Key KOffice Developers Talk About KOffice 2 and Open Standards
KOfficeSource: a KOffice Consultancy Company
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Português
Bem-Vindo aos usuários do KOffice
wikidot handbook being translated to Portuguese
Português handbook begun
introduction
new KOffice and new QT means new features
This is for users of KOffice which is emerging as one of the primary choices as office software. Initially, it contains a wiki, a forum, some links and feeds from the KOffice news page and KOffice mailing list.
The forum is now open for posting by non-members. If that becomes a problem, the initial setting (only the Guest Book and Page Discussions were open for posting by non-members) may have to be reinstated.
Non-members may create new Wiki pages and edit pages they have created.
Google tuxmachines for KOffice - (100 per page)
Raiden's Realm has a synopsis of KOffice applications, an article on screen-shot captures, a summary of complementary graphics tools and another of complementary development applications.
The following KOffice applications are mentioned favourably in an IT Management article:
Kexi - KOffice database
KPresenter - KOffice presentation
Krita - KOffice image editor compared favourably with The Gimp
KSpread - KOffice spreadsheet
KWord - KOffice word processor
Cross platform KOffice to challenge OpenOffice.org Rodney Gedda on computerworld.com
a summary on lxer.com You need to log in to the site to read the full story
a discussion by KOffice developers
interview with Mark Shuttleworth | ogg version
Review of kWord by Carla Schroder December 6, 2007
A quotation from this page :
There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies; the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. — C. A. R. Hoare
contributing to KOffice
support KOffice
ways to get involved
chapters
community
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support sites on the links page
create your own pages members may create pages over which they have exclusive authoring rights
extras
international
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scripting with Python
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KOffice news
KOffice 2.0 alpha7 released
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Logos and more help for KOffice
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SpaceNavigators for KOffice
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KOffice 2.0 alpha6 released
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KOffice 2.0 alpha5 released
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KOffice 2.0 alpha4 released
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User wiki for KOffice
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KOffice in the news: LinuxWorld.au
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First running version of KWord on Windows
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KOffice 2.0 alpha released
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Praise for Krita in Linux Journal
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KOffice 1.6.3 released
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Krita Graphics Tablet Donation Drive
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KOffice 1.6.2 released
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University Students to Enhance KPlato
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OpenDocument is Now a Real ISO Standard
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KOffice 1.6.1 released
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Krita review
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Read the full review
KOffice 1.6.0 Released
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For more information, see the announcement , the technical release notes, and the complete list of changes.
Release Candidate of KOffice 1.6
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As usual, you are invited to test it in depth and to report any bugs via KDE bug website.
For more information, see the press release, the announcement and the complete list of changes.
Testers needed! KOffice release beta for 1.6 Version
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For more information, see the press release, the announcement and the complete list of changes.
KOffice release first technical preview of its upcoming 1.6 version
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For more information, see the press release, the announcement and the complete list of changes.
KOffice releases bugfix version 1.5.2 of its office suite
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For more information, See the press release, the announcement and the complete list of changes.
Sebastian Sauer talks about scripting with Kross - KOffice scripting technology
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Official mailing list archives
Will KOffice 2 have filters?
How to center the printing on kspread
Re: minimum requirements
minimum requirements
Re: Class name area resize
Class name area resize
[Bug 160278] New: [security] provide anonymous editing
Re: Freezing titles row or column
Freezing titles row or column
[Bug 159689] Zoom widget disappears even with focus
[Bug 159689] Zoom widget disappears even with focus
[Bug 159689] New: Zoom widget disappears even with focus
Re: Problem compiling in sarge koffice 1.6.3
Re: Problem compiling in sarge koffice 1.6.3 " failed to load external entity
Problem compiling in sarge koffice 1.6.3 " failed to load external entity
[Bug 132793] crash when saving after trying to save using smb
Listing OpenDocument as Supported by KOffice
Re: Kspread: switch between rows and columns
Kspread: switch between rows and columns
Re: how may i use Koffice
Re: how may i use Koffice
Re: Merge data from Kexi to KWord
how may i use Koffice
[Bug 158624] preview dialog: mimic it as next part of open dialog (wizard type)
Many users of KOffice no doubt use the Kde desktop. The following is a recent article by Bruce Byfield: 12 Tips for KDE Users
Reworked scale dialog in Krita
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I've worked a bit on the scale dialog for Krita. Neither the old one from the 1.x series nor the new one in current KOffice2 alpha releases were good enough. I've mailed a bit with Ellen which only confirmed that it is indeed a difficult dialog to get right.
In the end I reordered some items, so I hope it's a bit easier to figure out how to use it. I think it has become quite good, but judge for yourself. So much cool stuff coming in KOffice 2.0
khtmledit is here
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I have had so much struggle finding a decent html editor that I finally wrote one on my own:
- mozilla composer cannot handle the fish://-protocol
- openoffice dito
- quanta crashes when it sees me
- I finally started using kword, which cost me several months of fighting and finally even contributing code, but there are too many problems for using it where I work.
OK, so I started khtmledit - the wysiwyg html editor that has everything you need (if it does not have anything - you don't need that 
First, here is how it looks:
The following was important for me during design:
- Work with the fish:// protocol so I can finally change pages directly on my server. No more struggling with up/downloading
- Have WYSIWYG so I see if I run into problems.
- Have a plain text widget so I can do any change allowed by html
- Follow the 80/20 rule - 20 percent of your actions are done in 80% of the cases, so make them easy
- Make that I can use it
I like my new editor a lot, however it requires some work. E.g. the fish://-protocol does not seem to work with KDE 4. Anyway, this is the first editor I can use at work. Download it at http://www.staerk.de/thorsten/index.php/Khtmledit
KDE 4.0.4, Codenamed Out-Of-Stuff-To-Tell
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The usual monthly game: a new KDE bugfix release, openSUSE packages and a new Live-CD which as already said looks more and more less like KDE 4.0 but like our openSUSE 11.0 KDE4 desktop (while still being based on openSUSE 10.3):
Qt 4.4, Regular KDE builds from Neon, Cuteness!
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Qt 4.4 brings lots of goodness. Packages are now entering hardy-backports.
If you want the latest unstable trunk Qt, kdelibs, kdebase and amarok on a regular basis without the hassle of compiling it yourself, project Neon has a Launchpad Personal Package Archive with regular builds.
Lastly, these were left on our doorstep today, free to a good home. Cuteness.
KDE:Qt44++
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From the cross-blogging department, Qt 4.4 has been released and is entering Factory for openSUSE 11.0 with packages for older openSUSE releases being available in KDE:Qt44 (this will move sooner or later to KDE:Qt). Dirk Müller thinks that's boring news as "everyone has packages of it" and I should rather mention that he has created packages from Qt 4.5 development snapshot within the KDE:Qt45 Build Service repository.
Call for developers: Quanta Plus and KDEWebDev
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Time is passing by. Sometimes I'm also amazed that it was more than 5 years ago when I wrote my first KDE application and soon after I joined the Quanta Plus project. And a few months later Quanta Plus become part of the KDE releases, I think with version 3.1.
Probably many of you know that I worked full time on Quanta in the past years, thanks to Eric Laffoon and many other supporters, who made this possible. But things have changed, and I cannot spend all my time anymore on this beloved project. I don't abandon it, just realized that alone it would take just too much time to get a release for KDE 4.x series out in time. Therefore I call for help, I'd like to ask the community, existing developers or users with some C++ knowledge, developers who would like to find a challenging project in the open source world to come, join us. Help to make Quanta4 a reality and make many users happy throughout the world. You don't have to be afraid of the size of the project, one of the goals of Quanta4 is to have a modular code, build up as KDevPlatform (KDevelop) plugins.
There are other projects inside the KDEWebDev module that need help, some even maintainers:
- Kommander: just take a look at www.kde-apps.org and you will be amazed by the number of Kommander scripts uploaded by the users. Help to have a good Kommander for KDE4 as well!
The executor is already ported, but we have lots of new ideas waiting to be implemented.
- KFileReplace: useful search and replace tool, unfortunately without a current maintainer. It works, but needs some love.
- KImageMapEditor: don't let web developers without a KDE image map editor!
Of course our priority would be Quanta Plus and Kommander, but if you are interested in either of the above, just contact us on our developer list.
Keep it going, submit your Akademy talk now!
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Yesterday was a busy day on the akademy-talks mailing list. Proposals were rolling in constantly. This is because today is the deadline for submissions of presentations for Akademy 2008. So you still have a chance. Have a look at the Call for Presentations and submit your talk now.
There are so many interesting topics we would like to hear about at Akademy:
- You have ported your application to KDE 4? Tell about your experience.
- You run KDE on one of the fancy small devices, be it an Internet tablet, a phone or a tiny laptop? Show us how this works.
- You are working on one of the pillars of KDE 4? Tell us how to make use of them.
- You are working on a distribution which includes KDE? Present to us what made your life hard and what made it wonderful.
- You were a GSoC student last year and are still with the project? Let us know what you have done.
- You have written a cool Pasmoid or a rocking Akonadi agent? Submit your talk now. We are also accepting lightning talks, if you feel like five or ten minutes are enough to present your work.
- You are working in the community as a non-coder? Tell us about what else than writing code is important for KDE.
- You are using KDE in your business? Share your experience.
- You are working on a related Free Software project? Give us ideas how to collaborate.
- You are doing something completely different which is related to KDE? Submit your talk now.
I'm looking forward to another wave of exciting talk proposals. Keep it going.
More Cross-desktop collaborators and the eventual '1.0' release of the weather applet
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Collaboration
I am pleasantly surprised to hear from Aaron Seigo and others that there has been more collaboration going on that most people might not know about. Learning that Qt 4.x now can use the Glib event loop gives us a lot of abilities to create glue between KDE and GNOME interfaces which is really encouraging.
Also happy to see other GNOME people such as Hubert Figuière and Rodrigo Moya are looking at more collaboration between our two teams. This can only be a Good Thing.
I personally look forward to working with other teams together to help us make the Desktop on Linux (and the other Freenixes too) grow.
I had a look at libgweather and wonder how to hook this into the weather engine but haven't examined the code yet. If it can provide similar data such as collecting current conditions as the ions do, maybe create an ion (data source plugin) to load libgweather and hook that in somehow.
Plasma Development
In the meantime, I spent a night of debugging to track down some new behaviours the Plasma Sprint has introduced. Needless to say, some of my code changes to fix the applet seem like ugly hacks but they might be part of a bug somewhere in the new API I hope. Now that I'm Plasma Ready(tm) again, I'm planning for a simple applet release in time for KDE 4.1 (for extragear).
Now, in previous postings I've talked about all sorts of wizbang features and things, but those are the goals of the project. This first version is going to have a 'button like' look, much like other simplistic applets. It will utilize the SVG skin theming only for now not icon theming. We don't have a free set of icons to use other then kweather's icons. Maybe this will make the Oxygen people cry and demand new icons 
Since I'm going for simplistic right now, it will only display current conditions. Let's get something out the door that works. As for KDE 4.2, things should become more exciting.
It was important for Plasma to break the API and even if that slowed down Plasma development, this will give us a much better framework to work from.
How to change the X11 DPI under kUbuntu
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I don't know why, but often I have the impression that KDE fonts are quite big, and this can be changed by modifying the X11 dpi settings.
Let's head over to good old Slackware. How is it done here ?
Enter /usr/bin/startx, which starts since ages with
"# This is just a sample implementation of a slightly less
# primitive interface than xinit.
...
# Site administrators are STRONGLY urged to write nicer versions.
"
At the end there is the line:
xinit $client $clientargs -- $server $display $serverargs
If I append e.g "-dpi 75" to this line (or set it correctly in one of the args), X will start with this dpi setting.
Now let's try the same with (k)Ubuntu 7.10. /usr/bin/startx looks just the same, including the comments that the site administrator should do something. What happens if we append -dpi 75 here ?
Nothing.
Why ? Because, as I found out, xinit reads here /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc, which looks like this:
exec /usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 100 -nolisten tcp
So the dpi is already set here. So let's change it here too. Now, voila, if I run startx, X starts with 75 dpi
Ok, next step. Now I login via kdm. Again I'm back ti 98 dpi. So it seems here it works in some other way.
How to find out ?
$ cd /etc $ grep -Ri dpi *
which yields /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc with this line:
ServerArgsLocal = -nolisten tcp
So here X starts without special setting and defaults to 98 dpi. So let's append -dpi 75 here too and restart kdm.
Now, kdm starts with 75 dpi (and small fonts), so I continue and login to KDE. What do I see ? Big fonts, i.e. it still looks like 98 dpi. What does kinfocenter (or xdpyinfo) say ? Both report 75 dpi.
Now this seems weird. X reports 75 dpi but fonts look like 98 dpi ? Hmm.
Let's try again, maybe there is something more:
$ cd /etc $ grep -Ri dpi *
Indeed, there is also a /etc/X11/Xsession.d/40guidance-displayconfig-restore, which talks about DPI. And it calls /usr/bin/displayconfig-restore. Now let's see what this does. It is a pyhon script, and it has a function FixXorgDPI. This function sets the dpi according to some calculations. Disabling this function (e.g. by inserting return right at the beginning) helps, finally kdm and KDE and X start with 75 dpi !
Conclusion ?
It may have been meant good, but please, don't implement hacks which circumvent the normal system tools. If I set all possible parameters to the dpi value I'd like to have, I don't want some clever custom script to completely ignore what I said explicitely.
Alex
P.S. I guess the same is true for NetworkManager, which sits in the background and fiddles around with network interfaces, making it impossible to manually debug problems...
Measuring performance the buildsystem-guy way...
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Different groups of people use different ways to measure performance of computers. Kernel developers test their kernels by, well, compiling the kernel. KDE developers may measure the startup time of KDE.
So what does the buildsystem maintainer do ?
He measures how long it takes to build CMake cvs (including curses and Qt4 based interface).
So here are the numbers:
On my desktop machine, which is still an AMD Athlon 2000XP+ (already over 5 years old), 1GB RAM, new hard disk: 5 min 59 s.
On my new Dell Inspiron, Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 5400 hdd, shipped with Ubuntu (which instantly became a kUbuntu): 2 min 17 s
So although they claim about the same frequency, it's really almost three times as fast !
But, wait, it's a Core Duo, so let's try make -j2: 1 min 15 s. That's only 20 percent of the time the Athlon needs. Not bad !
(I also tried make -j3, this gave also 1 min 15 s, so no additional gain here).
Alex
P.S. so maybe it's really time to upgrade my desktop machine, I didn't expect such a big difference. OTOH it still feels fast, and so it's a good machine to test the speed of KDE on not too fast hardware.