Well, the first feature for 4.3 is finished even before the final 4.2 is in your favourite distro’s repositories.

Before today, when you clicked ‘Switch User’ in Lancelot, it would use KRunner and query it with the magic word ‘SESSIONS’. That would show the KRunner results inside Lancelot.

There were a couple of problems with that approach:

• The first was that it induced a bug when you try to invoke the ‘Switch User’ a couple of times in a row.
• The second is that although ‘SESSIONS’ is a magic keyword, it doesn’t get only the responses from the session runner, but also from Strigi [for example], so it produced rather unpleasant results.

Why those two bugs weren’t fixed? Because I planned something a bit different for the ‘Switch User’ button, and, for that matter, the rest of the buttons. So the first step towards the goal has been done. Now, instead of loading the sessions inside the main list, you get a pop-up menu, as shown in the screenshot.

Next steps

Now, the next thing to do is to make a menu for the ‘Log Out’ button, and to make the buttons configurable. So, if you don’t have the use for ‘Lock Session’ or ‘Switch User’, you will be able to replace them with something different.

Enough for this time, cheerio!

Znam da odavno nisam pisao ništa na blogu na /naškom/, pa, rekoh, ovo je dovoljno važna vest da bi trebalo da je čujete.

Elem, kao što vidite iz naslova, Nokia koja je kupila Trolltech (sada Qt Software) je odlučila da objavi najpopularniji multiplatformski C++ toolkit pod LGPL-om. Sve to pod mantrom Qt Svugde (Qt Everywhere). Jedini (realni) razlog u prošlosti za izbor nekog drugog toolkita za razvoj aplikacija bio je u tome da u slučaju da želite da razvijate vlasnički softver, da ste morali da platite komercijalnu verziju Qt-a. Pošto Nokia ne zavisi toliko od profita koji dolazi od komercijalnih licenci Qt-a (koje će i dalje postojati, uzgred budi rečeno), mogli su da naprave ovaj veliki korak u potpunom oslobađanju Qt-a i njegovoj popularizaciji.

Za one koji ne znaju razliku između licenci GPL (dosadašnja licenca Qt-a) i LGPL, bitna razlika je u tome da ako koristite GPL biblioteke u svom programu, i program mora da vam bude objavljen pod GPL-om. Kod LGPL-a to nije slučaj.

Pa, pozdrav, i počnite da učite Qt :)

So, if you are following the kde-cvs-announce mailing list, you have seen this message about tomorrow’s changes that are bound to hit the SVN.

In a nutshell, when KDE 4.2.x is concerned, this means a couple of things:

• 4.2 is moving away from the trunk, and starts its life in its own branch.
• 4.2 is entering the last stage before tagging it as /final/

While this is great news for 4.2, it is even better for 4.3. This means that the SVN trunk is now exiting the /feature freeze/ state. This is a great thing for developers because the development becomes fun again (squashing bugs can not be labeled as fun), great for PlanetKDE readers since you’ll get real news from now on, and great for feature junkies for obvious reasons.

Lancelot 1.5

Lancelot’s version that will be branched tomorrow is the final 1.5. Compared to the one in beta 2 (1.4.9), it has a couple of bugs (that you haven’t noticed, if bugs.kde.org is to be consulted) fixed and is ready for prime-time. :)

Now the development of your suggestions can begin!

Happy New Year to everybody, and happy holidays!

Here is little something I made for the occasion using Inkscape and Gimp:

For the alternative version (text differs) and larger resolution, visit:

http://ivan-cukic.deviantart.com/art/NY2oo9-107291548

BTW, this is the largest digital artwork I made till this moment - the original resolution is 2700x1500 pixels.

So, I read the Drive-by Mockups post by Nikolaj Hald Nielsen which is about the new amarok mockups that can be found at kde-look. So, I found out that some people consider the [Amarok] developers to be “quite strange” and stubborn.

One of the reasons for justifying the claim was that the sentence Nikolaj wrote “The truth is that we are aiming squarely at ourselves, as we are some of the biggest music fans out there…” was found to be “extremely arrogant” by one of the visitors.

It reminded me of when I said something similar on my blog - that I develop Lancelot for myself. And I am aware that this type of comment sounds strange, and a bit arrogant, but it is not. So, I’m passing what I wrote as a reply on Nikolaj’s blog here: _ I’m sorry if I was the one who started the ‘I develop for myself’ wave of responses (some time ago concerning Lancelot) but you have to understand the developers to understand what that means.

We do what we do because we like to do it. I don’t know any free/libre software developer that develops things he/she doesn’t use (I did for some time [Kamion], and then I got bored and started developing L).

So we are developing for ourselves. And the good thing is that most of the time, what suits us, suits the users as well.

Sometimes you get criticized, and if the user proposes the solution to his discomfort, and you like the solution, you implement it. If the solution is completely opposite and clashes with everything you stand for, you give the polite answer describing why you don’t want to make that happen.

And, then, there are trolls that are just able to say ‘this is ****’, ‘you’re a bunch of ****’ or something similar.

What would you feel if someone, without specifying any specific reason, starts bashing something you have been dedicated to for a couple of years? You could ignore it. You could ignore it a couple or more times. But, eventually, you will have to snap and vent yourself through a reply. _

So, be happy, be polite and with a smile in your heart and on your face, and the world will be a much nicer place to live in. (yes, that’s an order :) )