[Wylug-discuss] KDE

[Smylers]

david powell writes:

> transport , i live in north wales

Fair enough -- that's certainly something I wasn't expecting somebody on
a Wylug list to say!

> im not verry good infront of an audiance anyway 

That's more what I was thinking you'd say.  In case there's anybody else
reading this who feels similarly shy (but lives closer), I'd like to
point out that Wylug is quite understanding of this: it welcomes
first-time speakers, it encourages people to volunteer for short slots
(say, 15 minutes), and demos are often easier to give than
presentations.

Talking at Wylug is a good way of improving your public speaking skills,
so if you are lurking on this list and have something to share, please
consider volunteering!

Right, that's the end of the advertisement; now back to our scheduled
flamewar ...

> amorok is a good music player ,

Yeah, that's one of the things I hadn't heard of till reading the
article.  It sounds to have several features that don't seem to be in
XMMS, but the bit that really impressed me was being able to query it
from a Unix command line with dcop.

> not trying to start a flame war here it seems to me that gnome has set
> standards to gnome libs , form some developers that i have spoken to,
> this prevents them trying diferent things or stops them implimenting
> some feature because it would need a change to a lib , kde on the
> other hand is not so strict on that , so new ideas and functions can
> be developed and implimented 

Fair enough; I'm in no position to comment on that one way or another,
as a mere end user.  What I have observed is that KDE users seem more
likely to use all KDE applications than Gnome users are to use all Gnome
apps.  Similarly apps such as Firefox and Vim that are neither KDE nor
Gnome (they're both multi-OS, for a start) tend to be supplied in
GTK/Gnome forms, rather than QT/KDE.

There could be several reasons for this:

* KDE is so restrictive that it doesn't work well with non-KDE apps, so
  if you use KDE then you shouldn't expect to be able to use non-KDE
  apps.

* KDE is so good that absolutely everything you could ever want is
  provided with a ksomethingorother, so if you use KDE you never need to
  look outside it ever again.

* It's hard for makers of 'neutral' apps to compile them to do KDE
  versions.

* All the individuals who make neutral apps just happen to have
  separately chosen to be Gnome users, for some reason.

But collectively they make me more apprehensive about KDE.  I realize
that one can run Gnome apps in KDE (and vice versa), but having the
back-ends for either one of them loaded is enough to make people like
Jim look on in astonishment; having both of them loaded on a regular
basis doesn't sound like a good use of resources.

> kate a text editor is cool

I can't imagine there's any chance I'm going to switch from Vim in the
near future!

> the apps are easy to configure and still have plenty of misc options that 
> allow you to personalize the application

See my previous comment about not being bothered about customizing my
window manager ...

> kmail for mail ,

I'm less attached to Mutt than I am to Vim, but I can't imagine
switching to something that isn't console-based.  For a start, I want to
be able to run it over SSH in a terminal.

> configureable  mail filter options ,

How does that work?  What's it offer above Procmail?  Why would one want
to filter mail in an MUA?  Does that mean if you check for mail with a
different MUA your mail is no longer filtered (because it only happens
on checking mail, rather than on delivery)?

> > > konqueror  kdes file manager and web browser is good ,
> >
> > But in what way specifically?  What are the features that make it good?
> 
> konqueror , well its kool , not over clutted ,

I've used it occasionally on other people's computers, and found it more
cluttered than my Firefox set-up (though not as bad as Opera).

> one of the features that i use often in konqueror is the ^ button

Yeah, that is nice.  In Firefox I have extensions installed such that
pressing Alt+Up or doing a drag-upwards mouse gesture does that (there
is a button available, but I don't have it visible, to reduce clutter).

> auto file previews on local files gives you a preview of the contents
> before opening

But only if I decide that using a file manager is going to work better
for me than Bash.

> i did 2 screenshots of my desktop

Thanks.

> > (talking of terminals, one of the things that most irritated me the
> > last time I used KDE was that Shift+Ins in a Konsole doesn't insert
> > the X selection)
> 
> i right click and paste it there

But that pastes from the clipboard, not the X selection.
Middle-clicking (or sometimes Shift+Middle-clicking) inserts the X
selection, but involves moving a hand to the mouse, which is often
inconvenient when typing in a console -- and especially when Shift+Ins
has worked for many, many years in every other Linux terminal I've ever
tried!  I was so not impressed that KDE broke this.

> > [I don't] use a file manager -- except for browsing music files and
> > drag-and-dropping them to an XMMS playlist window.
> 
> amorok is one of kde's media players for music , it works well , in
> konqueror clicking on the music file will open it with one of the
> installed players , the file type for a file may have more than one
> program that will open it and there is provision to specify the one of
> your preferance , so no need to drag and drop , just click and play

If I want to play a file I'd probably either open it from within XMMS or
use xmms -e to load it from a Bash prompt (with the benefits of tab
completion) -- I certainly wouldn't open up a file manager for that.

But for creating a playlist, such as sequencing several hours of music
in advance of a party, using a graphical tool to rummage around in my
music collection and dragging tracks into the playlist seems like an
appropriate interface.  I was taking it as read that KDE does this --
but Amorok sounds like it's better than XMMS for setting up playlists
anyway.

> > And I'm very happy with Firefox as a web browser.  What nice features
> > does Konqueror provide that I'm missing out on?
> 
> konqueror is more integrated into kde than firefox or netscape can be

What does that mean?

> i find it easyer to surf with than the others

Any chance you can describe why?

> and well no popups eather , and has  good cookie management section

Firefox's pop-up blocker (and FlashBlock) seem to be working for me, and
I'm generally happy with my cookies.  I suspect that even if I switch to
KDE I predict I'd stick with Firefox.

If I do switch it'll probably because of lots of little things, things
'between' my main apps, if you see what I mean.  For example, the
audiocd:/ looks very spiffy, with no interface at all for ripping MP3s
from CDs -- just pretending that they already exist and magically making
them happen if needed!  And camera:/ too.

> guess it would be better to know what types of apps you need to use ,
> then i could of been more specific as to what programs are avalable 

I wasn't really asking.  With the main day-to-day apps I do stuff in I'm
pretty happy with them, so unlikely to switch those.  But things like
the "You want to overwrite the left picture with the one on the right"
are so obvious when you mention them that I want them now!

The article I linked to gave me a good taste of some of the nice
features KDE has that I'm missing out on.  I just mentioned it here:

* so that anybody else in a similar position could also learn of these

* and to request a demo if somebody feels like it, cos I think seeing
  the features rather than reading about them would make me appreciate
  them more

(Though of course if anybody has anything else similar to what's
mentioned in that article to add then I'm eager to hear it.)

> nifty features , well there are probablay more than i would mention as
> having used kde for some time they are normal to me and what i would
> expect from it 

That's a problems with rival systems in general; most people are
committed to one, so it's hard to find a decent comparison between them!

Thanks for your help.

Smylers
-- 
May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a
difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.