Stuart Jarvis

Lots of KDE goodness for everyone

As if the new look KDE website wasn’t enough Software Compilation 4.4 is out too.

There are plenty of goodies in this new release (see the feature guide for a more complete run down). However, one of the most exciting new features is the Plasma Netbook workspace. Almost makes me want to get a netbook, but I suspect I’ll give it a run out on my old but little laptop anyway.

In the KDE Platform there are all kinds of exciting changes that have a direct impact on the workspaces. You can now share Plasma widgets remotely, handy if you’d like to share info between your machines (a simple universal todo list perhaps?) and there’s more social web integration thanks to the new GetNewStuff interfaces built on OpenDesktop.org‘s open collaboration services that also allows you to find other KDE software users and search online help.

There’s plenty more polish everywhere and entire new apps – one of the most interesting for me is probably Cantor which promises to make some powerful but unfriendly science applications a bit more user friendly. Anyway, I won’t ramble on too much more about new features here – just check the guide for that or have a look at the SC 4.4 screenshots on Flickr.

Heroes of SC 4.4

So, enough of what we’ve done. When you read through the feature guide you’ll see the names of a whole load of people who helped make this release (and there are hundreds more who made contributions, big or small). But there are also some people you won’t read about in there at all.

There is the web team who have worked miracles in getting the new website up and running. Even when I saw Eugene‘s mockups at the Promo Sprint I never really believed it would be ready for 4.4 – perhaps 4.5 – but the web team proved me wrong. (Yes, we know there are some rough edges and broken links at the moment).

Then there is the promotion team who have put together the release announcement (kudos to Sebas and Jos I believe). Even more impressive there is the comprehensive feature guide which saw over 2700 revisions by 26 contributors (Jos was all over that, Luca, Justin, Aron Asor, Sebas, Vivek Prakash, Ricky Laishram and Carl Symons all made significant contributions too – there may well be many others who aren’t in the author list).

Ah well, too many people to list – translators, developers…

Spread the word and have fun

There may be release party near you so be sure to check. Otherwise Lydia has been coordinating the social web effort: spread the word on the usual suspects: identi.ca, twitter, Facebook, your blog and the like – tag “kde44″ where possible.

You can see what everyone else is saying at buzz.kde.org (props to
Franz Keferböck for his work on that).

Enjoy the software that makes up Software Compilation 4.4

Tags: community, Plasma Desktop, Plasma Netbook, releases, web technology, wow factor

How do we get more people interested in KDE software? We can talk about it being Free (and free), point out that it does everything that the proprietary competition can do (if that’s true) but there is always a cost in changing software: you have to learn new stuff. Therefore our biggest openings are when the alternatives suck and so people are looking for change or when our stuff just leaves the competition for dead. The latter one is about the wow factor – something in our software that makes the casual observer sit up and take notice and think “I want that”.

The wow factor could be visual, but it needn’t be. Here are a few things that have prompted people who see me using KDE software to ask what the application is:

• KWin – the desktop effects are really pretty slick now (this one works best on people who don’t use Macs)
• Konqueror shortcuts – I use the gg shortcut for Google and have set up ‘go’ as the shortcut for Google I’m Feeling lucky (it’s shorter and, to me, more intuitive than ggl). Several people seeing me use ‘go bbc news’ (or whatever) have been pretty much dumbfounded – “you mean you can just tell it where to go without knowing the address?”
• Kopete – “You’ve got all your chat accounts in one app?”
• Amarok – the Wikipedia integration, mainly
• Okular – people love that presentation progress indicator
• KRandR – people are suprised I can just plug a projector in and activate it with a couple of clicks
• Digikam – it’s just so cool all round, but the Facebook upload plugin is a particular winner
• KRunner – it looks fairly funky and people are impressed by the speed of launching applications (most menu launchers suck)
• Marble – fairly cool anyway, but fire up the OpenStreetMap view and people want it
• Kile – simple things like code completion and syntax highlighting impress people trying to use Notepad for LaTeX
• Gwenview – it’s just so shiny, particularly in full-screen mode

Several items in that list surprise me a little, because they’re things I take for granted (Konqueror’s web shortcuts for example) and I’m sure several of them would leave a lot of people cold. So which can we push when promoting KDE software, which can we demonstrate at events and what others can we add to the list?

I’ve started a page to track these on the wiki, so please add your own or comment below.

Tags: help needed, promotion, wow factor