KDE 4 to Support Apple Dashboard Widgets 373
Ryan writes to tell us Applexnet is reporting that Zack Rusin, a lead developer of KDE, has confirmed that KDE 4 will be able to run and display Dashboard widgets similar to Mac OS X 10.4. From the article: "Basically, this means that a layer (similar in some ways to layers in Adobe Photoshop) in the KDE desktop could function the same way that Dashboard does in Mac OS X. Widgets themselves are not inherently difficult to write nor properly interpret, since they are usually just HTML and Javascript (although Cocoa code can be included, the developer's skills permitting). Furthermore, since Konqueror and Safari share very nearly the same rendering engine, KHTML and WebKit, this too will simplify the process."
Re:who knew (Score:4, Insightful)
Exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apple community will also benefit, because there are probably a lot of people in the Linux community that will write new Widgets that haven't been thought of (or thought necessary) by the Apple programming community.
I, for one, welcome our new Widget overlords.
Pulling numbers right out your arse? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A possible merge in store, perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do we need to bind the browser this deep to the GUI?
Haven't we learned anything about bad design from microsoft and IE5?
I mean something like this [slashdot.org].
Re:A possible merge in store, perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't forget about the ability to run commercial applications such as MS Office and Photoshop. I believe Macs are preferred to a standard Linux or BSD desktop configuration mainly because of mainstream application and hardware support; the GUI just makes the experience more worthwhile.
Stop compaining about bloat! (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I think that KDE 4 will also run great on that hardware? I'll be honest, I have my doubts, but that is fine. I have seen how the KDE team did a great job of optimising the KDE 3.x series. Every release got faster and smaller (in memory). Still, if I need to get more ram, I'll do that.
For people that want to run a computer with less ram, or can't afford any more: Don't run KDE! You can run blackbox, fluxbox, IceWM, twm, and many more!
GNU/Linux/*NIX/OSS/Free Software is all about choices, so PLEASE don't sit around complaining about bloat (or anything else, for that matter.) Make sugestions. Make contributions. Enjoy the amazing bevy of free software!!
Why a separate layer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Internet Explorer was never that it was coupled too deeply into the file manager and it was therefore buggy and insecure, and only someone with no clue whatsoever would tell you that. Internet Explorer is problematic because it has multiple zones with different security settings, and as history has shown, it's very, very easy to trick Internet Explorer into thinking that a script executing from the Internet zone is actually in the Local Computer zone, and thereby able to overwrite files, instantiate arbitrary ActiveX/COM components, and do all manners of naughty things that it shouldn't be able to.
Re:Lets slow down KDE Even more! (Score:3, Insightful)
Features != bloat (especially if off by default)
Btw, KDE has had this for years, namely SuperKaramba.
Re:Lets slow down KDE Even more! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why a separate layer? (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems you are confusing Dashboard [apple.com] with Exposé [apple.com].
Re:who knew (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, you'll get your modpoints for bashing Java, but you lose in reality.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'd prefer them 'on' the desktop and to bring them up via Expose, but that's me.
Re:Dashboard is fun (Score:2, Insightful)
Then throughout the day I have instant access to a calculator, the dictionary or thesaurus; it's invaluable. Sure, it's fun, too, but it's got that functional edge to it as well, and being able to fling up the calculator and suchlike without having to trail through applications is great.
Re:Exciting (Score:3, Insightful)
They're rendered and run by WebCore (derived from KHTML), so adding them to KDE is simply getting KHTML to support transparent windows and the extra JS stuff. Getting them to run the widgets with native code parts probably won't ever be a priority.
Re:A possible merge in store, perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
They already do. Safari is descendant of Konqueror and contribute (perhaps inefficiently) their patches back to KDE. However, since this is KDE's own effort to reproduce Dashboard from scratch (Dashboard isn't open source even if many of its components are), Apple has no reason or incentive to contribute any of their work on Dashboard to KDE.
Most UNIX-people use Apple because it still is UNIX but with a better GUI.
This needs to be qualified a little better because the a large number (most likely the majority) of "UNIX-people" are still happily using a non-Apple Unix. For example, I use KDE and don't see that changing anytime soon because KDE is, for me, a much more powerful UI environment than OS X. Most of my geek friends and co-workers are in the same boat, though some are considering Powerbooks for the occasional on-the-road work.
Perhaps KDE will convince Apple to make the GUI Free Software.
Not going to happen and literally everyone at Apple has said as much. The simple, elegant OS X GUI is Apple's trump card. It is the main reason to buy a Mac. If they give that away, then anyone on the planet can implement it and Mac sales go down the tube. Sure, there are many reasons to buy a Mac but the OS is definitely the biggie. This is why Apple is putting so much effort into making sure that OS X does not run (easily) on plain Intel boxes.
Or maybe Apple will just sue the socks off of the KDE project.
I don't see how that's possible unless Apple went patent-squatting on the desktop widget engine idea. Dashboard may be the most popular implementation, but it was hardly [wikipedia.org] the first [wikipedia.org] to exist.
Re:Why a separate layer? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just your workaround for explaining Apple's more elegant solution to the problem...
Re:A possible merge in store, perhaps? (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh, no.
"Most UNIX-people" use Apple because the Apple desktop users outnumbered other unix desktop users, so when Apple switched to unix, they instantly became the #1 desktop unix brand. You're swapping cause and effect.
True, there are some people who moved from other unices to Apple, and if so, great; they went with what they liked, but don't make it sound like the entire unix world moved en masse to Apple when OS X came out.
Also, one other thing: by some counts, Linux users now outnumber Apple users. I will only make a passing mention of this because it's debatable.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:who knew (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one (Score:3, Insightful)
> The desktop is just a Konquerer shell anyway.
Hmmm...A few points about KDE:
Why do I get the feeling you are not the KDE expert you seem to think you are?
Re:Memory Usage (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you realize how inefficient even a 12 meg memory footprint for something that pulls down like 20 bytes of weather data from a URL and then displays that data along with an image to indicate whether it's sunny, raining, or snowing? Widgets are a great idea, but they ARE memory hogs and take far more processor cycles than they should to do their job. They are not the best example of software engineering to ever come out of Cupertino by any stretch of the imagination.
Re:Windows/Mac are unoriginal (Score:1, Insightful)
*Reliability - ok good point there
*Usability - rofl, Linux has a reputation for being extremely hard to use
*compatibility - let me see if you have this distribution download this build, if you have this download this, if you have this download this, oh before you can use this you need to install some parts of gnome because it would not work if you only have kde.
*Interoperability - same as compatibility pretty much
*LowerCost - "you can't use this CHEAP winmodem go buy yourself a real modem"
*Higher Performance - assuming you figure out how to use it after spending countless hours reading help sites, asking people on irc for help, and finding the right drivers for all your prehiperals then yes it soars greatly in this.