Ferdinand Gassauer wrote, The other day I asked why in koffice the "file save" does not append the extension (kwd to kword) any more. David answered, that the file is recognized by its mimetype. Beside the fact that I'd like to have this bahaviour configurable (append extension yes/no) to allow command line inputs like "l *.kwd" the kcontrol "file association" as it is now becomes invalid (or not?) and definitely needs explanation. A kspread file saved as test.kwd is recognized as kword file.

David Faure stepped in to explain the situation saying, It's just as it has always been in KDE.

• Extension isn't mandatory, but if it's set then it's _prioritary_ over the contents
• If unknown extension or no extension, then we look at the contents.

To further complicate things, Carsten Pfeiffer noted that detection by mimetype is only useful when the file is stored locally saying, the only problem I see ... is publishing those documents on remote servers, e.g. ftp. There we don't have any magic-detection and rely on the extension -> if there is no extension, we're in trouble. It was, after some discussion, decided that the best idea was to provide a checkbox in the Save File dialog box that allows the user to set wether or not to automatically add file extensions.

It is becoming a fairly common occurence these days to hear of large corporations cooperating with Open Source projects when it is in their best interests to do so. Kent Nguyen announced one such instance of this saying, Avery has given me permission to create label templates for KOffice and allow me have them license under an Open Source License. Here are the screenshots for 4 labels: http://www.geocities.com/newyen/index.html

While implementing these templates, Kent ran into some limitations in KWord including the lack of a DCOP interface he could use to automate the creation of the templates. Kent wrote into the list a few days later with his current work-around saying:

David Faure replied to Kent telling him that he could use Qt's built in XML classes to write KWord files himself. Thanks goes to Kent for working on this as well as to Avery Labels for showing their support for the KOffice project.

Kicker started out as a fairly humble desktop panel compared to some found elsewhere. With time it has grown remarkably featureful, due in large part to the diligent efforts of numerous KDE hackers and its good internal design. These days Kicker supports may types of components including:

• applets (this includes native KDE2 applets, of which I have 20 different ones installed right now, as well Window Maker applets
• taskbars with startup notification, optional task grouping, and nice visual effects
• extensions such as child panels, and Window Maker style application bars
• bookmark menus, recently used document and application listings
• special menus such as quick browsers, window lists, Konsole sessions, recent documents and bookmarks
• auto and manual hiding, icon zooming, optional tooltips and panel sizing

The next day John announced that these additions were now configurable from the panel KControl module in a new tab labelled "Extensions". A request was made for being able setting the auto-hide timeout to 0 seconds and problems were noted regarding moving panels around the screen. These issues, along with the usual array of minor glitches to be expected with new code, were taken care of by John as they were reported.

Despite everyone's best efforts, sometimes changes that need to be made in one module effect applications in other modules. One such change occurred this past week that requires both kdelibs and kdenetwork to be updated together and affects everyone who uses KMail either from CVS or with kdelibs from CVS. Michael Häckel explained in a cross-posted message saying:

While working on a kpf, a personal webserver for KDE2, Rik Hemsley noted some problems with the way kio_http makes requests of a web server. Rik explained what he say saying,

Rik noted that this causes problems with web servers that limit the maximum number of simultaneous connections from a single host. Dirk Mueller replied saying, so it should keep sending request headers without waiting for the first request to be finished ? that would explain why KIO is still a few magnitudes slower in retrieving webpages than i.e. IE/Netscape. Dirk also explained why it would not be possible or advantageous to explicitly close an active slave as opposed to just letting it time out, though he noted that if kio_http spawns an unlimited number of connections then that is indeed a bug. He concluded that pipelining is indeed the solution that will need to be implemented. Lars Knoll confirmed this while noting that in the http specification the maximum number of connections per client to a server should only be 2. Further discussion occurred on the technical details involved in improving kio_http.

With a desktop as versatile as KDE2 new users can easily get lost in the vast number of configuration settings. One solution is to present a new user with a program that asks right questions and then sets the desktop settings appropriately. While commenting on the CVS issues for the week, Ralf Nolden announced KPersonalizer which is an application that does exactly that saying:

As the week drew to an end, Ralf said that KPersonalizer was almost completely ready. For those looking to try it out, KPersonalizer can be found in the kdebase CVS module.

James Finnie wrote to konq-e and asked: I have Konqueror Embedded running on the framebuffer, and would like to get Macromedia Flash animations playing on it. Is there any way to do this?

Rob Kaper noted that Oliver Kutter was working on this issue:

The question was added to the Konq/E FAQ and we're all looking forward to this addition to Konqueror/Embedded.

Arnaud Rolly proposed some new features for Konqueror/Embedded:

Simon Hausmann had some remarks on the specific implementation, but was fine with the additions. Soon after, the patches for the kiosk mode GUI were sent to the list. They should be committed soon, while Arnaud continues to work on Lirc support.