This is issue number 49 of KDE Traffic. Two new authors have been added to the fray due to their contributions - Juergen Appel and Fabrice Mous. I hope I don't prove to be too difficult to work with. ;-) Thanks guys!
Thanks to their efforts, kde-promo, koffice, and kde-edu are now among the list of lists that we cover. We also have a newsflash, thanks to Juergen.
There is a LOT to cover this week, so lets get right to it.
Karamba!
If you believe it's about the Simpsons, rather check out the new section on
kde-look, eat the shorts later if you
can't make the weather-theme work, like me.
If you think it's a good thing to integrate into KDE, you might want to wait
before you start coding. At the moment there are at least 3 different
versions of Karamba, but the effort is underway to merge these three into one.
Now, go ahead for eye-candy or for shorts..
If you have some news for the KC KDE, you can submit it. Join the kc-kde list.
You might have heard that there is an effort to merge KMail, KOrganizer and KAddressbook into one application. Did ye, he? Anyways, you can watch its current state here , ehrm, here and.. maybe here. Notice the working geodata plug-in!! Thus the groupware functionality is not yet in place, i feel like saying wooohaaa!!!! Okay, back to business. Nice work by the way.
Barbara Erwin wrote me (Russell) privately:
I've recently included the KDE Traffic website on the Loads of Linux Links project website, which can be found here:
Complete details of this project can be found here:
Thanks for the link, Barbara!
Juergen Appel wrote large parts of this newsflash. Thanks!
Jason Kierstead asked,
Could we add support for exchange over wbedav to kmail? I was going to make
another io slave, but webdav seems to do the job just fine as is..
and Ingo Klöcker replied,
The problem is that AFAIK no KMail developer has access to an Exchange
server. This makes implementing Exchange support pretty much
impossible.
To which Ryan Breen came out of thin air, and replied,
My company uses an Exchange server. I've been AWOL for the last few months on
a large project, but I will hopefully have more time to contribute now. At
the very least, I should be able to test patches, and I have enough Ethereal
experience to provide meaningful packet-level debugging info. I can also
probably set up a dedicated Exchange server for testing if our patches are
potentially destructive.
Dominik Seichter asked,
I am the author of KRename ( http://www.krename.net ). I would like to move
this extremely powerful batch renamer into the kdeutils CVS module, so that
it can be part of KDE 3.2. I already have a CVS account, so adding it is no
problem. I will of course continue to maintain and improve it inside of the
CVS.
to which there was quite a bit of discussion. There was general agreement
that the UI needed to be fixed to adhere to the style guide, to which
Dominik replied,
I'll try to simplify the GUI now and make it more compatible to the style
guide. Afterwards I'll look into the kpart issue :-).
Dominik was referring to some debate as to whether KRename would be better suited as a separate application or as a KPart.
Stephan Binner (note I spelled your name right) wrote,
I want to propose the removal of KEdit from KDE releases: KWrite is a good
lightweight editor. Nobody installs kdeutils for KEdit. KEdit is rather un-
maintained. It's often critized that default full installation has 3 editors.
To which there was a great deal of comment.
The general consensus seemed to be that, yes, it is a good idea to eventually remove KEdit, however, there are some things that KEdit provides, notably bidi, that the other editors do not. Once bidi is implemented in Kate, KEdit will probably be removed.
Christian Hubinger wrote:
I'm the author and maintainer of kmyfirewall which is currently in kdenonbeta. I read the CVS-DIGEST about moving it to kdeextragear or kdenetwork and i'm a little bit suprised when i read that KMF is not maintained as i'm maintaining it on a relative regular basis (depending on my work and university nut at least in holidays i work on it).
So if its just that you need a maintainer to move it you have one and i would be really happy to see it somewhere in the official kde releses. Currently i'm working on some long planed features and i think that i'll release the next version quiet soon as it also fixes some really nasty bugs. The app is very stable (didn't crash for a long time) so i don't see a reason not to move it to a official module. The quality of the code is in my view ok but i'm not really an expert programmer (it my firs big C++ app) so some feedback from you about it would be very welcome to help me improve it.
Please let me know what all needs to be done before it can be moved so that i can focus on that issues.
Christian also clarified that he meant the Kernel Cousin, not CVS-DIGEST. Consensus was that it should be moved to kextragear, with Christian stating that he will move it to kextragear sometime close to the time of this writing.
See the previous thread mentioned
Matthias Ettrich wrote:
KDE Developers' Conference 2003 - First Announcement
August 22 - 24
Zamek, Nove Hrady, Czech Republic
This is the first announcement of the official KDE Developer's Conference 2003. It will take place at the Zamek ("Castle") in Nove Hrady in the Northern part of the Czech Republic in Central Europe.
Compared to previous KDE conferences, this one will be bigger, both in terms of number of participants, scope and time. We will start with two days of technical talks in at least two parallel tracks, and end with an optional six-days project work and hacking session until the 31st. Besides, there will be lots of time for socializing.
In case you have not yet heard of the location, find some information material on http://trolls.troll.no/ettrich/NoveHrady.pdf" . It's a stylish location for a stylish desktop environment - and very close to the real Budweiser Budvar Brewery. There are excellent facilities on and around the castle, including a very fast network connection and cheap accommodation. Nove Hrady cannot easily be reached by public transportations, but a shuttle service will be provided from Prague-Ruzyne airport and Prague Central Station.
Do you have a particular expertise related to KDE programming that could be useful for your fellow developers? Do you want to present a particular programming pattern, a tool, a development strategy, or anything else that helps KDE developers become more productive? Then consider talking about it at the KDE Developers' Conference.
We solicit submissions for presentations from, but not restricted to the following fields. Everything KDE-related will be considered.
- Qt programming tricks
- kdelibs programming tricks
- KParts development
- KOffice development
- aRts development
- programming tools
- programming patterns and development strategies
- project management issues
- internationalization
- documentation
- usability
- accessibility
- interoperability
- ...
Technical talks will be scheduled for 45 minutes talk and 15 minutes Q&A. In some cases, it may be possible to occupy two slots for a total talk time of 90 minutes. Please note this in your abstract if you require this.
There will also be room for short presentations of 15 minutes each, and submissions for these are very welcome as well.
A final call-for-papers will be sent out soon, as well as information on registration, speaker incentives and financial compensation. The purpose of this first announcement is mainly to help you schedule your summer vacation, so you can dedicate the last week in August to your favorite software project.
If you have father questions at this point in time, or simply want to help with organizational issues , we have a mailing list novehrady@mail.kde.org. You can subscribe from http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/novehrady
Looking forward to seeing you guys in sunny Czechia,
Matthias
Replies asked a few questions and made a couple of clarifications.
Dirk Mueller wrote:
Ok, I wanted to do this sooner, but didn't come around doing this earlier. I plan to package KDE 3.1.2 next monday. If there are issues which must be solved before release (and are not yet), please let me know.
Please backport stable and safe bugfixes now, and don't forget to add a changelog entry for notable changes in
www/announcements/changelogs/changelog3_1_1to3_1_2.php
URL was not linked because it is not a valid URL as quoted. It's a good chance that 3.1.2 will be released by the time you read this or within a day or two.
Previously, there was a hailing for help (see icon context for KOffice. Time has passed since then, and Ismail Donmez reports:
Sorry to inform you that Koffice Icon Contest was a complete disaster for me. Although idea got high votes @ kde-look.org nobody submitted anything for contest nor even contact me about it. So I guess I failed on my all estimations.
What will happen with all the children now? Cheer up, cartman, we won't despair, because yet - there is hope.
Once upon a time, a brave artist known as Everaldo came to contribute Crystals, which became quickly famous among the free-(os)-world.
Through the dark woods of the wilderness, it has been heralded by Sven Lueppken:
Yes, indeed, I spoke with Everaldo and he wants to contribute Crystal icons for KOffice. I wrote him another mail today, will wait till I get an answer and inform you then :)
So fear not, whilst we await the day of his shape in the dawn on the horizon.
After battling 3 months with a insane guy who owned kde.cl domain and used it to display "KDE sucks!!!" messages and pr0n text, a group of chilean opensource world, in a quick and fantastic move noticed that this strange guy forgot to pay and notified a friend of mine, who called me to my mobile while I was in the Uni, I ran, asked my mom my credit card number by phone and registered the domain.
I setup a simple site, with 4 important sections: User - Developer - Enterprise and Project Info. Some content is online for each section and I will add more useful stuff asap. (I did this quickly in a few hours to have something online)
The next step will be organize a community with some interested people already contacted me. Future promotion will be centered in ( what I believe is the best way to promote KDE ) promoting, and giving away Knoppix CDs.
Thanks to a chilean company, Creativa, we have free hosting for the site. Thanks for Sebastian Beeche and Matias Fernandez for all the support they have gave to me both for Kopete and now for KDE.
Duncan Mac-Vicar is the offcial KDE representative for Chile and also the original author, core developer and project leader of Kopete, the flexible and extendable multiple protocol instant messaging system for KDE. You can find the newly created chilean KDE website here.
Want to help promote our lovely desktop? Please checkout our mailinglist kde-promo and website. For this you don't need to be a programmer, just your enthousiasm thank you :o)
Once i was looking for a good chart-drawing program. I gave up. Andreas Nicolai was also on the search and is now trying a different approach, saying:
I just wanted to ask whether there is someone actively developing KChart at the moment. I'm desperately looking for a good chart drawing program under linux and failed to find one yet. But if there would be a way to join the developer team and actively enhance and improve KChart I really would be pleased to hear from you.
In the response, Karl-Heinz Zimmer explains the current situation. :
As written (in PM) to Andreas I probably *ought* to contribute considerably more time and brain to KChart development! (and I kind of feel guilty for having done literally nothing in that area since ages)
The current situation is that KD Chart can do *lots* of things a KChart user has no idea about since the KChart configuration dialogs cover only about 50% (or less) of the configuration options by KD Chart.
Also - and this is of equal importance - I did not update the KChart sources since quite a while: the reason for this is that we actively prepared our KD Chart 1.0 release and all development time and brain was put on getting this done.
