The Integrated Desktop

[James Richard Tyrer]

J Hall wrote:
>>>KDE is an amazing desktop environment, but of the applications that i
>>>use most, none of the packaged KDE programs are really the best of breed.
> 
> 
>>>KOffice < OpenOffice
>>>KMail < Thunderbird
>>>Konquerer < Firefox
>>>Noatun < Juk
>>>Kopete < gaim
> 
> 
> 
> snip
>  
> 
>>>imagine what could be achieved if KDE, OpenOffice and the Mozilla
>>>project joined forces...
> 
> 
>>>cheers
> 
> 
>>>iain
> 
> 
> I'm afraid I'm not seeing a very convincing argument as to why all these KDE 
> applications are inferior. I use Kmail, Konqueror, and Kopete because they 
> have features I use that the other applications you have listed don't. To 
> simply say, Kopete < Gaim is not enough. Many would disagree with you and 
> you're not giving any valid reasons why. Can you so easily quantify the 
> usefulness of an application to the community in general? I do not believe 
> so.  KDE is shaped by what the community wants and needs, and if you want 
> your voice to be heard a more compelling argument is required. 

Although (with the exception of KOffice < OpenOffice) I would not say that the 
KDE applications were inferior, there are issues.  OTOH, KWord has features that 
I want -- if only it worked.

Although Konqueror has many features including the possibility of total 
integration, there are problems with KHTML.  Gecko is simply much better at 
displaying non-standards compliant web sites than KHTML.

KOffice doesn't print correctly and does not embed TruType fonts as scalable 
fonts.  KWord can not print correctly because the Qt PostScript driver and font 
canvas are seriously broken.  This will not be fixed till Qt-4.0 (or later).  Qt 
has problems with Type1 fonts.  Most significantly, it doesn't find all of them 
on my system.  KOffice appears to have additional font problems.  OTOH, OOo will 
not produce a PS data file that does NOT have the fonts embedded.  KWord will do 
this, but the font names are often wrong which means that you can't print it.

I don't really like JuK which is a KDE application -- I normally use ALSA Player.

And, yes, I do see some of the NIH syndrome driving KDE development.  I see no 
reason that we need to make a KDE application when there are already perfectly 
good ones available unless there are significant integration advantages.  And, 
unfortunately some of these applications have been added to the KDE distribution 
before this has happened and before such applications really worked.  Having a 
separate development release would address this issue.

--
JRT
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