of them (of the ones that bother me personally) will be addressed in KDE 4.2, which is due next January.

[Bongo5HH]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

Not at all intending to be a jerk, but as someone who's been using KDE 4 daily since 4.0.0 beta I'm puzzled about what is missing from KDE4 right now that would be of any importance.

Can you tell me a couple of the things that bug you? I'm just curious really.

Thanks,
Kev

[Rog131]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

todo / in-progress / done

> KDE4.2 Feature Plan

what is missing from KDE4 right now that would be of any importance.

Usability: Panel Autohide (done), Saved sesion support, ...

> > Saved session support


KDE 4 will need time; so maybe

KDE 4.0 (alpha)
KDE 4.1 (beta)
KDE 4.2 (RC)
KDE 4.3 (Final)

[kubicle]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

Can you tell me a couple of the things that bug you? I'm just curious really.

Certainly.

I've come to rely quite heavily on (customized to the extreme) keyboard shortcuts on my laptop workflow, and setting global shortcuts to launch applications is rather erratic in KDE4 (should be improved in 4.2)...I also miss the ability to set alternate shortcuts in shortcut configuration (I'm used to setting both two-handed and one-handed shortcuts...which is rather strange, I admit)
Another feature I miss is hiding panels to free screen real estate (already mentioned by Rog131, done in 4.2).

Other features are cosmetical (like setting different walpapers on virtual desktops), can be worked around (don't like kickoff, lancelot or traditional menu are useful alternatives for me), don't have KDE3 comparisons (I'd like terminal like tab auto-completion in krunner), or can currently be replaced by KDE3 versions (No wifi management plasma applet yet, stuck with knetworkmanager for now).

I think none of the features I miss are of key importance to everyone (or even the majority of users), and I'm quite pleased with KDE4 myself (I love many of the new features, and aside from shortcut management, none of the 'missing' features really make me want to look back to KDE3). And I'm sure KDE4 will only get better.

[krazy]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

the main thing that bugs me in KDE4 at the moment is Ark. it really is an alpha quality release at this stage, though it's being worked on in 4.2 !

[Bongo5HH]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

I've come to rely quite heavily on (customized to the extreme) keyboard shortcuts on my laptop workflow, and setting global shortcuts to launch applications is rather erratic in KDE4 (should be improved in 4.2)...I also miss the ability to set alternate shortcuts in shortcut configuration (I'm used to setting both two-handed and one-handed shortcuts...which is rather strange, I admit)

There's something I wouldn't have thought of.

The other points fall into the perfectly legitimate to you category. Everyone uses their machine a bit differently, and it's nice when a desktop allows you to make the best of that. I can see how these points are important to you.

Glad there's nothing that I SHOULD have been noticing all along that I've just been missing. I mean the obvious shortcomings of 4.0.0 were well.. obvious.

Side Note - I was taking a MS Access course the other day and I found that you had to do things in one particular way here, and in another way there.. and there was nothing you could do about it. I realized yet again that the MS way is the only way when you're using a MS product. It's not that MS is easier it's that they force you to do things their way and you tend to learn those ways.. instead of being able to decide how you want to do things.

So yes, I can see your points. Thanks for sharing!
Kev

[kbunt]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

I posted some 'bugs' (not sure if they are but I'm just inquiring) in the install/boot section since they occurred on the boot up and I experienced them shortly after booting the liveCD. Can someone reading this thread take a quick read of my post? I am just wondering if they're related to these bugs or not.

[Rog131]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

> KDE 4.1.2 Release Announcement
> KDE 4.1.2 Changelog

[Thad]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

My complaints mostly revolve around the panel and the K menu. (Disclaimer: I haven't tried 4.1.2 yet; last I tried was 4.1.)

The organization of the K menu is really a deal-breaker. I understand why you would sort programs under their description instead of their name (useful for newbies who don't know Kopete from Konqueror), but I don't look for ktorrent under B or k3b under C. Switching to the Classic Menu allows you to view them by name instead of description, but bizarrely still SORTS them by description.

And of course switching to the Classic Menu doesn't really "switch"; it removes the new menu widget and REPLACES it with the Classic Menu one -- and in the process removes the Alt-F1 keyboard shortcut. If you want to re-add it, you have to manually hack a config file. Honestly -- what the hell? What year IS this? There is no rational reason I should have to hack a config file just to set a keyboard shortcut for a basic UI element. (And on top of that, my modifications to the config file didn't work consistently.)

Something else I've seen numerous other users complain about is the lack of an equivalent to KDE 3's "show desktop" toggle. Yes, there's a widget, but it wasn't actually a toggle; it simply minimized every window -- meaning a simple Alt-Tab didn't restore them all. Plus, we're back to the keyboard shortcut problem; if I want to set it to Ctrl-Alt-D or Meta-D, I have to hack a config file.

More of a minor nitpick is that I don't like the window decorations. I don't like the active titlebar being the same color as inactive titlebars. Adding stripes to the active one is a passable solution, but it screams "last-minute hack because people complained". Of course, I haven't tried it with all the fancy OpenGL stuff turned on (last I tried it it just crashed the desktop), so maybe it works better like that -- Apple gets away with having every titlebar be gray because of the transparency and drop shadow effects.

In the end, my problem with KDE 4 is that the interface simply doesn't work the way I've come to expect it to, and there don't seem to be customization options to GET it to.

Maybe 4.2 will be the charm -- I totally agree with Rog131 that KDE 4 is a version or two behind where the numbers say it is.

[KeithZG]

Re: KDE 4.1.2

My main gripe/needed-feature is also with the panel; it's already annoying and inconvenient that I have to go to edit it before I can drag it around (whereas Kicker can be set to always be movable) but mainly it's that it gets VERY wonky often when i drag it between my monitors, sometimes necessitating me deleting it and re-adding a blank new panel before I can even drag it to the bottom of my left-hand monitor, other times strangely taking all the widgets and placing them in the middle on top of eachother (including the built-in panel-settings widget). In fact, I've taken to using Kicker instead, despite it looking terrible without the ability to be transparent.

And of course a lot of other things I've taken for granted are missing in their KDE4 equivalents; RadialMap (Filelight) view for Konqueror, for example, which I use constantly, or how the KDE4 version of KTorrent lacks the ability to differentiate the queues into upload and download, instead having the queue manager mash both together (which is wonky, since they're treated differently obviously, but the two lists are mashed into one).

I could go on for quite awhile, hah, but I'll leave it there since those are the three things which keep me from using KDE4 or installing 8.10 on my main machine; other quibbles like the inability to use compositing and the slowdowns/crashes are probably fixable and more due to my use of the binary-blob nvidia drivers, especially since even on my laptop's crappy intel graphics card they aren't nearly as much of an issue (and those are bugs, not feature regressions).