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| This Week... |
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Dolphin, an alternative file manager, is imported into KDE SVN. Work on session management in Kontact becomes visible with the implementation of state remembering for tabs in aKregator. Mailody gets a better SMTP implementation, with authentication support. Many functionality improvements in Okular. An experimental generic API for integration of more online music store services (following the example of the Magnatune implementation) is proposed and developed in Amarok. Continued speed and memory optimisations in KOffice and KDE 4 (via kdelibs).
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A new file manager application moulded by experimental usability, Dolphin, was finally imported into KDE SVN this week. Peter Penz, the lead developer, briefly introduces Dolphin:
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Dolphin was released as KDE 3 application around June 2006. It is not intended as competitor to Konqueror, as Konqueror is a lot more than just a file manager. The focus of Dolphin is primarily on being a great file manager, which allows us to optimise the user interface for this specific task.
Currently Dolphin is being ported to Qt4 and the KDE 4 environment, with special attention being given to converting and optimising the file item views using Qt4's Interview, which is a challenging task. The version in SVN is not really usable at the moment because of the Qt4/KDE 4 port. The focus for Dolphin will be on improving the navigation bar, introducing pluggable sidebars and providing better visual feedback for drag & drop operations.
I think it is important to mention, that Dolphin should NOT replace the Konqueror file manager. Dolphin is currently just a playground for testing some usability ideas and also for testing the file related parts of the KDE 4 libraries. If everything goes well, maybe some parts like the Dolphin navigation bar might find their way to kdelibs, so that it can be used by other applications or in the file open/close dialog. So before a discussion is started at dot.kde.org about Dolphin vs. the Konqueror file manager: Dolphin is just an additional option and is not meant to replace Konqueror :-)
Dolphin currently does not look too impressive visually, but nethertheless, here is a screenshot of the KDE 4 version of Dolphin (in SVN at /trunk/playground/utils/dolphin/). It shows the prototype of a sidebar which is not yet available in the KDE 3 version of Dolphin.
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Josef Spillner, the maintainer of a KDE development monitoring tool, Commitfilter, reports on a recent update to the web interface:
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The Commitfilter software was updated to version 0.9.1 today.
Though no significant new functionality has been added, a lot of maintenance changes were due. Among others, the web interface can now be styled (a KDE-like one will be added soon). New features will be added in the next release - filtering by regular expression, deleting accounts, etc.
The instance which runs on http://commitfilter.kde.org/ has moved to new.kstuff.org which is a OSU-OSL sponsored server. This allows us the luxury of a local installation of KDE SVN (all released KDE modules, possibly more on request) which is updated daily and makes browsing the modules so much faster when compared to the WebSVN browser!
I would also like to point out that we're looking for more people to join the KDE Services Team since hosting services eats a lot of time and is better shared among some people. Find out more here.
Finally, congrats to the Amarok people for being the #1 most popular request among Commitfilter users!
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A message sent to the kde-accessibility mailing list caught my eye this week, as a great illustration of the rewards all users gain through accessibility foresight, and not just those with more traditionally-recognised disabilities. Sami Liedes simply titles his message: "Thanks :)":
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I wanted to say a big thanks to the folks who work to make KDE accessible. Having recently been in an accident that disabled my primary hand for some 1.5 months, I was delighted to see how good KDE Accessibility is. Sticky keys is of course basic stuff, but it makes certain things a lot easier for me. Above all I was delighted that my browser of choice when I'm healthy, Konqueror, implements what I consider superior accessibility features.
In Konqueror, at least the access keys are really nice, and Firefox (which I use for a very few sites that do not work well under Konqueror) for example doesn't seem to have those.
There are still some things that I haven't figured out how to use with keyboard, like KOrganizer. Maybe I should start to file bugs against them (I already have filed a number of accessibility-related bugs against Konqueror). But mostly I can just go on using my computer with one hand almost as easily as before.
So thank you :)
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Bug Fixes |
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Optimise |
Security |
Other |
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Accessibility |
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Development Tools |
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Educational |
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Graphics |
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KDE-Base |
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KDE-PIM |
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Office |
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Konqueror |
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Multimedia |
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Networking Tools |
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User Interface |
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Utilities |
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Other |
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Stephan Johach committed changes in /branches/KDE/3.5/kdesdk/kbabel:
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Fix problems when no default project is found.
KBabel used a KDE function which returns a null string if the requested file does not exist. That lead to some strange problems with disabled project configuration settings. |
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Educational |
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Joseph Kerian committed changes in /trunk/KDE/kdeedu/kiten/radselect:
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There we go... found the two bugs that were preventing radselect from working. Radical selection is now limited by the remaining possibilities, and the remaining kanji possibilities are displayed as well. Next up, making stroke count work, and making some ui decisions. |
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