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Open Source GUI KDE Software Linux

KDE Plasma 5.4 Released 43

Posted by timothy from the don't-you-wish-they-called-it-kraken-desktop-environment? dept.
jrepin writes: KDE have announced the release of Plasma 5.4 desktop. This release of Plasma brings many nice touches for our users such as new fullscreen application launcher, much improved high DPI support, KRunner auto-completion and many new beautiful Breeze icons. It also lays the ground for the future with a tech preview of Wayland session available. We're shipping a few new components such as an Audio Volume Plasma Widget, monitor calibration tool and the User Manager tool comes out beta.
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KDE Plasma 5.4 Released More

KDE Plasma 5.4 Released

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  • pfffff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @10:28AM (#50388207)

    Full screen application launcher? What a waste.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jrepin ( 667425 )
      For you it might be waste for someone else it might be gold.

      • Love ling ond prapser!

        FTFY

      • Re: pfffff (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 )

        The world reacted to Windows 8 in a unified voice, and they said "We fucking HATE full screen application launchers!"

        And KDE built one.

        What's next, a "Virtual Trip to the Dentist" application?

        • Have you ever tried to get anything other than your distro's default configuration out of PulseAudio?

          Virtual dentist trip would be a breeze!

  • New fullscreen application launcher! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @10:35AM (#50388263) Homepage
    Just the Windows feature that everybody has been lauding! Can we get forced data siphoning next, pretty please?

    • Re:New fullscreen application launcher! (Score:5, Informative)

      by jrepin ( 667425 ) <jlp@holodeck1.com> on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @10:47AM (#50388373) Homepage
      In Plasma that is just one of the new options available and you can easily switch back to Kickoff launcher (which is still default) or a plain simple menu like launcher. Or you can completely remove the launcer and just use keyboard based KRunner.
      • I'm sure that I could continue just using the Lancelot menu, but the point is that the fullscreen application launcher has already been tried and proven wrong.

        • "Proven" wrong in what sense? Do you have any hard data to back that up? Note that "hated" and "wrong" are not the same thing. People just hate change.

          I'm convinced that the only reason fullscreen launchers on desktop are hated is because they're different. If Windows had a fullscreen start menu back in Win95, then everyone would have been bitching about Win8's tiny start menu that doesn't display enough applications at once, Win10 would have gone back to the fullscreen launcher by default, and KDE would on

          • Re:New fullscreen application launcher! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @12:11PM (#50389077) Homepage
            In my opinion, fullscreen application launchers on a multitasking OS are not the ideal solution to presenting the user with a list of applications to run because the idea of fullscreen implies that it is itself another application. Id est, it blocks the currently running application. The 'start menu' type launchers that we are familiar with do not _apparently_ block the running application (even though they often block keyboard input). Thus, the user feels that the menu is part of the environment and not anoth application that has replaced the application that he is running. I accept the premise on my Android phone because on that device I expect to only run a single application at a time. No matter what memory-management does behind the scenes (and I am familiar with onPause() onStart() onRestart() and onResume()) it appears to the user that he is running a single app at a time. Empirically, pick up the average user's phone and look at the running applications. On Android (and iOs, and Windows Phone) people typically return to the Home screen and start another application without ever closing the original applications: that is indicative of the mindset that only one application is ever "in use" at a time.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Windows 8 full screen start menu on a 2500x1440 27" display showed less 'launchers' than the Windows 95 simple menu on a 800x600 15" display. Full screen is bad, but it is even worse when you can't see all programs on such a large surface.

            Not being able to just show a list or a detailed list is not just a change it is a removal of features. Just imagine if they had removed the list and details view from the file manager and you had to find your files in a grid with 64x64 pixel icons where only 8 ch

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jbo5112 ( 154963 )

            I have my icons on home screens arranged in folders. It's faster that way, and the larger icons (compared to my computer start menu & quick launch) are good for my imprecise thumb. Your benchmark on a desktop being good is that is provides the same level of productivity as a poorly configured phone?

            Problem 1: It's a single-tasking UI (not even my phone is as limited as Win8)
            Problem 2: The icons are not well organized (I expect KDE will fix this, where Microsoft never has)
            Problem 3: It requires more cl

        • Re:New fullscreen application launcher! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Sun ( 104778 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @12:13PM (#50389091) Homepage

          I think the main problem with full screen applications as done by Windows 8 is the lack of user choice. Some applications are full screen. Other applications are windowed. You want to mix them? Sorry, no. You want to run a Metro (or whatever they ended up calling it) application in a window? Sorry, not an option. You want to run a "legacy" application full screen? Tough.

          Choosing to run a specific application in full screen may be something positive, if so warranted by circumstances.

          Shachar

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Archtech ( 159117 )

      "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong".

      So, applying elementary logic... it's dangerous to be right.

      Makes sense to me.

  • I've been always a Gnome user until the 3.x fiasco. I must say KDE now looks extremely nice. It seems that they finally managed to streamline the user experience while retaining all that configurability.

    I'll stick to i3 however, but it's nice to see that there is still a sane desktop experience out there.

    Kudos to the KDE team.

  • Does it remember size and location of windows? (Score:4, Informative)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @10:48AM (#50388395)
    So far, all of the previous versions of KDE that I have used do not remember the size and location of windows when I change those attributes by moving and resizing the window.

    .
    I've looked but have not been able to find a global parameter (i.e. affecting all windows) that says, in effect, ~remember window size and location when the window is closed~.

    Has such a parameter finally been added to KDE?

    • I also wish that they had that feature, but if they do, I haven't seen it yet. As far as I know, you still have to set Remember Size / Position individually for each window.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So far, all of the previous versions of KDE that I have used do not remember the size and location of windows when I change those attributes by moving and resizing the window.

      Let me guess, you must run a multi-display setup, right? Technically, remembering window size and position has been a standard thing for every Qt or KDE application for as long as KDE4 has existed, but there's a multi-monitor bug with some part of KDE that can completely break it.

      Specifically, if your desktop uses multiple displays of different resolutions (e.g. 1920x1080 and 1680x1050 displays), the config file setting that's used to restore last window size and position ends up being considered invalid a

  • That wallpaper though, (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If there is one think that absolutely sucks is their choices in wallpaper.

  • Plasma 5 breaks a lot of stuff (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nexus7 ( 2919 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @12:58PM (#50389425)

    I vastly prefer KDE to everything else, however don't go wiping your PCs and installing KDE/Plasma 5 because of the eye-candy. A bunch of stuff is still not ready, relative to KDE 4. Example, few workspace widgets, for example, no Quick Launch, only 1 weather widget. Widgets not resizeable. The wi-fi/network connection app something thinks it is connecting, when is already is connected. Sign-in screen doesn't know to use your pic/avatar. No way to use Emerald themes (Smaragd was usable in KDE 4). And so on.

    Very usable, but a big drop in functionality as things are worked on. Yeah, I know it is a more elegant framework, etc. etc.

  • Ugh, why, oh WHY is everyone going to the butt ugly super flat look with kindergarten color icons that seem to only have 6 different colors over the whole color scheme?
    A desktop doesn't have to be 100% eye candy, but going to 100% stripped bare with no real recognizable differentiation between elements is just as bad.

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