KDE 1.1.2 is now in week
6 of the release schedule. The high-colour icons for
this “beautify” release are not yet ready, so KDE 1.1.2 will be
delayed until they are. Otherwise, the release schedule will
progress as planned. Torsten Rahn followed
up with some precisions and his thoughts on the release. The
Artist pointed out that the release is more than just a bugfix
release and deserves to be numbered 1.2 instead of 1.1.2. He also
revealed that the artist team is working on including a high-colour
32×32 icon set in addition to the new 48×48 icon set.
KDE multi-head support? Cristian Tibirna has
initiated discussions on multi-head development issues in KDE.
The XFree86 folks have apparently already demonstrated KDE running
on Xinerama (multiple screens acting as one) where one can
transparently drag a window from monitor to monitor or display an
application across screens. Cristian is working on making KDE work
nicely per X11 screen; the situation is more analogous to virtual
desktops except that actual physical screens are involved.
KDE 2.0 Screensavers. Martin Jones has announced
a new screensaver engine. The design is now very similar to jwz’s
xscreensaver and in fact should support all xscreensaver hacks.
Martin also explained
how configuration dialogs will be supported.
KDE hacker Mosfet, occasionally known as Daniel M. Duley,
gave us an update
on widget themes for KDE. He also made available a
snapshot of his latest desktop but notes
that he will get the KDE artists in on the act in due time. Mosfet
has recently accepted a new job (good luck!) and so has less time
for KDE hacking; he is looking
for a KDE hacker willing to take over the KDE/ImageMagick
project.
GOFAI-WMT. Lotzi Boloni revealed
that he is working on a new organizational application, a visually
browsable conceptual graph. The reaction was quite enthusiastic;
Sirtaj Singh Kang chimed
in with some of his ideas on the subject. Lotzi subsequently
uploaded
his code. Incidentally, GOFAI-WMT stands for “Good Old
Fashioned Artificial Intelligence – With a Modern Twist”.
KMonop. Rob Kaper is in need of assistance with
the KMonop
project, a server/client implementation of the Monopoly board
game. In particular, help is needed with the client portion.
Interested parties should contact the KMonop team.
KDE Quickies. Moritz Moeller-Herrmann pointed
out that Kmail
won the GUI email client shoot-out feature by 32BitsOnline. Congratulations to
all Kmail hackers and other parties involved. David Sweet released
an update of the KDE Developer’s
mini-HOWTO. Herwin Jan Steehouwer posted an update
on the status of KXicq.
Stefan Westerfeld offered his thoughts
on multimedia in KDE 2.0 but appears to be unaware of other KDE
multimedia efforts currently progressing. He has also spoken with
Elliot Lee in an attempt at coordinate matters with the GNOME
folks.
Chris Schlaeger is looking
for beta testers for the SuSE Distribution. The aim is to minimize
problems with the KDE packages in the next stable release.
Interested parties should mail cs@kde.org.
Errata. Last
week, I unintentionally short-changed the usefulness of the
network-connection manager. The manager will also provide an easy
way for applications to obtain a connection to the internet as well
as be notified when the line goes up or down. It is similar to
diald but with the intent of being portable and with several other
features. For all the details, please read the
list articles and Bjoern Kahl’s web
page.
An archive for these KDE devel bits is available.