So, I read the Drive-by Mockups post by Nikolaj Hald Nielsen which is about the new amarok mockups that can be found at kde-look. So, I found out that some people consider the [Amarok] developers to be “quite strange” and stubborn.

One of the reasons for justifying the claim was that the sentence Nikolaj wrote “The truth is that we are aiming squarely at ourselves, as we are some of the biggest music fans out there…” was found to be “extremely arrogant” by one of the visitors.

It reminded me of when I said something similar on my blog – that I develop Lancelot for myself. And I am aware that this type of comment sounds strange, and a bit arrogant, but it is not. So, I’m passing what I wrote as a reply on Nikolaj’s blog here:

I’m sorry if I was the one who started the ‘I develop for myself’ wave of responses (some time ago concerning Lancelot) but you have to understand the developers to understand what that means.

What would you feel if someone, without specifying any specific reason, starts bashing something you have been dedicated to for a couple of years? You could ignore it. You could ignore it a couple or more times. But, eventually, you will have to snap and vent yourself through a reply.

So, be happy, be polite and with a smile in your heart and on your face, and the world will be a much nicer place to live in. (yes, that’s an order )

I just wanted to thank every developer person who ever helped KDE.

Why just now? Well, first I saw the new list view in KMail which is rather awesome, and makes KMail even better than the former best* mail application – KMail without the new list view.

Beside that, I saw one of the tiny changes in Plasma related to the taskbar/icon tooltips. You’ll know what I’m talking about by moving your mouse from one icon to another.

Every now and then, KDE gets some, at first glance, totally insignificant feature (like this tooltip effect), but to be honest these little things really make a big difference. And such things really make me say “Wow, how neat!”.

So, everybody, rock on!

* Personal opinion, not a flamebait

You’ve heard it right, I’ve still got it! I still got the KDE mug we received (amongst other things) last year at aKademy! It is amazing, you can pour boiling tea in it and hold it with your whole hand without being burnt. Really amazing technology. And it is pretty, and has a nice logo on it.

Ok, I hear you saying “You dragged us here to listen just about a mug!?”. Well, I didn’t, but nevertheless, it is a really super-awesome mug, and it is an insult that you said “just a mug”!

Lately, I haven’t had much time that I could spend on Lancelot due to some other projects and the fact that I was to see Brian May (PhD) and Roger Taylor live here in Belgrade. But, than again, that’s a completely different story.

Keyboard support

The only thing from the (unwritten) Lancelot 2.0 roadmap that will be finished on time for 4.2 is the new ActionListView. You may recall mentioning the ActionListView2 in relation to the scrollbars that replaced the dreaded scroll buttons. Apart from the new scrolling mechanism, something else was weaved into the structure of the new lists. Ability to use them with the keyboard. So, that part is mostly finished in the current SVN version. The only thing left is to scroll the list to always show the selected item which will be trivial to do.

After that, the only thing left is to implement some fancy focus switching in the menu itself – for example, when you are in the search bar, and press the down arrow, to switch the focus to the first list etc. I hope I’ll be able to finish this in the week to come, so that after that I could focus only on bug fixing and stability (not that I’ve introduced a larger instability factor than the old ActionListVew was, but some bugs are to be expected).

Well, that is all for now… see you soon.

Addition: Junior Jobs

* Since I have received a few requests to sort the application list by name or description, and I haven’t got the time to do it now (it is a low priority task from my POV), if there is anyone willing to do that, you are more than welcome. Developing data models for L is as easy as it can be.

* The same goes for the thunderbird/evolution/whatever, pidgin/whatever support. If you know how to get online contacts or unread mails from the specified programs, feel free to use your knowledge and make a bridge between your favourite e-mail or IM program and Lancelot.

This is only a rant with a highly provocative title, which reflects onto the contents of the post, but not in the way you have expected when you first read it.

So stop yelling your comrades to start to “sharpen the forks”.

So, what is this all about?

Well, for a long time now, I keep my system mostly clean of Gnome/GTK programs. Only a few remain (and probably will for both foreseeable and unforeseeable future), and those are GVim, Gimp (big kudos for the last version goes to the developers), Inkscape and Synaptic. Apart from those, whenever I need a program for something, I first search for KDE or Qt based applications, and only if those are non-existent, I consider installing something else.

So, what the hell is this title all about?

It’s about the fact that I have realized that now I’m avoiding KDE/Qt 3 programs as well. For example, I have lived without Digikam and K3B until the KDE 4 ports started to become usable. I still use Akregator from the “three” series, but that is due to the fact that new Akregator crashes a lot for me and I am too busy to investigate why.

So, that’s it.

If you are asking why I’m not writing something useful, that is mostly because I have had no time lately to do anything useful to write about. You can see that Lancelot commits were silent for the past 10 days, but I plan to change that very soon… See you later!

Richard Wright

There is so much that could be said, but then, he was a musician, so here is … the music:

Here are the links to see the famous (possibly intentional) synchronicity of the Echoes to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWOfVG4e8ek
Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDhgkg2V3Jk
Part 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJP7iqRZeXU

p.s. Sorry for the youtube links but… you know… where else would I find this…

Since I’ve almost missed the BIG BIG BIG message saying “From August 4th CMake >= 2.6.0 will be required, please update your CMake” (I’ve set up scripted compiling in background, so it’s not that strange I did not see it) I thought that there could be someone else who could miss it. So, upgrade your CMake! (for Debian users: CMake 2.6 is present in unstable)

BTW, I’ve switched to use the 4.1 branch for all modules. Obviously, I’ve set a trunk setup as well, but this time only Plasma is from the trunk. For the next few months, Lancelot will be developed for both 4.1 and trunk (The separation was needed since there already is an API breakage).

Move along, nothing (more) to see here

So, this mail was sent today by Aaron on the panel-devel list:

Well, this is one of the Aaron-style “explain to the unbelievers why they are wrong”. This is in response to http://blog.kov.eti.br/?p=19 (or you can see the translated version)

Disclaimer: I have nothing against Gnome, I am mentioning it since it was used as a comparison in the original post.

Well, as all trolls on the internet, you have a couple of things obviously not clear to you.

1. Delusion 1. KDE is vapourware because Lancelot is not finished

   First of all, Lancelot is project in the late phase of development (like amarok2) – usable but not finished. See the definition of vapourware if you don’t see where you are mistaken.

   And, not to mention, that Lancelot was not intended to be a part of KDE’s base packages. It’s like saying that Gnome is vapourware because Gimmie is not finished.

2. Delusion 2. KDE is copying Windows (again, example is Lancelot)

   Well, as I see it, you either haven’t used the Windows’ menu, or you haven’t used Lancelot (I bet on the later). Apart from being a /menu/, what are the similarities? Comparing Lancelot to Kickoff or Gimmie (for Gnome) would be more accurate… although still incorrect.

   Besides Lancelot’s “copying” Windows what arguments do you have that other parts of KDE’s desktop are copying it?

3. Delusion 3. KDE stopped focussing on the desktop, and went to develop frameworks

   Developing a complete desktop environment (with a lot more high quality applications than Gnome has for instance) have to begin with building a solid set of frameworks so that later development of actual applications would be easier, and that applications reach new levels of integration. (compare the so called Gnome Office with KOffice)

   KDE 4.0 had most of the frameworks finished, and 4.1 is being built on that. If you are saying that KDE is still ignoring the desktop after the improvements in Plasma that will be in 4.1, than you’re either blind or just don’t want to see.

Conclusion: I was hoping that Aaron will be the only one that has to deal with persons like you, but, apparently (and unfortunately), I was not right.

I presume that Planet KDE will soon get overcrowded with holiday greetings, so I’ve decided to post mine a bit earlier. The main reason is that this way I’ll get more attention .

I wish you all great time with the incoming release of KDE. I also wish that in the first half of 2oo8 KDE 4 receives finished Kickoff replacements (Raptor, Lancelot and TastyMenu) and to become stable enough for everyone to use it.

To Gnome users: I wish you also great time with KDE 4.0.

Posle depresije koju je ostavio prvi dan Exita zahvaljujući činjenici da sam dobio akreditaciju sa tuđom fotografijom (lik na njoj ima plave oči i punačak je), i utiska koji je ostavio Robert Plant (novi nadimak koji sam mu dao zbog uništavanja pesme “Whole lotta love” nije prikladan ovom blogu), došao je poslednji dan za koji sam bio planiran da drzim prezentaciju o FSN-u i Slobodnom softveru.

Nismo kasnili onoliko koliko je Jelic – samo pola sata.

Ispred bine je bilo poredjano nekoliko pretežno praznih redova stolica – ljudi je bilo samo sa desne i leve strane, a sredina je bila prazna. Počeo sam, naravno, sa zahvalnicom što su se odazvali u tolikom broju.

Odatle je sve krenulo “nizbrdo” – kad jednom počnem da se glupiram, ne mogu da prestanem. Za sledeću godinu ću morati da se prijavim kao “stand-up” komičar (što bi rekao PetarZ zato što sam “stand up guy”).

Dakle prvih nekoliko minuta je prošlo u mom zasmejavanju publike, pa sam počeo sa prezentacijom. Ubrzo se ispostavilo da mi je Jelke opet uvalio da držim prezentaciju pred pogrešnim ljudima – kad sam pitao ko sve iz publike ima računar, samo je jedan lik podigao ruku (prošlog puta sam pokazivao uber-geekovima kako da instalisu Ubuntu, ako se sećate).

Kad sam počeo sa “suvoparnom” teorijom, imao sam prilike da čujem iz susednih kafića po koji zvižduk i slično, ali sam bio previše dobro raspoložen da bi mi smetalo – čak sam “malo” počeo i da ih prozivam.

Po završetku prezentacije, pošto mi se nije silazilo, počeo sam da komuniciram malo sa publikom pa sam im čak ponudio i da pevam pošto nisu bili zainteresovani za pitanja vezana za Slobodan softver. Dotična ponuda je izmamila velike ovacije. Verujem da je to bilo prvi i poslednji put da se Exitom prostro zvuk sovjetske himne “Союз нерушимый республик свободных …”. Publika je bila u delirijumu

Pošto nisam dobio dovoljno zvižduka do tada, morao sam da se “šalim” malo i na račun Exita i da govorim kako je Beer-Fest mnogo bolji… reakcija je bila očekivana i zanimljiva. Čak sam uzrokovao i diskusiju o tome kako je Beer-Fest samo plagijat “Dana piva” i slično.

Za kraj, moram da uputim ogromnu zahvalnicu fantastičnoj ekipi koja je radila na Agora bini. Momci su legende… jedan od njih (kome ne znam ime) je dobio i Ubuntu CD kao zahvalnicu

P.S. Da ne ispadne da je prezentacija bila baš uzaludna, posle nje sam imao prilike da upoznam neke ljude koji su bili oduševljeni jer nisu očekivali da će na Exitu čuti bilo šta o Slobodnom sw.