KDE 2.2 beta 1 Review

[Ray Strode]

> * Performance!  KDE 2.2 *feels* faster and smoother than KDE 2.1.1.
That's always good.

> * Konquerer file manager has many added features that brings it at par with
> Gnome's Nautilus in the bells-and-whistles department.
Completely on par? :-)

> * Full support for anti-aliased fonts.  Within the Konquerer web browser,
> fonts have a gorgeous... almost MacOS X feeling.  Unlike in Nautilus,
> anti-aliasing fonts does not seem to degrade performance.  Things look even
> better with true type web fonts from the Font Deuglification HOWTO.
It still degrades performance, but just not (nearly) as much because it does
makes use of the new X Render extension.  This also means it won't work
for anyone who is using XFree86 4.01 and lower, or any other X Server 
out there that doesn't implement it.

> * A controverisal new feature in KDE 2.2 is the Windows XP style taskbar
> where each running program is shown in the taskbar, and all open windows of
> that program are selectable in a drawer menu that pops up when you click it.
The gnome tasklist applet has had that since January 24th, according to the 
CVS ChangeLog (which ironically is six months to the day :-).  Although it can be
turned off, or set like, if there are more than n instances of the window class 
open, then do it

> * KDE 2.2's application feedback displays a tiny version of the
> icon of the program being launched next to the mouse pointer, giving the
> user some indication that the program is being loaded.  I see this is a
> welcome improvement to the mouse pointer in Windows 2000 with a tiny hour
> glass floating next to it, because it tells the user that something is occuring, and 
> which program is doing that.
That is neat.  I know there was discussion between the two camps on standarizing
Application _Launch_ Feedback, but I don't think there was any talk about 
Application State.  I thought the specs were somewhere on freedesktop.org, but 
I can't find it.