Interview with David Faure of Mandrake & KDE 195
JigSaw writes: "OSNews features an interesting interview with David Faure, the french KDE developer who works for Mandrake Software. His code can be found on Konqueror, KFM, KWord and he is also the main bug hunter for KDE. David talks about KDE 3's enhancements and speed improvements, the future of KWord, the debugging tools under Linux, and even Gnome2, .NET, MacOSX and Mozilla."
other interviews (Score:3, Informative)
Re:linux on the desktop is too slow (Score:2, Informative)
Try ROX [sourceforge.net] and something like icewm or sawfish.
and programs like abiword and gnumeric are very speedy (without having to do the M$ trick of loading it into memory when your system starts).
Re:Eugenia is having bandwidth issues... (Score:3, Informative)
if you can, PLEASE edit OUT the copy/paste you did on Slashdot of the OSNews article. The bandwidth problems we have is mostly when we have MANY and BIG images on our articles, NOT on articles like this. Please edit out our article from the Slashdot forum. It is a violation of our copyright. You should have asked us first...
Thank you,
Eugenia
More info on Faure... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I actually enjoy the competition... (Score:5, Informative)
I expect the average Windows user would take it pretty well. Your average Windows user is used to dealing with software that has private theming/skinning support (WinAmp, Windows Media Player) and software that ignores the global theme settings and does its own thing (most CD burning software, Cable modem branded Internet Explorer, RealPlayer, QuickTime). Your average Windows user is used to Microsoft changing interface styles leaving a glaring difference between new and old apps (addition of gradient title bars (originally on MS Office only), the new XP widgets).
Many software developers feel the need to be arty and throw the standard Windows interface out the window. It's unfortunate, (It hurts usability and accessability), but it's the current situation. Windows is no better than Unix with X-Windows. The only way to get highly consistent theming in Windows is to use Microsoft applications exclusively. To get highly consistent theming under Unix, pick either Gnome or KDE and stick with it.
Re:this is true (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I actually enjoy the competition... (Score:3, Informative)
Inter Process Communication on application-scripting level.
That's what DCOP is. You can even script via shell scripts... or tie in with just about any language (C, C++, Python, etc). It uses X to communicate, and the C bindings are being rewritten (right now, although they don't require any sort of GUI, they require you to link to Qt... this dependancy is being removed).
I found no place yet neither in Gnome nor KDE to identify files by a match against certain rules...
Right click on a file, and choose "Edit File Type...". Or, if you don't have an example file, do into the Control Center, and choose "File Manager, File Associations". Or go to Settings in Konqueror, "Configure Konqueror", and you can pull up the same "File Associations" panel that is in the Control Center.
I am in need for global keyboard shortcuts.
Well, if you mean global in the environment, you can go to the Control Center/Look and Feel/Key Bindings. There are settings for Global Shortcuts (like launching an app, changing desktops, etc), Sequences (a la emacs - these are being improved for KDE3), and Application Shortcuts (Copy, Paste, Print, Save, etc.). The Application Shortcuts obviously don't apply to Gnome apps, but the rest do (including the really nice "Alt-F2 to run a command"), even when the Gnome app has focus.
I want applications to start implementing their functionality as exportable (to the scripting host) commands
That's how KDE is fundimentally built... that's what KParts is. Konqueror is not an application - it's just a KPart container... there's almost no code other than things like saving window position, etc. As different KParts are loaded (possibly in different frames) the UI (like menus and toolbars) changes. Load a video into an app, and the video play controls appear, even though the app itself knows nothing about playing a video. KOffice is an app that looks like Outlook - icons down the side for KWord, KSpread, etc. It embeds the app inside the main window.
In addition, you can even use DCOP to alter the UI in some apps like Konqueror (use bash to change your menus).
How many contact lists do you have ? I have one in KMail (is up quicker than Evo and KDE's default)
Interesting that you say that - KDE only has one contact list. All apps access it. You can even, in KMail, choose which interface you want to use for it... there are several little apps that are front ends for this universal contact list, and you can choose which one you want to use on a per app basis.
I'd imagine that Gnome has similar features - but they are different. Just as Windows and Mac have different formats for communication, scripting and binaries. The key to remember is that these two projects are building more than just an interface - they are building structured, logical tools to build applications. With KDE3, nice things like data-aware widgets and database-agnostic connections are introduced... stuff that is *hardly* "eye-candy" or "useless themeing". That's what the rush is for - to make the best platform for quick and easy development of powerful and flexable applications - because, in the end, that's all that people use.
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Evan