TheBlindCow

16 January 2012

Road to KDevelop 4.3, Beta Available

Filed under: KDE,KDevelop,Software Libre — apol @ 11:22 pm

Hi!
It’s been probably too much time since we announced a KDevelop version for the last time, but hey! Here we are, as alive as ever! spacer

Actually it hasn’t been a quiet year, there’s been quite a lot of development going on, specially with regard to stabilization, improved integration facilities and, of course, Milian’s c++11 work, which is not ready yet, but much closer than it used to.

Long story short, here we can find the packages to compile it here, together with some verbose changelogs in case you’re interested.

Also you can wait for your-favorite-distro to package it, but more on that in the future! spacer

Comments (4)

2 January 2012

New year, new life (or KDE and GTK integration)

Filed under: KDE,me,my projects,Netrunner,Software Libre — apol @ 5:21 pm

Or as they say in Spanish: año nuevo, vida nueva. Well, or not. My new year started the 1st December actually, when I got my engineering degree, but I’ll talk about the project some other day.

Today I’d like to talk about my new job at Netrunner, where I started some days after my graduation.

There I have been working on a KCM module to configure your GTK2/3. To do so, I took Chakra’s kcm and reworked it a little to behave like I wanted to. Now that we’re here, big thanks to the Chakra crowd, specially Manuel Tortosa and José Antonio Sánchez, who let me fiddle with their project.

After the cleanup part, I ported the project to our git.kde.org infrastructure, so now it’s a KDE project. It’s in playground for the moment, we’ll see where it will go from now on.

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The KCM itself is quite stable at the moment. Feature-wise, it lets you select the GTK styles, the font and the icon themes to be used. Furthermore, it lets you tweak some more specific settings like the icon placing on the menu and so. Also there’s the possibility to download GTK and icon themes for fun and profit. I hope you’ll enjoy it spacer .

For Netrunner/debian/*ubuntu users, you can install the package using this package. (Please, use this package for testing purposes only).
On other distro’s, please ask your packagers to package it spacer .

Comments (15)

9 November 2011

Pairs and ugly applications

Filed under: KDE,KDE-Edu,my projects,Software Libre — apol @ 12:48 am

Hi!
Some time ago I blogged about a new game for KDE Edu, a memory-enhancing cards game. It was getting dusty in my scratch repository until Marco Calignano had the strength to push some features that it desperately needed and at the same time pushed me into gaining interest in the project again.

A lot has happened since: the name changed to Pairs (can be found in kde:pairs now) and it’s quite awesome already, I’d say. It lets us download themes from the Internet, supports different game types like image->image, image->word and some others, etc.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed about moving it to KDE Edu finally, although we decided not to and port it to QtQuick so that we can make it work in touch screens and we can get to have fancy GUI. In few days we managed to port it to QtQuick (somehow, there are some hacks spacer ) but now it’s a little ugly. WTH, not a little ugly, very ugly. It makes your eyes hurt and it’s on purpose.

Why would someone make such an ugly beast? Well, because we’re looking forward to find someone who can make it look nice. Now, those of you who have some pride in your artistic skills, please consider it: Could you please dedicate some time in your life to a community of hardcore developers without this sparkle for beauty? We don’t have much to offer other than considering your idea and hopefully it will get to be used by children from all around the world (now that I think of it, maybe it is something!).

What we need is quite simple:

  1. Check the video, when your eyes hurt just stop it.
  2. Think of what you think the GUI should look like.
  3. Here I’d love to say that you should be able to provide a QML file, if you can’t then just a mockup.
  4. Optionally (and preferably) you can check what it looks like by modifying the qml GUI and compiling the program. Here there are some instructions: techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/KDE_Applications
  5. Send it to me at aleixpol@kde.org. You can also send me any questions you have, as well as posting them as comments below, so that we can discuss it all together.

Cheers, for beauty! spacer

PS: And elegance spacer

Comments (3)

5 October 2011

So KDE is getting older…

Filed under: fib,KDE,KDE Spain,my projects,Software Libre — apol @ 7:36 pm

And from KDE Spain we don’t want to let the next 14th October to pass by without a proper birthday party.

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That’s why we have put together 4 mini-events/birthday parties around the country to celebrate in A Coruña, Barcelona, Castelló and Málaga. We’ll have some talks and probably some dinner if people feels like going out a little spacer .

If you’re interested in coming to the event, check the schedule here: kde-espana.es/news.php#itemKDEcumple15aoshabrquecelebrarlo

If you’re interested in helping, don’t hesitate to ask me or anyone in KDE Spain! There’s plenty you can do, including organizing another in your city, we will provide some materials for you, we want you to be part of it as well!

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And for the rest, whoever you are, don’t forget to spread the word! KDE is going to be 15 and needs your enthusiasm too, for the next joyful 15 years!

\o/

Comments (0)

16 September 2011

KDE Spain is translatable

Filed under: KDE,KDE Spain,my projects,Software Libre — apol @ 2:44 am

Hi!
As some of you might know in Spain many different languages are spoken and among the major goals of the KDE Spain association, we’re trying to push those to be properly available and usable in KDE.

Until some time ago, it was just possible to browse our website in Spanish, which wasn’t very coherent, that’s why we adapted the website for localization.

For the moment, besides Spanish, we just have Catalan and English which is a good start. spacer

I hope you like it, cheers to anyone who helped! spacer

PS: Of course it’s not like we speak that much English in Spain, it’s just in case you want to take a look…

Comments (3)

23 August 2011

Road to a better KDevelop newcomer experience

Filed under: KDevelop,me,my projects,Software Libre — apol @ 2:05 am

Hi fellow KDE!

Today I would like to talk a little about some work I’ve been doing recently in KDevelop in order to assure we have a good path for the new KDevelop user and KDE or free software Developer.

I think that KDevelop has been quite good at being adopted by people who know their way in the development process: in few words, people who already know the language they’re using and usually they can fill any lacking feature KDevelop might have, by doing some old-style terminal hacking spacer . No problem with that, but apparently not everyone is born with some wizard skills, so I’d like to improve this situation.

There are many aspects that can be improved and some have been lately. One of the most annoying things that we found (mostly in Randa, in the KDevelop team and some random spontaneous meeting) to be more annoying, was our “New Project” wizard, specially when it comes to start new technology based in KDE.

This is what it looked like before starting working on it:

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There are some things I don’t like here: The tree view looks clumsy and doesn’t lead the user anywhere, so whenever I have considered to create a new project from this dialog, I’ve felt violated somehow. What I’m going to show here has to be taken as a first step towards where I want future KDE Developers experience to start (if they are starting a new project).

The idea here is that the user will select, first of all, what kind of application is going to be created, roughly: KDE Application, just a standard application, a web service or whatever it’s needed. Using KDE as an example, we’ll select if we want to create a console application, GUI application, Plasmoid, etc. Finally, we’ll select the language we want to use be C++, Python or whatever it’s available.

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That last step change is important, because we’re adding more importance at what we are doing (a Plasmoid for example) than if we are going to do it in C++ or Python.

From this point there’s many things to be done:

  • Make it possible to create new applications from the KDE Examples
  • Add some category information, categories are not translatable right now and they can’t have an icon. I’d like to see this improved.
  • KNewStuff support to download new templates?
  • Make sure the KDE GUI application templates are equivalent for C++ or Python.
  • Improve the template’s description. Add links to techbase!
  • Think about the templates you always wanted as a kid and contribute them!
  • … many other things in your imagination spacer

If someone is interested in helping, just ping me in IRC at #kdevelop in freenode, comment here or send me an e-mail, your call! spacer

Oh! And last but not least, Big thanks to Àlex Fiestas for helping me sorting the templates and discussing the ideas, and Aurélien Gâteau for giving me a hand at making the GUI more usable.
After all this lonely KDE hacking, it feels great to sit down with someone else and try to take the best out of you on what you’re doing!

Comments (17)

2 July 2011

KDE and Free Software conferences @ home

Filed under: fib,KDE,me,my projects,Software Libre,talks — apol @ 8:05 pm

Yesterday the Jornades del Programari Lliure finished. This event that was quite important to me, I’ll try to explain a little why and what conclusions did I extract from it. If you don’t really can’t bother about it, just stay with the thought that it was a great experience spacer .

I always like to go to free software events, regardless it’s a KDE event or not. It’s a good way to step back at what I’ve been doing for the last years and to process a little if it makes sense, if it’s worth it and to consider other’s positions to check why are they working in different stuff and if I should change my views (all in all, not everyone is working in KDE Edu and KDevelop,… surprisingly spacer ).

There were a lot of conversations and different opinions, I still do hear people claiming that we have to outcome the big proprietary projects. There’s been an important change here, now the best/biggest projects are those who use better Free Software (or Open Source like some people call it) wisely, I don’t think there’s that much of a battle with free software or not from the development perspective. We’re there, now we need to make KDE one of those communities that we want people to work with and to work on. That said, let’s get all this awesomeness to the end users, who usually aren’t aware of that.

Also it was nice to see more faces than in the usual meetings, it’s always good to see that there’s people who trust in what you do even if they’re not actively contributing. There’s a lot of profiles to fulfill in the free software world and we still need a lot of passionate people.

And, last but not least, thanks to the organization to put together some really nice conferences, to even bring some international speakers (hey Aaron! spacer ), to try to make us think a little about what what’s being done and to give us the opportunity to talk about our passion.

See you soon! \o/

Comments (0)

4 June 2011

KDevelop’s Randa Sprint, my take

Filed under: KDE,KDevelop,my projects,Software Libre — apol @ 3:29 pm

As some of you will know, these days the KDevelop team is staying in Switzerland with a bunch of KDE developers where we’re having some sprints, for me it’s KDevelop sprint mostly although I’ve had very different and interesting conversations for the days here.

We’ve just got asked to tell what we’re working on. I prefered to keep it for myself so that you get surprised the next time you see it (keep in mind that a surprise can be either good or bad spacer ). Well anyway, here it goes:

- KDevelop Dashboard
This one actually comes from last summer, my GSoC contained the effort to create a Plasma-based Dashboard for KDevelop. Right now I decide to make some simplifications on what I came up with and now we have some place to start creating what we want this KDevelop Dashboard to be, probably after this week another post will come with what we’ve come up with. Here it comes the ¿pretty? picture:

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- VCS Project Integration
Those who have talked with me about KDevelop lately will know that I had this in mind for a while and that I think that here KDevelop can really make a difference when it comes to properly adapt to the user workflow. The idea is to have coding-time information about what’s the changes in our project. For now we have this screenshot, more will come later in the future spacer .

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Oh, and last but not least, remember all this is in our public repositories, if you’re interested in it, just try it and talk to me if you want to help!

Comments (1)

27 April 2011

So… what’s cooking?

Filed under: fib,KDE,KDE Spain,KDE-Edu,KDevelop,me,my projects,Software Libre,talks — apol @ 1:44 am

I’ve probably been talking lately too much about where I was going to spread my KDE love and talking too little about what I’ve been doing and what’s happening:

Akademy-es: Yes! we’re having the Akademy-es in Barcelona this year and I know you won’t miss it. Yay! Awesome. Well it takes some preparation, so it takes some time. I feel I’m quite lucky I could find a rather big team of local KDE enthusiasts, that way I don’t have to do it all by myself but truth is it’s time consuming and love consuming. By the way, if anybody wants to help, just poke me and remember to register if you want to come!

KDE Edu: We had our yearly meeting. In my opinion most of our group work was about getting the best out of GSoC and the rebranding. The GSoC results where out last week, I hope the best luck for all the GSoC student, as an ex-student I can remember the excitement of being accepted, so congrat’s to all of them spacer . About the rebranding, news will be coming soon spacer . On the KAlgebra side, the language has improved tons since 1 year ago, it’s quite hard to show that to the KAlgebra user I guess, but we’ll get there, for the moment rocs looks like it will be the next victim.

KDevelop: As some of you already know, I’m working on my final engineering project around KDevelop, doing some static analysis using our infrastructure. It’s still going forward but it’s keeping me to commit new features to KDevelop lately, I hope I’ll fix that soon, though… >:) I’ve got some crazy ideas to be put in place, since I don’t like to talk about something that’s not implemented, you’d better wait and see spacer . If anyone is interested in static analysis (on c++ for the moment) you can find me in irc/e-mail and we can talk about life and spring spacer oh and static analysis.

In the end, a lot of things are moving, I don’t have as much coding time as I’d like since there’s always something that sounds that if I don’t do it nobody will, probably I shouldn’t think like that… but oh well, I hope everyone will enjoy my KDE areas the way we all enjoy KDE.

Hugs for everyone! \o/

Comments (0)

24 March 2011

April of KDE

Filed under: KAlgebra,KDE,KDE-Edu,KDevelop,my projects,Software Libre,talks — apol @ 4:53 pm

Hi!
Some intensive days are coming let’s talk about it a little spacer .

Next week I’ll be going to San Francisco because I’ll be attending to Camp KDE. It’s specially interesting to go there because it’s a very nice opportunity to get in touch with a KDE community that is not usually around in the events I’ve been going (it’s going to be my first KDE meeting outside of Europe). There I will be talking about KDevelop and KDE Edu (no wonder), two beautiful projects from a beautiful community like KDE, can’t be more proud of it spacer .

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The day after I come back I’ll be going to Bilbao where we’re celebrating this year’s KDE Edu sprint. I feel like it’s an important step for KDE Edu because it will be the first time where we are celebrating it in an education context and because we will be gathering some important people from this country who is interested in education. Hopefully we will be able to take our project to the next level, so yay us! (again spacer ).

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And last but not least, I’ll be going to Vigo the week after that, where I will give the KDE talks in the Free Software master by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and Igalia. I’m happy to see these initiatives happening here and proud to help to take it to the next level. (yay us! bis bis).

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And last but not least, thanks to all the sponsors the KDE eV board and, in the end, all the people who makes this kind of things possible spacer . See you soon!

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