Several readers wrote in to tell us that KDE 2.2beta 1 is now
appearing on KDE FTP sites and their mirrors.
Editor's note: apparently the readers of Linux Today have
the magic ability to bring servers to their knees. Please hold off
on downloading this today!
Here is a list of what's new in KDE 2.2beta 1 itself; there's a
longer list of all the changes in all the components.
Note: gcc 3.0 is not recommended for compilation of KDE 2.2.
There are several known miscompilations of production C++ code with
this compiler, like i.e. virtual inheritance which is used for
example in arts. We know that you will experience a lot of runtime
difficulties when you compile with gcc 3.0, so using this
particular compiler version is at your own risk, and please do not
report bugs to us if you use this compiler. The problems are mostly
known and we're working with the gcc team to get them fixed.
KDE Libraries
General
Classes KTipDialog and KTipDatabase added, providing a
easy-to-use "tip of the day" dialog. Tips are collected in a
tipdatabase in XML format. Used by KDevelop and KOrganizer.
Alternating color-changing in listviews (used in Konqueror and
KFileDialog)
File previews in KFileDialog
General file preview classes for mime-type specific file
preview implementation
Fixed support for QIconSets in QPushButtons in several widget
styles.
Fixed support for toggle-items with icons in QPopupMenus in
several widget styles.
Fixed several styles not displaying an arrow on QPushButtons
with a popup menu assigned (QPushButton::setPopup()).
Improved retrieval of taskbar / window manager icons for
windows that do not supply their own icons
KBugReport dialog now determines OS specific parameters at run
time instead of build time
Generic host/domain based global configuration of
io-slaves.
Applications can now override global io-slave settings.
New class 'KArrowButton' used for buttons which point in a
certain direction.
KProcIO added. KProcIO extends KProcess and eases the
processing of stdin/stdout of the child process. Improved
application startup notification added for KHML fixes, see the
Konqueror section in the KDE Base Package part of this
document.
new print library including a KPrinter interface class built on
top of the KDE print framework, and an enhanced print dialog
Meta key & AltGr key can now be used for shortcuts
Shortcuts for moving & resizing windows now use Meta key
instead of Alt key (when Meta key is present)