KDE 4.3 promises polish, polish, polish
Gets buffed with Caizen
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The Linux K Desktop Environment project spun out KDE 4.3 yesterday.
It's the outfit's latest version of the much-loved desktop suite for Linux and Unix platforms.
KDE 4.3, codenamed "Caizen", was built by a global community of 700 contributors who have slaved over 63,000 code tweaks, and 10,000 bug fixes since the start of the year.
"It is unlikely that any one specific thing will strike the user as the most noticeable improvement; rather, the overall user experience of KDE has improved greatly in KDE 4.3.0," said the community's Sebastian Kügler in a blog post.
"The release's codename, Caizen, is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. That has been the goal of the KDE team for 4.3.0: polish, polish, polish."
So what's new in this version of the suite?
The group said 2,000 feature requests were implemented in the past six months.
Developers focused primarily on the desktop workspace, apps and development platform.
They've improved the partnership between KWin and KDE's desktop interface. The apps tree view is out-with-the-new-in-with-the-old as the system settings now more closely resemble version 3.0 of the suite, said the group.
On the platform front, it's added a geolocation plugin for Plasma applet developers. There's also a KDE-style API that the group said makes it easier to "temporarily elevate privileges for an application."
The group has the full skinny on all the changes here. ®
COMMENTS
KDE is out?
My jaded, crude, underworked, overpaid, other-side-of-the-pond sensibilities have noticed that an official KDE screenshot proclaims that KDE is "out" - so congratulations to KDE on coming out of the closet! Don't worry, we still love ya. http://dot.kde.org/sites/dot.kde.org/files/kde430.png
A title is required
Hmm, remember when 4.1 was the version that would be ready for everyday use. Then it was 4.2 and now its 4.3 (still lacking a functional version of K3b). Will KDE 4 everbe ready for everyday use?
@Anton Ivanov: 100% "core" usage on GNOME
"bits of gnome like its key management sit at 100% usage all the time"
You have a faulty system. Multiple cores are alien to me as I have given several ancient machines a new lease of life by putting Ubuntu on them, and there's nothing in GNOME which sits consuming 100% CPU or I'd sure as hell have noticed it (if only by laptop fans whizzing away)!
I was a fan of KDE (Kubuntu) until 4 came along, which was an embarrassment. I just hope these bugfixes have finally made it usable again. Under 4.2, I find the panel crashes if you disable wireless networking, and if you're using "focus follows mouse" to avoid clicking to focus, if you don't move the mouse quickly enough between (eg) the K Menu icon and the menu it produces, the small gap due to the menu "floating" above the panel causes focus to transfer to the desktop and the menu disappears!
I notice 4.3 has been backported to Kubuntu 9.04 (Intrepid). I'll try it.
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