KDE 4.0
Wed, 01/16/2008 - 8:05pm — dk
With KDE 4.0 Out, I've decided to do a more in-depth review than those I normally do. Since this is going to be relatively long, I am breaking it up into pages (gasp!).
One of the main features that many notice upon introduction to KDE 4 is Plasma. Plasma replaces KDesktop as the part of KDE that manages the desktop and other related elements. Plasma can be extended using different Plasmoids. Plasmoids are similar to SuperKaramba Widgets (KDE 3), Dashboard Widgets (Mac OS X), or Konfabulator Yahoo Widget Engine Widgets. Seen above are (Left to Right, Top to Bottom) a Lock/Logout Widget, an RDF Newsreader, a (fully-functioning!) Clock, The "Add Plasmoid" Button, and a recently plugged in devices Plasmoid. Many of these Plasmoids can also be added to the Panel (The recently plugged in devices Plasmoid is there by default in my Kubuntu KDE 4.0 package). The new Oxygen Icon set and Widget style are also immediately present in the SpeedCrunch Window. The new panel style is also very interesting, although there is no way to resize it (For now! Most of the KDE look and feel are now SVGs, so a way to set the size should definitely be coming soon.).
With KDE 4.0 Out, I've decided to do a more in-depth review than those I normally do. Since this is going to be relatively long, I am breaking it up into pages (gasp!).
One of the main features that many notice upon introduction to KDE 4 is Plasma. Plasma replaces KDesktop as the part of KDE that manages the desktop and other related elements. Plasma can be extended using different Plasmoids. Plasmoids are similar to SuperKaramba Widgets (KDE 3), Dashboard Widgets (Mac OS X), or Konfabulator Yahoo Widget Engine Widgets. Seen above are (Left to Right, Top to Bottom) a Lock/Logout Widget, an RDF Newsreader, a (fully-functioning!) Clock, The "Add Plasmoid" Button, and a recently plugged in devices Plasmoid. Many of these Plasmoids can also be added to the Panel (The recently plugged in devices Plasmoid is there by default in my Kubuntu KDE 4.0 package). The new Oxygen Icon set and Widget style are also immediately present in the SpeedCrunch Window. The new panel style is also very interesting, although there is no way to resize it (For now! Most of the KDE look and feel are now SVGs, so a way to set the size should definitely be coming soon.).
