Some features for KDE 3.4?

[Janne Ojaniemi]

I haven't (yet at least) seen any lively discussion about 3.4's feature-set. 
Of course it will have it's share or improvements, tweaks and cleanups, but 
what about features?

I have been looking at the latest Gnome (well I haven't used it, but I have 
read comments regarding the new 2.8 release), I watched some of the 
presentations in Akademy and I'm using the latest X.org 6.8. That said, I 
would like to see something along these lines in 3.4:

1. Volume-management. In Gnome, you plug in a CD, and it "just works". Same 
thing with other removable media as well. They do that with the help of HAL. 
Having something like that in KDE would IMO be a "Good Thing" (tm)

2. Rendezvous. Again, Gnome 2.8 has this, and it is a good feature. To put it 
very simply: Networking that just works., Ad Hoc networks that autoconfigures 
itself etc. etc.

3. Composite. As you propably know, X.org 6.8 has a composite-extension that 
enables the GUI to do all kinds of funky stuff. Most famous of those in the 
"true" transparency. IMO we should put in some tools in KDE to control that 
feature (in per-window settings for example). Right now, using Xcompmgr to 
enable composite is pretty awkward. Also, tooltips, Kopete notifications etc. 
could use the true transparency to make them blend more with the background. 
Really, there are LOTS of possible uses for this feature (and I'm not talking 
about just transparency, fade-in/out etc. would also be possible)

Now, Composite isn't 100% rock-solid yet, but it's progressing nicely. Better 
be prepared for it too soon than too late. IMO 4.0 would be too late.

4. FreeNX. Now, this is one area where KDE is leading the way. Are there any 
plans of having integrated support for FreeNX in 3.4? 

5. I read Rob Kapers text about different "profiles" in KDE (url: 
http://capzilla.net/blog/5288/). I think that's a great idea!

I'm an easy man to please. If those were implemented in 3.4 (among with the 
usual tweaks & cleanups and the like) I would be one happy camper :). No, 
this post is not a "you must do this now!"-thingy, it's meant to start 
discussion about this stuff.

Thoughts? Opinions?
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