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The Plasma "extenders" project is merged into kdebase, with initial integration into the kuiserver applet. Continued work on the systray-refactor, and more work on the "Weather" Plasmoid. A whole load of bugfixes for Kicker 3.5.10. A new "Magic Lamp" minimize effect, and a rework of the "Grid" effect in kwin-composite. Support for extracting artwork from iPod's, tag editing and removing files from MTP devices, and scriptable services (including a "web control" script), and lots of other developments in Amarok 2.0. An automatic image fetching script/plugin added to Parley. Basic XLIFF support in Lokalize. Support for regular expressions in KSysGuard graphing. Improved support for password protected archives in Ark. Support for saving file fonts embedded into a PDF file in Okular. A new, enhanced Strigi service (using KDE technologies) for interfacing with NEPOMUK. KJots and KTimeTracker can now be deactivated (while KMail, KOrganizer and KAddressbook cannot) in Kontact. Beginnings of "master pages" support in KWord. Rocs, a graph algorithm tool, added to playground/edu. "Google Gadgets for Plasma" moved to kdereview, "Timer" Plasmoid moved to kdeplasma-addons.
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Carlo Segato and Patrick Spendrin talk about the progress of the Plasma workspace shell on the Windows platform:
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Plasma-for-Windows had a very low priority until some weeks ago, because a working desktop already exists and many programs in kdebase/workspace heavily depend on X11 services. The work needed to port these applications to work for non-X11 systems is quite high, and until recently we thought that Plasma falls into this category too.
By chance, we gave it another go, and thanks to the fabulous work of the Plasma developers, only minor changes had to be made to get a working Plasma root window. Step-by-step, we made more and more Plasmoids and functions available.
As KDE 4.2 is ahead of us now, we are trying to have a decent and nicely working Plasma replacement for the Windows default shell. We still need to do a lot of system integration work (which is also a more general task for KDE-on-Windows). Often, we are asked why we take this effort upon us - the answer is most of the time "because it is possible". Windows provides a way to customize the shell (think of the Windows Vista Aero shell), and as we think KDE is a better replacement, we are trying to seize the opportunity.
We are aware that there may not a big userbase for either KDE-on-Windows nor Plasma-for-Windows yet, but we hope that KDE can become truly cross-platform this way.
We are still at an early stage of the port, but most of the things work and what we need to do now is focus on the integration of Plasma with Windows, so that one day we'll have a full shell replacement.
Things that work include: panels, adding/removing Plasmoids, global shortcuts, and session locking. Porting Plasma itself to Windows was easy but a lot of work is still buried within the system-dependent libraries, like Solid (for the "Notify" and "Battery" applets), and kdeui for the global shortcuts.
On a final note, here are some fun stats for KDE-on-Windows:
- the installer has been downloaded 160,000 times since April 2008
- kdebase-runtime-msvc: 43,379 times
- kdebase-runtime-mingw: 8,418 times
- 4.0.83 binary packages: 69,398 packages downloaded
- 4.1.0 packages: 152,133 packages downloaded
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With KDE 4 out for over 6 months now, and KDE 4.1 recently released, the vast majority of development now targets the KDE 4 platform. But, not so with a new contributor, Benoit Minisini, who has recently appeared in the KDE community with a collection of fixes for Kicker in 3.5.10:
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I am the main developer of the Gambas project, and a KDE user from the first time I started using Linux (SuSE 5.x, if I remember). But I have never contributed to the KDE project before.
Three things motivate me in fixing Kicker for KDE 3.5.10:
- In the first place, I can't use KDE 4.1, because I have a nVidia card on my computer, and then it is far too slow for me. I noticed this problem by recently trying KDE 4.1 RC1, and so I told myself: it seems that you are stuck with KDE 3.5 for some months. Why not try to fix all these Kicker bugs that annoy me and many other KDE 3.5 users? It is never too late :)
- Secondly, this is a way to start contributing to KDE, by using the knowledge of KDE 3 I acquired with Gambas, without having to dig deep into KDE 4. I don't have the time at the moment.
- Finally, my brother is a sound engineer, and uses his computer for mixing. I installed Linux on his computer for using the internet (I didn't want him to break the Windows installation, where all his sound software runs). But he is very conservative with graphical interfaces. He can't stand Windows XP GUI, keeping the Windows 2000 one, and i'm not sure he will like the KDE 4.1 GUI. So...
Note that I didn't just fix bugs in Kicker - I have tried to enhance its look a little, and i'm waiting to be blessed by Aaron Seigo before committing other visual enhancements, like a transparent logout applet, or the anti-aliased eyes applet.
I made two screenshots and a legend to explain my fixes in Kicker for KDE 3.5.10:
 |  | | Click to see the annotated fixes... |
- Desktop names are drawn with a shadow, so that they are readable on a transparent background.
- Applet handles now use a themed arrow button. They lost their unneeded extra margin to the left too.
- The taskbar should flicker less, especially on desktop changes. Some unneeded taskbar button repaints were removed.
- The system tray arrow button now follows the widget theme. The useless vertical line was removed. The system tray layout algorithm was fixed too.
- The weather applet button now behaves as other kicker buttons.
- When moving a panel, the frame is now drawn with top-level unmanaged windows, using the title bar color.
- The mixer applet now displays nicely on a transparent background.
- The anti-aliased clock was fixed. Other little bugs were fixed in the clock applet too.
- The runner applet layout algorithm was fixed.
- The moon applet displays correctly on a transparent background.
- The character table applet now follows transparency, and adapt the character font size to its cell size.
- The eyes applet is anti-aliased now. This patch is not committed yet.
- The little puzzle game better follows transparency.
- The "add applet" dialog was fixed: no more unneeded space to its end, and you can drag & drop any button from it.
- When a panel has a background image that is colorized according to the global palette, its border is colored the same way.
- The background image is correctly mirrored for top panels.
- Panels now work correctly when they have scroll buttons. These scroll buttons now use themed arrows.
- Changing the widget theme makes kicker automatically restart. Otherwise, the layout of some applets may become incorrect.
- The transparency of these applets was fixed. And now they use "kicker" buttons instead of normal or specific ones.
- The background of applets and buttons is automatically refreshed when they are moved.
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