A sneak preview of the expected features in KDE 4.0

Ever wonder what KDE 4.0 is going to look like when it is finally released some time this year ? As far as end users should be concerned, it is going to be much more beautiful, responsive and usable than KDE 3.5.

Some of the features that it will have are as follows:

KDE 4.0 is perceived to make extensive use of SVG (SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics) for images instead of non scalable pixmap that is used now. For example, in KDE 3.5.x, games artwork are in pixmap and are at best lackluster. But we can see some great artwork in games in KDE 4.0 which will be using SVG.

Fig: Kreversi game in KDE 3.x and 4.0 respectively

Fig: KMajhong game in KDE 3.x and 4.0

Fig: Ksysguard in KDE 3.x and 4.0

The start menu is going to be redesigned. The sneak preview released indicates that it will have inner tabs and the applications will be grouped dynamically taking into consideration the usage of the person. Update (09-Jan-2007): A number of people have written to point out that the menu for KDE 4.0 while it just might incorporate some of the features of the kickoff menu shown below, has not been finalized yet, rather work is going on and it is developed implementing the Qt 4.2 libraries. The new menu is known by the name Raptor (More details here).

Fig: Sneak preview of the start menu in KDE 4.0

KDE 4.0 will replace the present DCOP inter process communication (IPC) system with a more advanced version built from grounds up known as D-Bus. IPC is a system which lets different applications communicate with each other.

KDE 4.0 will feature an API layer called Solid which will interact with projects like the hardware abstraction layer to let hardware connect smoothly with KDE.

KDE 4.0 will feature better multimedia experience through a project called Phonon which will collaborate with Solid. So no more need to choose multimedia backends as the Phonon API will take care of it.

Plasma will provide the next generation desktop experience in KDE 4.0. It is planned to integrate three separate applications namely the Kicker (Panel), KDesktop and Super Karamba (Widgets) into a single application. And the surprise of all things is that it will be possible to run the beautiful Dashboard widgets of Mac OSX in KDE 4.0.

KDE 4.0 will sport a brand new icon set created by the Oxygen project.

The KDE developers are working to provide a better communication experience through the project named Decibel. Through this project, it will be possible to provide integrated chat and phone communication including with networks such as MSN, Jabber and Skype.

And lastly, the Akonadi project intends to design a extensible cross-desktop storage service for PIM data and media-data to communicate with KDE, Gnome, POP, and IMAP through the same storage protocol. And this will be available in KDE 4.0.

But the biggest change is going to be inside the hood so to speak. KDE 4.0 will be using Qt 4.2 library which brings with it its own extensive set of improvements. For instance, Qt 4 is designed to save lots of memory and will perform faster. Besides the speed improvement, Qt 4 has a lot of other features and some things are simplified. So programmers need less time to develop applications which run in KDE 4.0.

And since Qt 4 library has been released under GPL, one can look forward to KDE 4.0 being ported to Windows and Mac OSX. Earlier versions of Qt is available under GPL only on unix/X11 and is released under a commercial license for development in Windows and Mac OSX . So KDE 3.x and earlier which uses Qt 3.x found it difficult to be ported to these platforms.

KDE 4.0 the holy grail of Desktops ?

A couple of weeks back, I was greeted by the news of a very interesting project having been moved to KDE base. The project in question is a file manager named Dolphin. What is unique about this file manager is that it is light weight, is simple to navigate without overwhelming the Computer neophytes but at the same time does not sacrifice much functionality.

In fact, I installed Dolphin on my machine which has only one window manager namely Xfce. I do not have KDE on this machine. And normally, my experience is that while running KDE applications in non-KDE window managers, the applications suffer some latency at the time of start up. But I was surprised to see that Dolphin started as quickly as any other application. I would so much as say it was even quicker to start up than its equivalent Gnome file manager Nautilus in Gnome. I do not want to start anything by comparing one file manager with another. But let me say this, Dolphin is as easy and simple to use as the Gnome file manager.

Fig: Dolphin file manager with three different file views including split panes.

On concerns shared by the power users who have grown to love the present default file manager in KDE namely Konquorer, this is what Aaron.J.Seigo - the lead developer of KDE project had to say - and I quote :

So, what is the point of dolphin? First, I think it's obvious to everyone that konqueror kicks some pretty serious ass. The downside is that it's really tuned for a particular category of power users. Our plan is therefore to introduce a file manager that is aimed at the rest of the masses and tuned specifically for file management. Where does this leave konqueror? As a power user's app and generally useful multi-function tool. i expect we will continue to ship konqueror in its current form, modulo kde4 improvements to the ui and guts.

From the above statement, I have inferred two things namely :

1. The KDE users who have the mind set of Linus Torvalds need not worry as the new KDE (4.0) will still have all the features that make it the favorite of power users. And more importantly ...
2. The KDE team is making a pitched effort to rein in rest of the people which includes the grandmas and grandpas of this world by providing them an alternate file manager which doesn't overwhelm them.
   

I am sure you will agree with me that a file manager forms one of the most frequently used application in any desktop. You can't think of a OS or desktop devoid of a file manager. And by integrating the light weight file manager Dolphin into the KDE base, the KDE team is sending out a strong signal that it aims to be a Desktop fit for all kinds of people namely the power users and the grandma kinds alike.

Indeed if this trend is duplicated across other KDE applications, KDE 4.0 could very well end up as the holy grail of Desktops.