[kde-linux] State of Konqueror ?

[sc]

On Thursday 17 January 2008 18:10, Kevin Krammer wrote:
> On Friday 18 January 2008, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
> > I think some of you said these things already but I'll
> > say them again . . .
> >
> > On Thursday 17 January 2008 14:18:34 Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > There have been many complaints that konqueror is too
> > > big, too complicated, too configurable,
> >
> > Ridiculous. If you don't want to set any configurable
> > options, then simply DON'T go browsing through the
> > settings menu - use the defaults. If people can't find
> > what they consider to be "basic" options because there's
> > "too many" to browse through (I'll maybe agree with
> > that), perhaps these "Basic" options could be left "out
> > in the open" and the rest hidden under an "Advanced"
> > button.
>
> Most complaints I have heard of are not actually options or
> configurability (even if those are the words used to
> describe the actual problem), but more a difficulty to work
> with the "multiple personality" feature, a.k.a. profiles,
> e.g. parts of the GUI (menus, toolbars) changing when
> "clicking the wrong link/button", stuff like this.

just thought i'd get in my two cents while the fate of
konqueror is being discussed

i've always been distrustful of applications that try to do
everything for everyone -- i had an uneasy peace with it, and
had a profile that worked and figured out how to get it to
show me "hidden" files -- i started looking at pictures,
which triggered gwenview from konqueror, which was what i
wanted, but after several times using gwenview from
konqueror, i can't describe it any other way than to say
konqueror became infected with gwenview -- almost everything
i tried to open opened in gwenview (unless there was a
specific association with another application), especially
directories, opened in gwenview, with these huge icons for
every file

i was never able to get konqueror to act right after that,
and when i discovered krusader i liked it better anyway --
never looked back

further, i've been absolutely enthralled with firefox ever
since i discovered ad-block-plus

when i want to work with the filesystem, i want a good
utility for files -- when i want to browse the web, i want a
good browser -- i think it's just silly to try and do both
with the same application

</rant>

sc


> > > For those of us that like its configurability, we get
> > > to keep konqueror.
> >
> > Forks are good for who? Can't we give these users a
> > program that's a shell with fewer options that is still
> > really running the Konqeror engine ++ in the background?
> > Otherwise, what third parties are ever going to develop
> > plugins for /two/ KDE file managers?
>
> It's not a fork. Actually the developers are doing exactly
> what you are suggesting, sharing the actual functionality
> and just presenting it differently.
>
> Think about it as some kind of re-use like in Kontact,
> where the mail component is basically KMail not running in
> its usual stand-alone shell but in the integration shell.
>
> > I'm probably way out of touch but I thought Apple was
> > contributing improvements to KTHML or whatever back to
> > Konqueror/KDE? Or is that way old news and Safari is
> > based on something proprietary now?
>
> Apple never directly contributed to KHTML as far as I know,
> In the beginning they confirmed to the LGPL licence by
> basically having their version accessible as a whole, thus
> putting the effort of figuring out the actual differences
> to the KHTML developers.
>
> I think at a later point this somewhat improved, i.e. they
> created a collection of differences (patches), but still a
> lot of them in one go without any comments.
>
> They then began hosting WebKit as a kind of project they
> created, i.e. making most of it (still continued using
> internal variation) read-only accessible from outside in
> real-time.
>
> Then they allowed write-access to those parts that WebKit
> uses to adopt to platforms (sometimes referred to as
> backend), basically allowing platform adapter providers
> (Nokia, Trolltech) to develop their code in a central
> location, but they would still not allow access to the
> engine code.
>
> I think around summer of last year (2007) they solved this
> as well, publishing policies when a contributor would
> allowed to do what, including contributing to the core and
> their developers have the same policies applied as well,
> i.e. just being an Apple employee no longer guarantees
> instant read/write access to everything.
>
> Since this change WebKit is pratically a new free software
> project on its own, which is a really good thing and
> probably currently the best achievable solution, but,
> again, not the same thing as actively contributing to
> KHTML, more the opposite.
>
> Cheers,
> Kevin