He didn't talk about applications
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Steven_Rosenber Jan 20, 2008 8:17 PM EDT |
It was all about configurations and development. He didn't mention KOffice, Konqueror, Nautilus ... nothing. |
| rm42 Jan 21, 2008 5:32 AM EDT |
"I have found that KDE applications provide a more robust experience when compared to those developed for their GNOME cousins." He also stated that he wished Java was used more for applications rather than QT or GTK because, in his mind, that would allow developers to appeal to the Windows market (if I understood correctly). I don't think he know what he is talking about in this regard. But, he did make one good point: "KDE applications and those of the GTK variety can be run in either desktop environment with the right libraries in place. Any modern package manager will ensure success there." That is how I see it. Maybe I see it that way because I am primarily a KDE user and GTK applications load just fine. I have heard that KDE applications tend to load slower on Gnome though. I guess I have seen that with Amarok on Linux Mint, but I don't think it is a big enough deal to stop using it. This is an even better point though: "I would have to suggest Qt, as it is generally a better fit for enterprise class software development." This is hugely true. For internal development, companies don't have to purchase QT proprietary licenses. They get the best development environment and toolkit for free. This point needs to get more air time! |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 21, 2008 7:05 AM EDT |
~# export ASBESTOS_UNDIES="on"Quoting:I have heard that KDE applications tend to load slower on Gnome though. Not in my experience. I use quite a few KDE applications on Gnome. Quoting:"I would have to suggest Qt, as it is generally a better fit for enterprise class software development." I call bollocks. Enterprise GTK users don't need to purchase a license ever. And Gnome's Glade Interface Designer and libgladeui XML loader are unmatched. There's nothing in KDE that comes close. Not even in KDE4. I asked Sebastian Kugler during T-DOSE a few months back. The best KDE can do is still code generation for UI design. Eeww... The only downside for GTK might be that there's no proprietary version that you can license and develop closed source applications with. But that only applies to companies who want to develop closed source shrink-wrap software on top of Linux. I don't care for that anyway. |
| rm42 Jan 21, 2008 7:15 AM EDT |
Sander, You may be right, I don't know. I have never used GTK directly, only through wxPython. I have used QT Designer and thought is was rather good. I especially liked the Signals and Slots style of programming. It was so much better than anything I had used before for keeping GUI code simple and clean. Could you explain a little further why you think Glade's way is better? Thanks. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 21, 2008 7:32 AM EDT |
Designer-wise Glade is pretty similar to QT Designer. The back-end however is completely different. QT Designer generates GUI code for you. For example, C code. Then you fill out that C code to make your application actually do stuff. Not Glade. Glade stores it's UI as an XML file. It's a bit XForms-like. The UI and the back-end code are linked together at run-time by libglade. libglade is a library that loads the UI XML file and hooks all the signals to the functions in your application. This means that you can completely redesign the UI of an application without touching the code. Without recompiling a single line. It also means that you can always use Glade to (re-)design your interface. You do not need to worry that changing something in the C code will stop the UI designer from functioning properly. I had really hoped that KDE4 would use a similar system. Or even better: That the KDE folk would sit down with the Glade folk and design a UI XML format that would work cross-desktop and submit it to freedesktop.org. If they would do that then it would not even matter whether you used GTK or GT. Your UI would be rendered natively with GTK on a GTK platform and with QT on a QT platform. Totally desktop-agnostic. Sadly they did not do that. It's not too late though. It's not hard to add such functionality after the fact. All you need is a library that can map the XML elements to QT elements and dynamically link those QT elements to the correct functions in the C application. |
| rm42 Jan 21, 2008 7:55 AM EDT |
Sounds intriguing. I guess I will have to take a look at it when I get a chance. Maybe when I hear news that GTK's File Dialog finally allows one to rename files and folders instead of forcing the user to open a separate application just for that. |
| tuxchick Jan 21, 2008 8:27 AM EDT |
Sander, GTK apps are butt-ugly. Like Windows 3.1 8-bit graphics, only uglier. Can you point to some examples of not-ugly GTK apps? That are not pixelated and with jaggedy fonts? |
| gus3 Jan 21, 2008 9:04 AM EDT |
tc, out of curiosity, could you provide a screenshot or two for that? I think my GNOME desktop is kinda beautiful. Xfce-Stellar color scheme a la Solaris, Dropline Neu icons, DejaVu fonts (for GTK+2 controls) with sub-pixel rendering on a well-adjusted LCD flatscreen. I also use glisp fonts for Nautilus root-window icons, and anorexia fonts for Gkrellm, but that's more for saving screen real-estate than anything. 1280x1024 screenshot, 716.8K PNG at http://gus3.typepad.com/Screenshot.png Bear in mind that I use sub-pixel rendering, so your LCD monitor must be adjusted to your video card properly in order for the fonts to look right. |
| azerthoth Jan 21, 2008 9:42 AM EDT |
A conversation such as this was inevitable, I was just impressed that it took him 3 pages to say absolutely nothing at all. That is however his specialty. |
| tuxchick Jan 21, 2008 9:45 AM EDT |
hmm, I could be behind the times. Can't find any horrid examples. So. Never mind! |
| jdixon Jan 21, 2008 10:26 AM EDT |
> I was just impressed that it took him 3 pages to say absolutely nothing at all. Oh, it's a Matt Hartley article. That explains it. Being a home user, the title didn't interest me, so I didn't check further. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jan 21, 2008 10:35 AM EDT |
On marginal hardware, KDE can exact quite a toll. On one of my creakier systems, Slackware with KDE runs MUCH more slowly than with Xfce. Konqueror is a brilliant application. It can function as a Web browser, file browser, FTP client, configuration manager, file manager ... it does SO many things and does them pretty well. And it's a fairly quick app, too. And KOffice, at one level, is much better than OpenOffice. The lack of Java in KOffice might account for its speed, or it could be KDE libraries at work. I have no idea. Both KOffice and OpenOffice save in ODF. In its current incarnation, KWord developed an annoying bug that causes "typographical" quotation marks to point in the wrong direction when the quote mark is the first character in the paragraph (older versions don't have this problem). I don't know how many other bugs of this level are in the office suite, but OpenOffice can be used with KDE -- and often is. Apps like K3B are well-regarded, but I don't have problems with the GNOME equivalent (is it GNOME Baker??), and if CD burning isn't one of your heavy business tasks, that's somewhat moot. Does KMail provide any advantage in the KDE environment over Thunderbird or Evolution? This is what I want to see in a discussion of KDE vs. GNOME in a business setting. I understand comparing QT and GTK for application development, and if your shop relies heavily on locally coded apps, that indeed would be a huge consideration. But most business are going to rely on the same apps as the rest of us -- and that's where I want to know how KDE meets with their needs. Does the general user really need all the additional desktop customization available in KDE? Is it harder for the administrator to "fix" a screwed-up KDE desktop? For businesses, I think the bottom line is this: Do some -- or many -- of the KDE applications, large or small, make a difference for your business? If one or more of those applications is critical, then by all means go for KDE. If you rely on OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, and any number of other desktop-neutral apps, it really doesn't matter. You might not even need a standardized desktop. Let people use what they want -- hell, let them install both GNOME and KDE and choose between them as they wish. Just because Windows doesn't have a choice of desktop environments doesn't mean you can't offer more than one in Linux. The standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux desktop distro makes it easy to install both GNOME and KDE, and it's easy to start with one desktop environment and then add another on just about any version of Linux. I've been running Wolvix Hunter more and more in the past few weeks not because it uses Xfce instead of GNOME (or KDE or ...) but because it installs with just about every app I want or need -- and I have no problems with the install, configuration or applications themselves. Everything works. I don't even care that it's based on Slackware 11, and not 12, because I've got the latest version of Firefox, OpenOffice 2.2 (I didn't have a problem with OO 2.0 in Debian Etch because I use the suite so little) plus enough text editors, image editors and multimedia applications to keep me happy. I, too, have been crossing over and running KDE apps in GNOME -- I've got a Debian Lenny box that I'm packing up with stuff. The biggest problem that the non-GNOME installs of Debian (KDE and Xfce) have is that they don't include Synaptic and the update-notifier/update-manager (don't know if I have the names right). In Debian with KDE only, package management is far from smooth with the corresponding KDE app (can't remember the name ... was it Kpackage?). It was slow and barely worked. I had to use apt just to get things to work. On my Xfce-only install of Debian, I'm using Aptitude; it also doesn't install Synaptic. But my big Lenny install started as GNOME and has all the default Debian package-management tools. I do have Xfce on it, and since I've got plenty of space, I just might add KDE, too. I'd sure like to know whether running KDE apps in GNOME, or vice versa, caused a big performance hit. So far I haven't seen it, but I haven't looked at it closely. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 21, 2008 12:07 PM EDT |
Quoting:Sander, GTK apps are butt-ugly. Like Windows 3.1 8-bit graphics, only uglier. Can you point to some examples of not-ugly GTK apps? That are not pixelated and with jaggedy fonts? Sure. Anything that was produced in the last 5 years or so. Just go look at screenshots of the very first Ubuntu. I'm guessing that you're running Debian (or a derivative) with KDE and GTK apps on top of that? Yup, that's ugly. Don't blame GTK. Blame Debian. When you install Debian Gnome and install a KDE app on top of it, Debian drags in in the KDE libs, QT and a decent styling engine that makes QT look pretty much like Gnome's default Clearlooks theme. However, when you install Debian with KDE and install a GTK theme on top of that, you get GTK but no theming engine. So you get butt-ugly widgets. Try installing "gtk-qt-engine" on your machine. It allows GTK applications to be rendered using QT and thus also use your preferred QT theme and setting. Quoting:1280x1024 screenshot, 716.8K PNG at [HYPERLINK@gus3.typepad.com] Eeewww. That's ugly. Here's mine. Pretty default but with a better Window theme: http://www.jejik.com/sander/desktop.png |
| gus3 Jan 21, 2008 8:46 PM EDT |
I prefer lower contrast between text and its background; it's easier on my eyes. I practically fell in love with the Solaris+CDE color scheme the first time I saw it. But, if you want jaggedy fonts, you'll get them in spades! |
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