[kde-linux] State of Konqueror ?

[Kevin Krammer]

On Thursday 17 January 2008, Richard wrote:
> On Thursday 17 January 2008 3:44:57 pm Kevin Krammer wrote:

> > > Well, I don't understand why the KDE group would need dolphin?
> > > there is Krusader!, if one is needed more.
> >
> > I don't know Krusader to well, but I think it also targets a different
> > group of users than the one Dolphin is mainly intended for.
> >
> > Dolphin started as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate technologies and
> > techniquies for making common file handling task more obvious, easier to
> > understand, etc.
>
> I never thought of that when I first started using KDE,
> after dumping windows...

Yes, it can be difficult to understand the next generations of users, who 
probably don't even know what this weird icon on "save" buttons means.

> > It is targeted at users who are not so comfortable with the usual way
> > most of us others have grown accustomed to, e.g. split view, detailed
> > about the file itself (permission, etc), but rather prefer to have the
> > content outweight the system's view, e.g. having documents separated by
> > content type rather than file properties.
>
> Again, Konqueror can do that, and more... and if they add more options,
> it could kill the older Midnight Commander.

Of course and I expect this to happen.
This is why is it basically mandatory to have another shell with a reduced set 
of options.

> > I personally don't think there is a need to "fix" Konqueror, it works the
> > way I expect a file manager to work and I prefer having it available
> > instead of getting its behavior changed. After all the current groups of
> > users will still be users after the newly targeted group gains access to
> > the platform and it might not be a good idea to turn them away by
> > removing something they like.
> >
> > Additionally the way things are implemented makes it easy for the two
> > development teams to share functionality, actually they even have quite
> > some overlap in personnel.
>
> As a file manager is works... but they could add more features .

As I said, since they two development teams work closely together, features 
added to Dolphin are pretty much guaranteed to be available in Konqueror as 
well.
After all us old school power users want to get the nice new things too.

> > Exactly, therefore ripping out things from Konqueror and replacing them
> > with totally new code doesn't sound like a good idea.
>
> Well, if the Older Code, is in from past, but acting like a brick wall,
> then remove the brick wall... IMHO, and add something that can be easily
> upgraded

There are obviously different kinds of "old" code, one referring to not 
touched in a long time (a.k.a. probably unmaintained -> bad) and another one 
referring to used and tested over a long period of time.

> > Quite contrary. Its renger engine, especially in the form of webkit, is
> > starting to become available on all sorts of platforms, from the usual
> > desktop software to embedded devices and smart phones.
>
> Webkit, second time I heard of this... but its NOT in place now?

For example Safari uses it which is, as far as I know, the default browser on 
Apple computers and some of their appliances like the iPhone.
It is also used by Nokia on some of their smartphones on the Asian market if I 
remember correctly.
One of its major benefits is that one of the properties it inherited from its 
origin, KTHML, is that it is easy to be used as a component inside other 
applications, e.g. KMail's or Akregator's message view. This property also 
earned it the inclusion in the Qt framework (starting with version 4.4), thus 
being available to developers on all major platforms in the same way.

> so, the problem is that Konqueror did not pass the Acid Test 3,
> it crash and burn... firefox 3 beta 3 got over 60
> the lack of development on Konqueror scares me.

I am not sure what items either KHTML or WebKit developers are currently 
working on. Probably something they feel is more important than again winning 
an Acid stylesheet test.

> > True. It is really a pitty that proprietary software vendors like Adobe
> > switch to incompatible API version within the same major version.
> > Compatability is something they regularily demand from the platform
> > developers, but incidents like this show nicely that they do not intend
> > to do it themselves when others rely on it.
>
> But, You and I know this, that the proprietary software MFG, will continue
> to do so... flash, gmail..etc (hence) the new code, could help to fix those
> untimely changes quicker!, Where the MFG has done wrong, where is not to
> OUR Standards (Linux Group)

No idea what MFG means.

As I said the problem is not that new code uses new features, the problem is 
that they do not even indicate the incompatible switch as one would usually 
do by increasing the library version appropriately, they also dropped support 
for the older interface, i.e. leaving security issues unfixed.

Fortunately for us as users, the developers on the free software application 
side undertook extra efforts to ensure our online security is not compromised 
by the lack of development professionality on the proprietary side and 
changed their applications to adapt to the unpredicably changing plugin of 
one vendor.

> > Fortunately the user experience is important to the free software
> > developers and so they changed their applications accordingly during
> > their maintenance phase, where one usually keeps from changing
> > functionality and concentrates on fixing bugs.
>
> Yes, on the Bugs fixes... but if the Devel, does not keep with the MFG,
> when they changing there base code, then the WHOLE project could come to a
> slow down or do I dare to say, a Stand Still..<yikes>

Since I have no idea what MFG means, this sentence doesn't make any sense to 
me, sorry.

> I gone back to school, to learn Java,
> threw and threw.. hopefully soon I could offer something to the Linux Group

Very good!
Java is a nice platform for application development, especially since Sun is 
working hard on getting the last few bits available as free software.
I expect an increase in numbers of applications using it in the near future.

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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