Monday, October 22, 2007

Once in a while...

...I simply don't get it.
Recently there was this article on linux.com about [...]. Well, did you know that Konqueror can do all this, too, and much more? Launch Konqueror, split the view and you can transfer data right away with EVERY protocol KDE supports. ftp, fish, webdav and a lot other protocols. No need for an extra ftp client... In short, Konqueror is the best - and you can even use it on the Linux desktop.
...now I stumbled over this article on linux.com about [...]. In Konqueror you can do this for ages, too, the concept is called service menus. And it is very mighty and at the same time very simple to extend. And - if you have a look - there are thousands of context menus available, of course with the slight difference that contributors at kde-apps.org don't get 100$ for their work ;)
I wonder why such articles make it to linux.com at all. This is a drop of quality, imo. This is not about KDE vs. Gnome. It's about that articles should be objective and consider several alternatives. The first solution you read about isn't always the Holy Grail. Sorry for the rant.

PS: Maybe ed is the best text editor, I still prefer Kate, though. *blah* :-)

8 comments:

scroogie said...

Well, its always about marketing. There have been a lot of talks about these issues. Perhaps they are too hard to discover, or we don't have enough press coverage, I don't know. The service menu category of kde-apps is a goldmine btw.

jospoortvliet said...

It is indeed about marketing, and G does a lot more and better of that. I mean, take the FTP thing. In KDE, every application can do FTP, and samba, and everything else under the sun. You can navigate all these from the file open dialog, open files, save them, etcetera. We're way superior in that regard, always have been.

Let's be honest, how would it look if you write such an article, and finally say "for KDE users, you don't need any special stuff, you can do all this transparently from every application". Would be kind'a embarrassing to have to do that all the time.

A bit like having to open Nautilus and navigate to the current location you have opened in your file-save dialogue just to rename a file ;-)

We just need more ppl who writing about KDE, there's a big lack of those.

scroogie said...

Well, yes, the problem is to write "good stuff" [tm]. For me it's quite hard to write articles in english for example. From what Troy Unrau states at times (and you too iirc) it's not easiest to get the information you need from the developers to write good articles neither. Additionally for us regular KDE users it might be hard to spot the features that would be most attractive to new users, because we're so used to them.
I remember the creation of the KDE marketing working group, i think since then the situation already improved. The road to kde 4 articles, the very nice release announcements and "visual guide to ..." are fantastic.
Is there a platform where you collaborate to read / get interested in helping out?

vexorian said...

Nautilus can also do ftp and a lot of other protocols for ages.

I've been using gFTP lately (because, either Nautilus doesn't handle ssh correctly or my server is "too bugged" for it) And to be frank it blows, it is barely integrated with the rest of the desktop, in such way that I don't really understand where does the g in the name come from...

In the ftp and ssh regards I really miss konqueror...

Regarding the other articles, it is not a big deal, is it? No where in the articles does it mention that konqueror doesn't have them.

A bit like having to open Nautilus and navigate to the current location you have opened in your file-save dialogue just to rename a file ;-)

Do you really find that as an important feature?

PS: I have just found out blogger doesn't allow blockquote tags, that's quite lame.

David Anderson said...

Unfortunately konqueror still can't do encrypted FTP, i.e. FTP-over-SSL. But then, it seems that gftp can't either! (Only on the control connection - not the data one).

David

dhaumann said...

@Andre, Jos: I agree, it's all about marketing, this is soo true!

@Andre: I'm not involved in marketing but I consider it as being one of the most important aspects for KDE. Kudos to all that are active :)

Kunal said...

I am what you will call an experienced KDE user and still the service menu thingie is news to me. This is sad.

scroogie said...

Just to clear it up: my comment was aimed at jos who is afaik more involved in marketing.