New Features For KDE 4.4 Desktop

[phoronix]

Phoronix: New Features For KDE 4.4 Desktop

KDE 4.4 is scheduled to be released in early February of 2010 as the six-month feature update to KDE4 and now its feature plan has surfaced. KDE 4.4 is poised to pickup a number of exciting new features along with various bug-fixes and other updates...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzY2Nw

[d2kx]

There's also the announcement of Project Timelord (http://www.kubuntu.org/news/timelord) that is hopefully going to improve Kubuntu, which isn't as polished as the Gnome's Ubuntu.

Exciting times!

[callegar]

I hope that I am wrong, but it looks like this is going to be the fourth major release of kde4 with poor bluetooth support.
How is it that kde is not aiming at feature parity with gnome on this front? I cannot believe there is such little request for exploring/transferring photos and the files on the handy phone from the kde desktop.

Kde is doing great on many aspects of its new desktop. However, I keep thinking that it should be prioritizing a few things in a different way.

Currently a big effort seems to be put in polishing new functionalities for which alternative easy approaches do anyway exist (improved search bars, social desktops, etc...). However, there are functionalities that one takes for granted in other desktops (and used to take for granted in kde 3.5) for which an easy replacements does not exist. If these are completely missing (support for managed printing for legacy applications, exploring mobile devices via bluetooth to name a couple) the appeal of the desktop is reduced, notwithstanding its innovation.

Please, now that the new foundations are in place, address regressions and feature parity with other desktop environments /before/ adding new stuff.

[thefirstm]

kdebluetooth4 works just fine....

[callegar]

kdebluetooth4 works just fine....

mmm... good to see I was not up to date. But neither is the kde-apps page then, since for kbluetooth4 says that currently there is no

- kio obex module (so it is impossible to browse remote filesystem)
- support to pair audio devices (for Device Manager and Wizard)

nor my system that got updated to kde 4.3.2 has such functionality. Is kbluetooth distributed separately from the main kde packages?

[thefirstm]

To get some of those features, you have to use an unreleased version. I think the latest SVN has some of these features.

[callegar]

To get some of those features, you have to use an unreleased version. I think the latest SVN has some of these features.

So it is probable that they will get into kde4.4 in spite of the planned features not mentioning them! Great!... but they should have the doc about the new features enriched then!

[eric.frederich]

Are there any long term plans to ditch GPL PyQt in favor of LGPL Nokia Supported PySide?

[frische]

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/4057

lrn2google

[Joe Sixpack]

Above all, phonon is FINALLY going to have equalizer support. I know the amarok devs are thrilled about this, as they were talking all the blame for not having an eq in amarok2.

There is also some major bug in plasma or solid that gets fixed too. I forget what it was, but it was discovered around the time of 4.3rc1, so it was too late to fix it.

[panda84]

I hope that I am wrong, but it looks like this is going to be the fourth major release of kde4 with poor bluetooth support.
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-hardware-devel&m=125286545115605&w=2

If it's not in the list of new features it doesn't mean it doesn't exists; quite the contrary. Real hackers don't like PRs, most of the wonderful features are always not publicized at all. Just dig in the mailing list and you'll discover a whole new world!

I know that's a pain, but it looks like marketing is not something open source project are able to do very well!

[val-gaav]

Another great not so publicized thing is webkit in konqueror. From reading dev mailing list kdewebkit seems to be in review for kdelibs so with kde 4.4 we may get an alternative engine to khtml. With that kde may finally have a good webbrowser that works with sites tha khtml does not.

[bugmenot]

@panda84 and val-gaav

Firstly, the techbase pages are really primarily for contributors to keep track of stuff (though of course it's great for anyone else to use them to get project info). They are also wiki pages so the developers or anyone else can keep them updated to reflect the current state - but yes, not everyone gets around to this. I'd rather they get on with coding the features than updating the wiki, if it comes to that choice :-)

Regarding promo - we write an in-depth release announcement, feature overview and story for KDE.News for the major releases (such as 4.4). We think it is better to promote these things once they are actually released, promotion efforts for features that don't currently exist in released software can confuse users and make people unhappy - if we promote a feature that probably isn't in the KDE 4 that people are using then that seems a bit wrong. Things like KDE support and the WebKit part for Konqueror will surely be in the release marketing if they make it in to KDE 4.4

Of course, our marketing is not perfect, but we do try :-)

Stu (KDE promo peep)

[deanjo]

Another great not so publicized thing is webkit in konqueror. From reading dev mailing list kdewebkit seems to be in review for kdelibs so with kde 4.4 we may get an alternative engine to khtml. With that kde may finally have a good webbrowser that works with sites tha khtml does not.

You have been able to use webkit for Konq for quite a while now. It was even in 4.0 IIRC although it may have been 4.1.

http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2007-September/002442.html

[Apopas]

There's also the announcement of Project Timelord (http://www.kubuntu.org/news/timelord) that is hopefully going to improve Kubuntu, which isn't as polished as the Gnome's Ubuntu.
I'm sure that's not what you actually meant, but it's funny to read that Ubuntu is polished :D