the future of kdetoys

[Allen Winter]

On Wednesday 07 May 2008 16:04:25 Stefan Böhmann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I tried to get an overview about the current state of each application in
> kdetoys and want to share my cognitions and also I want to make a proposal.
>
> In short: I think the kdetoys module is dead.
>
Certainly in need of some love and attention.

>
> Most of the 8 applications in kdetoys aren't in a good state.
>
> 1. kmoon
> this applet is dead. cmake doesn't build it since revision 755452 (Jan 1.)
> because it is a kicker applet and kicker is dead. Also there is a plasma
> based alternative in [1] called luna.
>
Kill it then.

> 2. fifteenapplet
> same as kmoon. But there is a plasma based alternative in [1] called
> fifteenPuzzle.
>
Kill it then.

> 3. eyesapplet
> and the same here. But here I could't find an alternative plasmoid yet.
>
Maybe you'll find a volunteer to write the plasmoid if
you ask on the plasma developers list or on kde-devel?
But ... eyesapplet needs to die.

> 4. kweather
> kweather is something curious. Some parts are ported (kweatherreport and
> kweatherservice) but of course the kicker applet itself isn't ported and
> isn't build since revision 755452 too. I'm not a regular user of this
> application so I can't say if the ported parts are useable without the
> applet itself - I do not think so. However, there is also a plasma based
> alternative in [2] called weather.
>
I'm tempted to copy/port the parts needed by the Kontact Weather summary
into kdepim.

> 5. kworldclock
> kworldclock seems to be ok for the moment, but didn't have a maintainer.
> Also Henry de Valence works on a new plasma based world clock (see [3]).
>
So kill this one too.

> 6. ktux  and  7. amor
> No maintainer and as far as I know nobody did work on this applications
> since 2006 (besides basic porting/i18n and similar tasks).
>
Why do we even want ktux? and, if we do, why not in kdeartwork
in the screensavers??

I sorta like little amor.  so cute :)

> 8. kteatime
> I ported this application to KDE4 and took care of it since then.
>
No objections to moving kteatime into kdeutils, if Friedrich is ok with that.
Or to extragear.

>
> So kmoon, fifteenapplet and eyesapplet are dead and should be moved to
> tags/unmaintained/4. I think this applies also to kweather.
>
> I'm not sure how to handle ktux and amor. You can compile and run both.
> However both didn't had a maintainer for a long time now and I personally
> think their gui looks like a relict from kde 2.0.
>
> When the new plasma based world clock is ready in time for kde 4.1 also
> kworkdclock could be moved to tags/unmaintained/4. But I couldn't find the
> plasma applet in the svn repository so I have no idea which state it
> currently has. However - I wrote Henry a mail too, to point out this thread
> to him. Maybe he can brief us about his work and further plans.
>
>
> But now my real question/proposal:
> I don't see any new application for kdetoys. All the shiny new toys (bball
> for example) are plasma applets and therefor placed in extragear/plasma or
> similar. All (possible) alternatives for the dead (or nearly dead)
> applications in kdetoys are also plasma applets.
>
> On the other hand the only applications with a maintainer in kdetoys
> (kteatime) is not only a toy, it's also a utility.
>
> So the final question is, should we possibly keep kdetoys with only
> one "utility"? Or should we move this application(s) to kdeutils or
> extragear and remove kdetoys entirely.
>
> My personal proposal is to move kteatime (and possibly kworldclock) to
> extragear and remove the kdetoys module from KDE (i.e. moving it to
> tags/unmaintained/4).
>
> What do you think?
>
Makes sense to me.
And I also like Dirk's idea of a new kdeplasmoids module.