updated featureplan

Sun Jan 11 10:55:13 GMT 2009

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:13 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi happy hackers,

Hi again, all of ya.

Thanks for updating the feature plan. Now I have another request. If
you feel like it, you can check the text for the current feature guide
on this link:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=d6vb6xc_1shgd8nhr
or see attached.

You can search for the app you're working on, see what we wrote about
it. If you find mistakes or omissions please let me know. If you'r app
isn't there but should be, let me know.

You don't have to read the whole thing, it's rather dry without
pictures & screencasts right now ;-)

Love,

Jos

> Please make sure the feature plan on techbase [1] is up to date asap
> to help the marketing ppl churn out a great visual guide to KDE 4.2.
> All the "not ready" things make me wonder how complete it is...
>
> And if someone has a feature or cool thing not in there, feel free to
> add them or mail me about it ;-)
>
> You don't have to write up anything great, just drop some notes and
> I'll write the story around it, ok?
>
> love & tnx
>
> Jos
>
> [1] http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Feature_Plan
>
-------------- next part --------------
 THIS DOCUMENT IS OBVIOUSLY NOT READY
 Feel free to add or change whatever you think should be improved. Help is appreciated!
 Items/words/sentences/paragraphs in bold need review, opinions, improvements, checking or writing.

About the target readers:
 Users who want a quick overview of what's new read the KDE 4.2 announcement to get highlights. If users want to know more, they can click through to this feature guide. Some might want to do that because they want to know if their 'pet feature' is in there. Think the "KDE 4.x is useless because it can't auto-hide panels" type. Another target group is journalists who want to write about KDE 4.2. The target reader is someone who already knows about KDE 4.1, and is looking for what's new in KDE 4.2. People who are new to KDE or whose KDE experience is with earlier versions would be better served by discover.KDE.org.

The idea is to take users by the hand and guide them through the new features.

there is change tracking and I can compare revisions.I'll review the entire doc now and then to see what has changed. 
But generally I simply trust people. As long as the text is still readable I presume it has only been improved. If you have doubts about a change, please use comments. (insert » comment)

Credits:
Carl Symons - extensive reviews
Paul Adams - numbers
Luca Beltrame - printing
Sebastian Kugler - screenshots and screencasts
KDE promo team - general review and input
Author - Jos Poortvliet
 If I forgot anyone, please add yourself, credit where credit is due, right?

KDE 4.2 visual guide

Creating software in the open provides a challenge, even for a community with over 12 years of experience. KDE 4.0 was meant to start the process of participative development for the KDE 4 series. It was a starting point that held in embryonic forms all the ambitions of the developer vision, much as a first draft of a wikipedia page shows the ambition of the writer.

With KDE 4.2 we are seeing the positive results of that beginning. Only one year has passed since 4.0.0 was released and the embryonic concepts have been blossoming everywhere we look into substantive results.

KDE 4.2.0 is not the end, but another milestone along the road of KDE 4 development. This platform is designed and intended to keep on growing far into the future, and the KDE Team would like to invite you to join us in this fantastic journey. This feature guide covers many of the highlights of KDE 4.2, and we hope that you will enjoy using this release.

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

Applications: Dolphin, Kate, KMail

Educational Applications: KStars, KBrunch, Parley

Games: Killbots, Bomber, KDiamond, Ksirk,

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

Desktop Improves User Experience

The KDE Desktop Workspace consists of a group of core applications including Plasma, KWin, KRunner and SystemSettings.

Plasma logo

Plasma allows you to organize your workspace however you want. It has become easier to place the panels, add and move widgets around and configure your desktop.

Generic Plasma screenshot

New Plasma widgets have been added, including Pastebin. You can drag and drop text and images to a Pastebin website. The link is returned to your clipboard. You can then send the link to others so that they can view the files you uploaded. Other new widgets include several system monitors, a special character selector, quicklaunch, news feeds, file previews, a calendar and even a simple webbrowser. Thousands more widgets are now available on Plasma thanks to support for Google Gadgets; Mac OS X Dashboard widgets are also available. Widgets can be written in Ruby and Python; JavaScript and C++ are already supported. You can expect that many more Plasma widgets will become available in the coming months.

Other widgets screenshot

Adding or moving a widget is easy. Choose the "Add Widgets" option in the Plasma menu, and drag your choice to the desktop or a panel. They will automatically resize depending on the room available. Widgets can be locked and unlocked, so that they are not moved inadvertently. You unlock the desktop by clicking on the Plasma icon (in the top-right by default) and choosing "Unlock Widgets". Right-clicking the desktop also gives you the ability to lock and unlock widgets. With widgets unlocked, you can rearrange your widgets and move the Plasma icon to where you want it. The Plasma desktop will help you arrange widgets. It is easy to resize them.

Add widget screenshot (small)

If you need fast access to a certain widget (for example to quickly Tweet about what you are doing), you can assign a shortcut to that widget. Access the configuration of the widget using the wrench on the mouse-over sidebar or right-click on the widget and choose the settings. Choose the option "Keyboard Shortcut" and click on the shortcut button (which now says "None"). Enter the key sequence you want to use to activate the widget. If there is a conflict with another shortcut, you will be notified, and given a choice to undo or try another shortcut. To reassign this shortcut to this widget, choose "Reassign".

Add shortcut screenshot (small)

If you often put files and folders on the desktop while you work on them, use the Folderview widget. When you drop a folder on the desktop, Folderview offers you the choice of a new folderview or an icon. If you choose folderview, the files in that folder are at the tip of your hand right away. When you are done with that folder, you can remove the Folderview widget - the files are still on the original (even remote) location. You could also choose to show an icon instead of a folderview. Clicking on the icon will open the folder with the Dolphin file manager. As with Folderview, deleting the icon from the desktop does not delete the original files or folders.

Folderview screenshot

The Folderview widget remembers where you placed icons. It can also show previews of the files. Click with your right mouse button on the name area at the top of a folderview or use the configure icon (wrench) on the popout menu, which is activated when you move your mouse over the Folderview widget. You can choose any folder location, and configure it however you want it--large icons with lots of text, or small icons with a single line of text. You can filter files the folderview should show you, matching a string or a filetype, or hiding certain files.

Desktop configuration is simple. Click with your right mouse button on the desktop and choose "Appearance Settings", or use the Plasma icon to access the configuration menu. Choosing a Folderview widget as your desktop gives you the traditional desktop. In the future, more types of desktops will be developed. You can give each desktop a name. Plasma gives you the ability to zoom out and choose from several desktops. Naming them makes it easy to zoom in on the desktop you want at the moment. A Plasma widget gives you a list of your desktops to help switch between them.

Plasma configuration screencast

In the configuration screen, you can choose the theme Plasma should use for widgets, and how you want to display the background. One option is to show a wallpaper or a slideshow. In the 'playground' area of the KDE software suitenot familiar...how do people access this area? -Carl Symons 1/6/09 11:22 AM it's, like kdebase and kdegames, available in KDE. But most distro's probably don't package it - I dunno how to write about it. We might want to remove this. How about you send a mail to KDE-promo and ask for input? -Jos Poortvliet 1/8/09 6:15 PM, you can also find an interactive Mandelbrot fractal which lets you zoom in and out, and a similarly interactive Marble world globe. This is built upon a plugin system; in the future, you will have more selections. A new System Settings module, Desktop Theme Details, gives you the control over each element of various Plasma themes.

Clicking the Plasma icon on the right of a panel brings up a configuration bar. You can change the height or location by dragging the buttons in the middle of the configuration bar. The Add Widgets button will bring you the list of available widgets for the panel. You can drag and drop them, or use the "Add Widget" button. Change the location of widgets on the panel with drag & drop, or just click them once, move them to the appropriate location and click again. An icon showing four arrows will indicate which widget you are moving. You can drag and drop widgets from the panel to the desktop or other panels and back again. The width of the panel can be adjusted using the small 'ruler' icons on the bottom of the configuration bar. Grab them and drag them left or right (or up and down on a vertical panel) to change the size of your panel. In the "More Settings" menu, you will find options to change the alignment of the panel or get it back to full width. You can also make the panel hide automatically. The "Lock Widgets" button closes the configuration bar and locks the widgets in place. Click on an empty space on the Panel or use the "Panel Options" submenu to unlock the widgets again.

Another new but still experimental feature is widgets on the screensaver. To enable this, go to SystemSettings, choose "Desktop" and go to the "Screen Saver" configuration. You can enable "Allow widgets on screen saver" on the botom, and click "Setup..." to add the widgets. Use the "Add Widgets" button, select widgets and put them on the screen. Useful widgets are for example the Now Playing widget and the Leave a Note widget. These widgets can be accessed by anyone using your computer while your screen is locked. Using "Appearance Settings" you can select the transparency of the widgets and hide them unless somebody moves the mouse or uses the keyboard. If they do, the widgets will appear and the "unlock computer" dialog appears. If the user clicks "Cancel", he or she can then interact with the widgets you enabled on the desktop and thus pause and skip songs or leave you notes.

Taskbar configuration screenshot (small)

You now have more flexibility with how your tasks are presented. Click with your right mouse button on the taskbar and choose "Taskmanager Settings" to access the configuration menu. You can change the way applications are grouped, or use drag and drop to group them yourself. If multiple windows are grouped behind a single taskbar entry, you will see an arrow with the number of grouped windows. When you increase the height of the panel, the Taskbar can adjust itself to a larger area by showing multiple rows of tasks. If you want, you can force a certain number of rows. You can have it show tasks from all desktops, or limit it to show only tasks from the current screen (helpful if you have a multi-monitor setup). You can move a window from one desktop to another by dropping it on the Pager widget.

Systemtray screenshot with hiding icon and progress stuff

The Systemtray, the area with small icons (usually on the right hand of the panel) has seen several changes. You can have the systemtray hide certain icons by default. Do a right mouse click just left of the most left icon on the systemtray and choose "System Tray Settings"  to access the configuration. By selecting an icon and clicking the arrow pointing right you move the icon to the list of hidden icons. A small arrow will appear on the left of the systemtray. Clicking it will show you the hidden icons.

The Systemtray will now gather notifications and track the progress of all kinds of jobs from all KDE applications, giving you a convenient and consistent location to see what is going on. For example, when a file is being transferred, you will see a little computer or laptop icon on the right of the systemtray. A file transfer dialog will pop up above it, and disappear when the file transfer is complete. Click on the computer icon to see what transfers are running or what notifications have recently been shown. If you want to monitor the progress more closely, you can detach the progress dialog. Grab it by the title bar and move it onto the destop workspace. It will remain there until the notification times out, the download finishes or you decide to re-attach it by clicking the icon just left of the close button. When there are no more transfers and notifications, the icon in the systemtray hides itself again.

KRunner icon

KRunner provides faster access to your applications, files and websites.

Krunner screenshot (small)

KRunner, the "Run command..." dialog lets you quickly start applications, find documents or visit websites. KRunner has extended functionality through several new plugins, including spellchecking, Konqueror browser history, power management control through PowerDevil, KDE Places, Recent Documents, and the ability to start specific sessions of the Kate editor, Konqueror and Konsole. The converter plugin now also supports quickly converting between units of speed, mass and distances. The configure menu allows you to select just the plugins you want.

You access KRunner by pressing the key combination "ALT-F2". KRunner will show up as a simple text input field. Start typing, and it will seek out to find what you want. You can type "= 2352 / 56" and it will show you the answer. Type a name of an application, and you can start it by hitting the enter key or choose between the options KRunner shows you. If you have the plugins enabled, you can change power management options by just typing in "Power", find entries in your addressbook by typing in their names, or search through your music library thanks to the Amarok Runner. Recent documents, Konsole and Kate sessions and Konqueror history are available as well.

By clicking the second icon from the left you will be brought to the System Activity screen, which shows a list of running applications and processes. You can change their priority ("Renice Process"), kill them and even monitor their input and output by doing a right mouse click on the application and choosing the appropriate action. The search field on the top will help you find the process you are looking for.

KRunner system activity

KRunner also has an alternative interface which is task-oriented. To use it, go to the configuration dialog using the wrench icon on the left of the KRunner dialog. Here you can configure what KRunner will match as you type. Under the "User Interface" tab, you can choose between command-oriented and task-oriented user interfaces. The task-oriented interface is named QuickSand. If you type in a word, matches will appear, and you can use the left and right keys to choose one of them. QuickSand also shows a dialog on the right of the interface with a list of the results where you can use the up and down buttons to select an item. Once you have selected one and hit enter, QuickSand will show the item and associated actions. You can choose an action to execute with enter. Using the left key, you can go back to the list. Many matches don't have actions yet, they will be added as work on QuickSand progresses. Read more about QuickSand in the «a href="http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-09-21/"»commit-digest«/a» or this «a href="http://rbitanga.blogspot.com/"»developer blog«/a».

Quicksand screenshot (small)

More information about Plasma and KRunner can be found on «a href="http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma"»Userbase«/a».

KWin logo

KWin screenshot (present windows effect)

KWin (pronounce "kwin") is the window manager for the KDE desktop workspace. It gives you complete control over your windows, making sure they're not in the way, but aiding you in your tasks. Click with your right mouse button on a window decoration or use SystemSettings to access the new and easier configuration of KWin. Here you can enable effects to manage your windows more efficiently. For example, you can use "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 "ALT-TAB" keysequence. With the ALT key pressed, you can use tab to cycle through the windows or just activate the right one using the mouse.

Screenshot of KWin settings window

Employing motion physics and compositing, KWin provides your windows with a more natural feel. New desktop effects like the "Cube Desktop Switcher" and "Magic Lamp Minimize Animation" have been added. Improvements in the existing effects make window management smoother than ever. KWin has gotten many performance improvements to enable these effects even on lower-end hardware. Checks have been built in to ensure that 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 (such as the global animation speed) to fine tune your experience. When your computer is under heavy load, KWin will automatically disable the compositing temporarily to keep things running smoothly, and notify you. You can re-enable compositing by pressing "SHIFT+ALT+F12". Finally, support for multiple screen handling has been improved in KWin and Plasma using the new Kephal Library. You can move maximized windows between Xinerama screens; the addition of external screens is handled better than before.

screencast of kwin effects
 screenshot of multi monitor stuff

SystemSettings logo

SystemSettings is the KDE configuration tool.

Screenshot of Printer configuration and Plasma widget

KDE 4.2 supports your mobile life. Owners of netbooks and other small devices will appreciate the work on making applications usable on small screens. Many configuration screens like those in Konqueror and Kontact have been redesigned to fit.

Another benefit for mobile users is that power usage has been reduced all through the KDE software. PowerDevil introduces a new way of managing power. 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 (under the Advanced tab), and can be controlled with a Plasma widget on the panel or desktop if you want.

A new printer configuration tool makes adding, removing and configuring printers easier. A system tray applet (printer-applet) helps monitoring and controlling print jobs. In order to configure your printer, select "Printing", under the "System" category of the K menu. By selecting "New Printer", the program will ask you the type of printer (e.g., Local, networked...) and then prompt you to select your manufacturer and printer model. Additionally, you can provide your own print driver if you wish. Also, you can review the printers installed on your system, print test pages and clean print heads (if your model allows that). Lastly, you can configure some advanced settings of the printer system.

Screenshot of PowerDevil

ConsoleKit, a Freedesktop.org framework, has been integrated into the KDE Display Manager (KDM). The Display Manager displays the login screen when you boot up your computer, and manages user sessions. ConsoleKit enables some multi-user features like fast user switching and keeps track of user sessions in a desktop agnostic way.  The documentation on ConsoleKit, from an end user perspective, is lacking. If you know more, feel free to correct/expand what I just wrote. - Luca Beltrame 1/2/09 3:04 PM 

Applications Leap Forward

Dolphin Logo

The file manager, Dolphin, has seen several changes that affect your work flow and make file management more efficient. Folders and tabs open automatically when you drag a file over them, making it easier to organize your files. You can navigate with the Breadcrumb bar. And if you want, you can have that Breadcrumb always display the full path. To configure this, go to the "Dolphin Preferences" in the Settings menu and put a tick in front of the "Show full path inside location bar". You can enter a custom location in the Breadcrumb bar by clicking on the right of it, and selecting "edit". Revert it to its former state by clicking the yellow icon on the far right. Like with all text input fields in KDE, you can select a line of text and middle click to add the selected text. If you middle-click-paste text onto the "Clear text" icon (left facing black arrow) on the right, the current location will be replaced.this is the coolest! I've been missing many KDE4 goodies. Thanks for doing this guide, folks. -Carl Symons 1/6/09 12:45 PM 

Dolphin screenshot (small)

The Dolphin user interface now provides more information in an unobtrusive way. Tool tips include large previews, and there is a capacity indicator on removable media devices. Besides the capacity bar for the current drive, the status bar has zoom buttons and a slider to increase and decrease the size of the icons 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.

You can configure how a folder presents files by choosing "Adjust View Properties" in the View menu. You can now choose the view mode and the way items are sorted in the folder. "Additional Information" allows you to choose which information you want to show up below each icon. The changes can now be applied to the current folder only (Dolphin will remember them), to all folders or only below the current folder. You can make these new settings default by clicking the checkbox on the bottom.

When the window becomes too small for both the capacity bar and the zoom slider 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. The space information does not show up by default; you can enable this in the "Dolphin Preferences" in the Settings menu under "General". You can also configure prompts for confirmation of deleting or trashing files, and if it should show the "Copy To ..." and "Move To ..." submenu items on files and folders. These help you to quickly move files to another folder; Dolphin will remember the last few locations where files were copied or moved.

some kind of generic logo? the following are small pieces about different applications... I can't really organize that.

Other improvements

Creating and extracting archives is easy with a smarter and faster Ark. It will detect folders in archives, automatically creating sub folders 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 menu options when users select an archive. Click with your right mouse button on an archive; the context menu will present several choices for extraction. You can use the "Extract here, autodetect subfolder" option to avoid getting lots of files in your current folder, yet not create duplicate subfolders.

Screencast of Dolphin and Ark integration

Lovers of Vi(m) and similar tools will appreciate the VI input mode in Kate. As this is actually built 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 commands 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 manage Kate sessions from within Plasma, either with a widget on the desktop or panel, or directly from KRunner. Hit "ALT-F2" to activate KRunner, and type (part of) the name of a Kate session, you will be able to open it. You can add the Kate Plasma widget from the Plasma menu. The widget will show your Kate sessions; you just click a session to open it. The snippets and ctags plugins are available in Kate again, and the build plugin has been improved.

Kate screenshot including: Runner, plasma applet and VI integration in Kate itself.

Okular is another application that has received some VI-like features. You can use the familiar hjkl keys to navigate pages. Okular TODO, asked pino at kde.org.

«a href"http://utils.kde.org/projects/okteta/"»Okteta«/a», a hex editor for the raw data of filesplease keep this wording at request from author -Jos Poortvliet 1/11/09 11:30 AM , received an innovative new view mode as an option. In this view mode, value and char meanings are shown next to each other, as an alternative to the traditional separation in columns. The decoding table tool now also lists int64 and UTF-8 values.

Kate screenshot including: Runner, plasma applet and VI integration in Kate itself.

KRDC, the remote desktop tool has better support for LDAP and Microsoft's Active Directory and cleanly separated 'per host' settings. KSnapshot now saves the window title in snapshot metadata for easier indexing by desktop search tools and works better for multi-monitor setups.

The Gwenview image viewer now can display animated graphics and has a new Red Eye Reduction filter. You can now tag your files or rate them. Select a file by clicking the little plus sign above it. Then enable the sidebar by clicking the "Show Sidebar" button in the toolbar. On the right you can now choose a rating, add a description or edit the tags for this picture. 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. (I can't get this to work at all, btw)it shows signs of life for me, but no success so far...tagging works, tags show up as choices in the Gwenview Start Page and in the Gwenview sidebar, however clicking on the Gwenview Start Page tag button launches a progress bar and then "launching process fails". Pretty nifty if it worked all the way around...probably pilot error   -Carl Symons 1/6/09 1:33 PM 

Sexy screencast of Gwenview including some tagging, rating, selecting files. Or 2 small screenshots.

The Kopete chat client 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. (I never use this app. Anybody capable of writing a bit?)same here -Carl Symons 1/6/09 1:39 PM 

Kopete. I don't have much text for this as I don't use thus wrote about it. Someone should. Screenshots at will.

Personal Information Management to keep track of your life

Generic KDE PIM screenshot (startup of kontact probably works best)

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. The RSS application, Akregator, saves all open tabs when you end a session so you don't lose the webpages you were reading. Of course, this assumes session support in SystemSettings is enabled. If you want to configure this, search for "session" in SystemSettings, and choose "Session Manager". You can ask KDE to remember the applications and documents you have running when you log out and restore them when you come back. You will be asked before logging out if you want to save unsaved files.

Work from a «a href="http://labs.pragmaware.net/misc/kmailgsoc.html"»Summer Of Code branch«/a» was merged in KMail, marking a big step in the efforts to port KMail to the KDE 4 infrastructure. The changes bring a reworked folder tree and a new message list, much more powerful than the old ones, and better performance and scalability even in huge folders. It is now possible to configure the display of additional information in the folderview so you can optimize the view for each folder.

KMail reworked maillist screenshot

Above the message list, to the right of the search bar you can find a row of buttons. The first button filters on message status. The second one brings up an advanced search panel. You can use it to search specified folders for messages with certain properties. It is possible to save searches as folders, which get automatically updated when new mail comes in. The third button allows you to configure message sorting. You can use the fourth button to group mails by certain properties. You can choose one of the predefined groupings or create your own. The fifth button allows you to specify the information you want to be shown. You can choose one of the preset 'themes', or configure one yourself. With an easy drag and drop interface, you can 'build' the list of messages to your liking.

Maybe a screencast of the configuration of that KMail listview?

Besides the user interface work, there have been bugfixes and performance improvements to the IMAP support and for other protocols. KMail works more smoothly because it defers much of its work to the background, where it even takes advantage of modern, multi-core processors.

The Konqueror web browser improved support for scalable vector graphics and became a lot faster thanks to contributions from various developers and code and ideas from WebKit. A new find dialog makes for less intrusive searching inside webpages. Press "CTRL-F" in a webpage. The find dialog will appear on the bottom of the window. You can start typing immediately, and use (SHIFT) "F3" to go to the (previous) next match. You can still quickly search for words in a webpage by pressing "/" and typing in the word(s) you are looking for. Again you can use (SHIFT) "F3" to go to the previous and next match.

Konqueror screenshot with new search

When you start Konqueror, it will show your bookmarks. Of course you can change this by going to the Settings menu and choosing "Configure Konqueror" on the bottom of the menu. Just below the Konqueror icon on the top-right is a drop down menu which allows you to choose what Konqueror shows you when you start it. Besides the bookmarks, you can opt for a blank page (which leads to faster startup), show your homepage (the location of which can be configured just below the drop down menu) or an introduction page.

The Konqueror developers have been working on Webshortcuts, short (often two or three letter) "words" you can type in the locationbar, followed by search terms. Konqueror then searches the Webshortcut site for your search terms. For example, type in wp:kde and Konqueror will show you the WikiPedia site for KDE. Or you can type in "imdb:curse of the golden flower" and Konqueror will search imdb.com for the movie. It is easy to create a webshortcut. On any webpage which features a search bar (for example, your favorite news site), you can click with your right mouse button on the search field and choose "Create web shortcut". Now choose a few logical letters as the webshortcut and give the search a name, click OK and a new webshortcut has been created! These shortcuts can be displayed and managed with the Konqueror configuration screen. Go to the Settings menu and choose "Configure Konqueror" on the bottom of the menu. On the left you see a list with different groups of settings. Under "Web Browsing", clicking on "Web Shortcuts" brings up a list of webshortcuts and some settings, including default search and search delimiter.

Tip: if you set the "Keyword delimiter" to "Space", you can make Konqueror use the "Default search engine" if you type in your search terms in the location bar and hit enter. For example: if you set the "Default search engine" to Wikipedia (wp), Konqueror will search Wikipedia when you type in one or more words in the locationbar, instead of a website address. You can still use other shortcuts, but you don't have to use the semicolon. For example, type "imdb curse of the golden flower", and Konqueror will search imdb.com for "curse of the golden flower".

Bonus tip: these shortcuts also work in KRunner! Just hit "ALT-F2", type "imdb curse of the golden flower", choose the imdb search and Konqueror will pop up with the imdb.com website. (The KRunner Web Shortcuts plugin must be enabled for this to work.) 

    * KSCD dbus for Now Playing plasmoid
     * KGet: support mms:// protocol??mms
     * Lokalize: MDI interface improvements
     * Okular: support fax documents

*** Learn and Discover with the KDE Educational applications

Desktop Planetarium, KStars, provides an accurate graphical simulation of the night sky, from any location on Earth, at any date and time. It can control telescopes and has many tools for the amateur or professional astronomer. This 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!

KStars screenshot/screencast?

«a href="http://edu.kde.org/kbruch/"»KBrunch«/a» can be used to practice with fractions. Kpercentage functions have been merged with KBrunch so you can now also practice with percentages. KAlgebra offers more complex mathematical functionality, even going as far as supporting the MathML language used in professional circles.

Parley, the application which helps you learn other languages, has become easier to use and can fetch translations automatically from online sources. KTurtle became more fun as you can now export images and use a simple color picker to change colors.

Screenshots/screencasts of the above apps.

    * Python bindings to Marble widget classes
     * Marble can show other planets: Historic Map from 1689

*** Games

The «a href="http://games.kde.org"»KDE Games«/a» provide you with a bit of enjoyment during a day of hard work. The KDE Games team has been working on new and improved artwork and introduced two new games: Killbots and Bomber. In Killbots, your goal is to make sure the robots don't get to you. You can move away from them, but if they close in on you, there is the possibility of jumping away. Be careful with that, as you need energy to jump safely to another location. You can 'earn' energy by waiting out a round - do so if you're sure the robots won't catch you even if you can't move anymore.

Killbots screenshot

In Bomber your goal is to destroy the buildings below you before you crash into them. You use the spacebar to drop a bomb. The space ship will fly over the buildings, getting lower each time. Once a level is cleared, a new, more difficult one starts with taller buildings and a faster plane.

Bomber screenshots/screencast?

«a href="http://games.kde.org/game.php?game=kdiamond"»KDiamond«/a» is a single player puzzle game. The goal is to build lines of three similar gems by moving them with the mouse. Once you've got three in a row, they disappear and new jewels will appear on the board. You can now move with drag and drop, and turn off the game timer. Sound effects are also new.

KDiamond screenshot?

«a href="http://games.kde.org/game.php?game=ksirk"»Ksirk«/a» is a multi-player game of world domination. You can place armies all over the world, and use them to conquer your enemies. The new KSirk features improved graphics and network play. You can use Jabber to find an online game. There is a new Skin editor which allows you to create new worlds to fight on. Using KDE-apps.org, you can share these with the world and give others the opportunity to download your creations using the KSirk build in GNX installer.

In addition, KGoldRunner has seen the addition of a few new levels and themes, and KBlocks joins the ranks of KDE games with sound support.

More information about these and other games can be found on the «a href="http://games.kde.org"»KDE Games website«/a»

Core KDE/Better Everywhere/ libraries (unsure about title)

Some changes affect 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 can show file previews. Sharing such user interface elements ensures a smooth and consistent user experience.

The Oxygen artwork continued its path of refinement. In Plasma the panel has a new (transparent) look. Window shadows now form a blue highlight around the active window and wobble when you have wobbly windows enabled. Subtle improvements like the new progress bars and scroll bars can be found everywhere, but the new wallpapers are probably most visible. Extending the already very complete collection with some new high quality pieces of art they bring a fresh look to your desktop.

    * strigi improvements? Inquiring by Jos vd oever
     * nepomuk improvements?

Improvements to global shortcut handling make sure shortcut conflicts are detected so you can fix them.  (I did mention this above already... get rid of it?)

    * PolicyKit (probably beta 2)
     * Use knotify in kwrited - what does this do?

KDE on windows and Mac

BLURB about status on Windows and Mac... Help appreciated!

Libraries & development platform

    * Phonon: VideoWidget snapshot function
     * CMake: Reduced library link interface
     * Eigen (how's that interesting?)
     * PyKDE: KCM and other plugins support
     * Various improvements in the Kross Ruby and Python engines
     * New Kross engine: Falcon
     * fish and sftp support on Windows
     * Documentation has been added about many parts of KDE on «a href="http://techbase.kde.org"»techbase«/a». We are still a long way from properly documenting all the new and improved libraries. You can ask for help and information on the IRC channels and mailinglists. When you figured out how something works, it would be greatly appreciated if you could turn this learning experience into documentation for others to ease their learning process! Head on to «a href="http://techbase.kde.org"»techbase«/a» and help your fellow programmer.