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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    [kde-promo] visual feature guide
From:       "Jos Poortvliet" <jospoortvliet () gmail ! com>
Date:       2008-12-14 20:13:56
Message-ID: 5847e5cf0812141213s405f270ah5bddf494163feda1 () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hi everybody,

I've been working on the feature guide for the 4.2 release. It is far
from finished, but I think it is time for a bit of feedback. And more
importantly, this is a lot of work, so any contributions would be
greatly appreciated.

What I need right now:
- take a some time to have a good look at it, and improve the wording
or fix spelling/gramar errors
- take one or two of the todo items (help on games & edu greatly
appreciated) and write something about it.
- add things I missed!!!!!

Thanks in advance and much love,

Jos

["kde 42 visual guide.txt" (text/plain)]

The KDE 4.2 Desktop workspace, libraries and applications have seen many improvements \
over the last 6 months. The pages below provide an overview of what's new in KDE 4.2 \
and give a tour of some of these improvements with screenshots and videos. Be aware \
that this is just a small sample of what has been improved in KDE 4.2.

The desktop workspace: Plasma, KWin, KRunner and new systemsettings

Applications: Dolphin, Kate, KMail

Educational Applications: KStars, 

Games: ...

Libraries and other improvements: Oxygen, File dialogs, ...



*** Desktop Improves User Experience

Plasma provides your workspace with a flexible desktop. Plasma consists mainly of \
widgets, and thus allows you to organize the desktop however you want. The Dashboard \
ensures your desktop is never more than a quick "CONTROL+F12" away so you can have a \
look at the widgets to read or add notes, check for news or weather updates and use \
the dictionary.

Improvements

[edit] Plasma

(see also plasma changelog)

    * Kate sessions runner
    * Notifications and jobs in systemtray
    * panel->desktop dragging
    * Wallpaper plugins
    * Python support
    * Ruby support
    * Plasma Popup Tips
    * Taskbar grouping
    * Weather Plasmoid
    * Plasma On Screensaver
    * Add New Widgets: Pluggable widget browser
    * Activity<->Virtual Desktop Affinity (no UI)
    * Panel Autohide
    * Keyboard Shortcut Config UI
    * Save icon positioning in folderview
    * Quicklaunch Plasmoid
    * drop indicator in panel
    * make the panel controller a bit more usable
    * nicely draw the desktop toolbox when it's moved because of a panel
    * Various widgets (TODO)
    * Panel form factor support in the folderview applet, twitter, news, ...
    * Improved folderview configuration
    * Keyboard status applet 

Plasma Screencast

Faster access to your applications, files and websites

KRunner lets you quickly start applications, find documents or visit websites. Press \
ALT+F2 to show the KRunner dialog. You can then start typing. While typing, KRunner \
shows options that match what you type.

    * KRunner: Noun-Verb support
    * Konqueror history runner
    * Recent Documents runner


KRunner screenshot

Keeping windows in check with KWin

KWin is the KDE windowmanager. It gives you complete control over your windows, \
making sure they're not in the way but aid you in your task. Do a right-click on a \
windowdecoration or use systemsettings to access the simplified configuration of \
KWin. Here you can enable effects to more efficiently manage your windows. You can \
for example use the "Present Windows" as the effect for window switching. Instead of \
showing you icons or very small previews of your applications, it arranges them in a \
grid so you can quickly choose the right one. Just use the normal ALT-TAB keysequence \
and keep the ALT key pressed. You can now use tab to switch through the windows or \
just activate the right one using the mouse.

Screenshot of KWin settings window

Improvements

Employing motion physics, KWin provides your windows with a more natural feel. New \
effects like "Cube" and "Magic Lamp" and improvements in the existing effects make \
window management smoother than ever. KWin has seen many performance improvements to \
enable these effects even on low-end hardware. Elaborate checks have been build in to \
ensure users with low-end hardware are not presented with an unusable setup. KWin \
detects the capabilities of the hardware and if needed gracefully scales its effects \
down. You can take control and disable these checks or change settings like the \
global animation speed to finetune your experience. The new Kephal library improves \
support for multiple screens in KWin and Plasma. You can move maximized windows \
betwee Xinerama screens and the addition of external screens is handled correctly.

screencast of kwin effects
screenshot of multi monitor stuff

New hardware configuration tools

A new printer configuration tool in System Settings makes adding, removing and \
configuring printers easier. The provided plasma widget can be put on a panel or on \
the desktop and helps you monitor and control printjobs.

Screenshot of Printer configuration and Plasma widget

KDE 4.2 supports your mobile life. Powerusage has been reduced all through the KDE \
software, and PowerDevil introduced a new way of powermanagement. Instead of being a \
separate tool, PowerDevil is an integral part of KDE. You don't have to run a \
specific application to have access to its functionality. It is configurable within \
System settings but you can control it with a plasmawidget on the panel or desktop if \
you want.

Screenshot of PowerDevil

    * Add ConsoleKit support to kdm 

*** Applications Leap Forward

http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Changelog

Filemanager Dolphin has seen several changes effecting your workflow. Folders and \
tabs open automatically when you drag a file over them, making it easier to organize \
your files. You can even hover the breadcrump bar to change locations. And if you \
want, you can have that breadcrump always display the full path. The user interface \
now provides more information in a very unobtrusive way. Tooltips include large \
previews, and there is a capacity indicator on removable media devices. Besides the \
capacitybar for the current drive, the statusbar also has zoombuttons and a slider to \
increase and decrease the iconsize in your window. This works in all views, including \
details and columns, and makes it easier to identify the file you are looking for or \
present a larger overview of the contents of a folder. When the window becomes too \
small for both the capacitybar and the zoomslider to fit, Dolphin will automatically \
hide one or both. Dolphin makes sure you always have the information about the \
current selected item(s) at your disposal.

Creating and extracting archives is easy with a smarter Ark. It will detect folders \
in archives, taking care of automatically creating subfolders to prevent cluttering \
your working directory. Ark also supports password protected files and has improved \
drag'n'drop support. Dolphin and Konqueror now present the user with suitable options \
in the menu's when users select an archive.

Screencast of Dolphin and Ark integration

Lovers of Vi(m) and similair tools will appreciate the VI input mode in Kate. As this \
is actually build into the KDE development platform, all applications making use of \
the kate text component, like KDevelop and KWrite, will support this. A list of \
currently implemented commants can be found <a \
href="http://hamberg.no/erlend/2008/11/24/the-vi-input-mode-for-kate-is-done/">here</a>. \
You can now also manage the sessions of Kate from within plasma, either with a widget \
on the desktop or panel, or directly from KRunner. The snippets and ctags plugins are \
available again, and the build plugin has been improved.

<a href"http://utils.kde.org/projects/okteta/">Okteta</a>, the binary editor for raw \
datafiles has support for int64 and UTF-8. You can now open a file by dropping it \
into the tab area and close files with the close button on the tab.

screenshot of vi input mode
screenshot of Okteta

KRDC, the remove desktop tool has better support for LDAP and cleanly seperated per \
host settings. KSnapshot now saves the window title in the picture's metadata for \
easier indexing by desktop searchtools and has enhanced support for multiple monitor \
setups.

Imageviewer Gwenview now can display animated graphics and has a new Red Eye \
Reduction filter. You can now tag your files or give them a rating. This is done \
through Nepomuk, one of the Pillars of KDE 4. This makes sure these tags and ratings \
are shared between applications using Nepomuk, like Dolphin.

The Kopete chatclient has seen improvements in its MSN support and in the user \
interface. File transfer requests show up in the chatwindow instead of annoying you \
with a popup, and there are message delivery notifications. Last but not least, there \
is now Jabber Jingle Audio support.

Personal Information Management to keep track of your social life

The KDE PIM suite offers a whole range of applications to manage your email, \
newsfeeds or agenda. The KDE PIM applications can each be started separately or work \
together in the Kontact interface. The Kontact interface has a new planner summary \
and better drag'n'drop support. KNotes can send notes over a local network and KJots \
can import notes from knowit.

KMails Email list views have been reworked by a Google Summer of Code student. You \
can now configure the display of additional information optimizing the workflow for \
each individual folder. Support for IMAP and other protocols has also been improved \
making KMail much faster.

[edit] PIM

    * Akregator: basic support for enclosures
    * KJots: Importing notes from knowit
    * KMail: Nicer attachment view
    * KMail: New message list
    * KNotes: Zeroconf support for sending notes on LAN
    * Kontact: new planner summary
    * Kontact: Drag and drop in free/busy view 

The Konqueror web browser improved support for scalable vector graphics and became \
faster. A new find dialog makes for less intrusive searching inside webpages. When \
you start Konqueror, it will show your bookmarks.

    * KGet: support mms:// protocol??mms
    * Lokalize: MDI interface improvements
    * Okular: support fax documents

*** Learn and Discover with the KDE Educational applications

Desktop Planetarium KStars is an application through which you can explore the sky at \
night. It can control telescopes and has many tools for the amateur and professional \
astronomer. The new version now shows millions of stars, can predict conjunctions and \
has a Sky Calendar. Be sure to have a look at this application if you are interested \
in astronomy!

[edit] Edu

    * KAlgebra: new parser / lexer, import for MathML presentation markup
    * KBruch: UI improvements and merge of KPercentage functionality
    * Python bindings to Marble widget classes
    * KStars: Display millions of stars, many more
    * KTurtle: color picker, command line, export image
    * Parley: UI improvements and automatic translation fetching from online sources 

*** Games

    * Dragging jewels and untimes games in kdiamond
    * Ksirk: jabber-based netgame finding, scrolling improvements, skins via GHNS, \
                skins editor
    * KGoldRunner: new levels
    * KBlocks: sounds support
    * New game: Killbots
    * New game: Bomber 

*** Better Everywhere/ libraries ?

Some changes effect most or all the KDE applications. The most notable of these \
improvements include:

The 'file open' and 'file save' dialogs have been redesigned. Using the same \
infrastructure as Dolphin, they now also include a zooming slider and have support \
for file previews. Sharing such user interface elements ensures a smooth and \
consistent user experience.

The Oxygen artwork continued its path of refinement. Plasma has a new look, and so do \
the window shadows which now form a blue highlight around the active window. Subtle \
improvements can be found anywhere, but the new wallpapers are probably most visible. \
Extending the already very complete collection with some new, high quality pieces of \
art brings a fresh look to your desktop.

    * policykit (probably beta2)
    * Use knotify in kwrited

[edit] Libraries & development platform

    * Phonon: VideoWidget snapshot function
    * CMake: Reduced library link interface
    * Eigen (how's that interesting?
    * PyKDE: KCM and oder plugins support
    * Various improvements in the Kross Ruby and Python engines
    * New Kross engine: Falcon
    * fish and sftp support on Windows 



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