From kde-devel Wed Jul 16 20:32:05 2008 From: "AJ Venter" Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:32:05 +0000 To: kde-devel Subject: Idea: KDE3 to KDE4 Settings migration wizard Message-Id: <6D3DB03C7B43164AA4BF76875F15875F16B67678 () c3po ! mercantrade ! com> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=121624041402575 Hi all, I have an idea, based on my personal experience - I am happy to give it a go though I am no C++ developer (but this could probably be done with something like Kommander or even bash+kdialog) but before I tried I wanted to get a feel for how others feel about it - and whether it has any feasibility. To me, KDE4.0 was not at a point where I could use it for my daily desktop - my nvidia card had a lot to do with this, but there were other issues - most of them discussed beyond believe. KDE4.1 seems like it will be pretty close though. So, up until now, I have had both versions of KDE installed, using KDE3 for day-to-day work and experimenting with KDE4. Eventually of course, I will want to migrate to KDE4 completely but a lot of people will be moving across after a time of running both I believe. The single most difficult aspect of this I think is that you end up with a complete blank slate. Every setting you did in the past is lost -even where such settings are not in any version dependent. I am thinking of things like your Amarok songs database, your kopete accounts and chat histories and the like. So the idea occurred to me that one could probably create a wizard that knew which settings were safe to migrate and could automate it. It could ask the user where his old .kde data directory is, and where the new KDE4 one will be (as this varies greatly between distro's and users own migration paths), then copy all settings which are safe to copy from the one to the other. Mostly these are just plain text files being copied from one share/apps and share/config to another. Like I said, I would be happy to try and create it but I will certainly need help - not least to know which config files are safe to copy across. Of course, this may be superfluous - my next question is, how safe is it to copy your entire kde3 data directory to where you will want the new kde4 directory to be prior to logging in the first time ? I actually couldn't find this on the net easily. How well will KDE4 recognize which configs it cannot keep using, which it knows how to import and which to discard ? If the answer is "very well" then this problem can be addressed by merely telling this to people, rather than writing a new program (however simple it may be in code). So I away replies eagerly and if the answer to the last question is "don't even think about it" then I think my first SOFTWARE contribution to KDE just got decided :p Ciao A.J. -- AJ Venter Linux System Administrator DataCash Tel (direct): +44 (0)20 7421 4520 Mobile: +27 (0)83 455 9978 DataCash Ltd, Descartes House, 8 Gate Street, London, WC2A 3HP, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0)870 7274 761 Fax: +44 (0)870 7274 781 www.datacash.com DISCLAIMER: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential to DataCash Group plc and its group companies. It is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you have received this email in error, please forward it to info@datacash.com with the subject line "Received in Error". If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, copy, print, distribute or rely on this email or any transmitted files. DataCash Ltd is registered in England and Wales no. 3430157. DataCash Ltd is part of the DataCash Group plc. DataCash Group plc is registered in England and Wales no. 3168091. DataCash Ltd and DataCash Group plc registered address is Descartes House, 8 Gate Street, London, WC2A 3HP, United Kingdom. Save a tree...Please only print this page if essential >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<