[kde-linux] Re: Panel widgets alwais to the left

[Duncan]

Dr.-Ing. Edgar Alwers posted on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:12:23 +0200 as
excerpted:

> On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:44:42 +0200 Klaus Vink Slott
> <list-s at vink-slott.dk>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> > That solution is the "spacer" plasmoid.
>> [cut]
>> Got it!
>> 
>> So as I understand your answer, the icons on the bottom panel has
>> always been left adjusted - but a now forgotten spacer, task-switcher
>> or other widget was pushing my clock out to the right. That is
>> absolutely understandable and I was simply searching the for the wrong
>> solution.
> 
> 
> I hate to put water in the wine, but I am facing the same problems with
> KDE-4.6.0, and I have beeing playing with spacers, with poor results: I
> have one box, where everythink is doing well, and I do not know why:
> clock at the right, lancelot or launcher at the left etc. In a second
> box, build at the same time, the behaviour is caotical, and after every
> boot process diferent, in spite of my efforts with spacers placed in
> different places. The same in a third box. I think, this is still not
> solved ( for all screens ? )  and we need to wait a little.

FWIW I finally upgraded to 4.6.2 (from 4.6.1, which was from 4.6.0) a day 
or so ago, and am /not/ impressed.  I still believe 4.5.5 to be the best, 
most stable kde4 yet.  4.6... honestly seems to be going backward.

I immediately noticed two problems with 4.6.2.

1) konqueror quit working right when connected thru my local proxy 
(privoxy, formerly junk-buster).  That was quickly fixed when I toggled 
the proxy config option to use persistent connections ON. (I had toggled 
it off in the kde 4.2/4.3 era when the last bought of proxy problems 
occurred.  So no real problem there, save that finding the setting and 
toggling it will likely be a bigger issue for many users than it was for 
me.

2) With a dual-monitor setup, plasma *INSISTS* on placing one of my panels 
on the wrong monitor, every time it starts.  While I can unlock widgets, 
hit the panel cashew to get the settings popup, and move it via the screen-
edge button (simply clicking the button returns the panel to the right 
spot but screws up the plasmoid organization on the underlying activity, 
so I must /drag/ it to the correct location, then the activity doesn't get 
screwed up), I must do that *EVERY* time, and it gets OLD VERY fast!

This appears to be my small taste of the bigger problems everyone else is 
having.  The 4.6 series appears to be a dramatic regression here, 
especially 4.6.2.

I do hope they fix it, as thru 4.5.5, every new version was a dramatic 
improvement.  But I saw little or no difference between 4.5.5 and 4.6.0 
(save that I could finally get rid of hal, YAY!!), according to the kde 
folks at my distro (Gentoo), 4.6.1 was reported to have dramatic 
regressions for some users tho not me, and 4.6.2 has been a dramatic 
regression for me.

So with 4.6, kde seems to have reversed the whole "better with every 
version" thing it had going before, and the trend is now downward!
That's *NOT* a good thing!

Meanwhile, it's worth observing that the whole plasma thing has been a 
very huge problem for kde4 from the beginning.  It was the least mature 
yet most visible component in the early kde4 series, thru 4.2 at least and 
arguably 4.3 and 4.4 as well tho to a lessor degree, and is now again the 
big problem with 4.6.  It's pretty and (now, tho it took awhile to get 
there) quite powerful, few will disagree, but seems to be VERY high 
maintenance, and its problems continue to drag kde4's reputation mud-ward. 

At some point, one begins to wonder if kde4 would have been far better off 
with a less flashy default desktop, with plasma developed as an 
alternative until it was reasonably stable (4.5 era), at which point it 
might have become the default, then held at that relative stability while 
an alternative development version remained available, developing until it 
was again stable, before making it the default.  Or just stay with the 
less flashy default until such time as plasma /really/ stabilized.

But realistically, it should be realized that kde is like most FLOSS 
projects largely volunteer, and perhaps regrettably, volunteers like the 
flashy pioneering projects.  It's not like someone decreed there couldn't 
be a more stable desktop alternative for kde4, and indeed, kde4 and plasma 
are sufficiently modularized that it could still easily happen if a pool 
of developers could be found that were seriously interested.  But it 
hasn't happened, in part, because it /is/ largely a volunteer project, and 
simply put, nobody's interested in putting in /that/ many weeks/months of 
solid development time on a stable desktop that would always be in the 
shadow of the flashier plasma.  If some deep-pocketed corporation decided 
to sponsor such, paying developers to do it, it might happen, but 
otherwise...  And the cost of distorting the community with the top-down 
control a corporation investing that much would likely wish to impose... 
<shudder>

So realistically, a flashy but not-so-stable desktop like plasma seems to 
be... is arguably what we have to accept, so some degree at least, unless 
we want to sell out to the corporations and desktops-for-dummies style 
lockdown, to buy that stability. =:^(

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman