KDE 4.7 Released!

[Docaltmed]

I'm using 11.04 with KDE 4.6.5. How do I upgrade to 4.7?

[PaulW2U]

I'm using 11.04 with KDE 4.6.5. How do I upgrade to 4.7?

At the moment you can't.

Wait for an announcement at http://www.kubuntu.org/news. Maybe tomorrow?

[smellyman]

I got KDE 4.7 going yesturday and there are some differences I've noticed:

- Slider controls are new
- New 'activities' button on the panel near lancelot.
- Desktop Effects menu has changed

And some other changes but cannot remember right now. There seems to be a focus on the pushing the 'activities' in KDE 4.7. There are actually some pre-configured activity themes built in. Such as 'Photo Activity', 'Desktop icons', and 'Search and launch' + the one that is default.

The KDE team seems to be squishing bugs like crazy, about 12000 so they must be very busy. It's amazing to see the list that are squashed each day.

Anyways, sometimes I wonder why most people don't try KDE with all thats going on right now. I used to be a gnome user until the KDE got things right (around 4.6.2). If you want customisation and you like to use the GUI then this might be a great distro for you.

KDE keeps pushing activities and I think for 98% of users it is a complete waste of time, but with every release it's "improved activites!"

[ilovelinux33467]

I got KDE 4.7 going yesturday and there are some differences I've noticed:

- Slider controls are new
- New 'activities' button on the panel near lancelot.
- Desktop Effects menu has changed

And some other changes but cannot remember right now. There seems to be a focus on the pushing the 'activities' in KDE 4.7. There are actually some pre-configured activity themes built in. Such as 'Photo Activity', 'Desktop icons', and 'Search and launch' + the one that is default.

The KDE team seems to be squishing bugs like crazy, about 12000 so they must be very busy. It's amazing to see the list that are squashed each day.

Anyways, sometimes I wonder why most people don't try KDE with all thats going on right now. I used to be a gnome user until the KDE got things right (around 4.6.2). If you want customisation and you like to use the GUI then this might be a great distro for you.

Yes I find it amazing the amount of progress the KDE team have done. Trying out 4.7 on my test computer (running arch) and I am finding it amazing the amount of work put into 4.7. I am looking forward to upgrading my main computer to 4.7 (still on 4.6.5 - waiting for update to come to Fedora).

[Erik1984]

The problem I had with KDE was font readability. Some shades on some apts the fonts would be readable, then on others it wouldnt.

I found myself kept going to darker themes to overcome the font readability only then to be roadblocked by many KDE applications not very functional (ability to see what your doing) with darker theme colors.


BTW:
Nice to see Ms D here.

That certainly is a problem. I like Kubuntu 11.04 for many things but the fonts remain problematic. Now, after some tweaking, they look ok on websites but not on the desktop folders. I had a problem with the default task bar theme and dark brackgrounds as well. As the fonts are black they become unreadable when a dark image is behind the transparent taskbar. I fixed this with the black Oxygen taskbar but that can look out of place with a light window theme sometimes.

[StephanG]

I never used to have a problem with the fonts, until I upgraded to a 1920 x 1080 monitor. Then the fonts were hardly legible. But, I quickly fixed it, by forcing 96 dpi, in Font Settings and forcing it use anti-alias.

If you guys haven't tried it yet, it might help. The only thing I have problem with, is Firefox, whose fonts seem to look tiny and ugly, no matter what I do.

[Zlatan]

KDE keeps pushing activities and I think for 98% of users it is a complete waste of time, but with every release it's "improved activites!"

so sad but true

[RiceMonster]

KDE keeps pushing activities and I think for 98% of users it is a complete waste of time, but with every release it's "improved activites!"

Yeah, I feel the same. I haven't figured out really what I would need activities for.

[Islington]

Yeah, I feel the same. I haven't figured out really what I would need activities for.

well they are pretty useful for longterm/midterm projects that need access to a whole bunch of programs and files.

I had to write a huge research paper last semester for history, so I put together a r.paper activity. set up the activity desktop with 3 appropriate folderviews:: drafts// links// source docs

the source docs were pdfs open in okular, links were open in chromium, drafts in pyroom.

When I wanted to work on the paper, I started the activity, when I didnt I stopped it (didnt close the links/docs). KDE took care of stopping and freezing any programs associated with that activity.


I also have a activity called screenshot where the desktop is a lot prettier than what I normally use.

in 4.6.xx there were some implementation problems with activities and the grid effect but those are marked fixed now.

[madjr]

Yeah, I feel the same. I haven't figured out really what I would need activities for.

activities is awesome, i hope some day we get it on gnome too. Is a super enhanced version of virtual desktops.

desktops are truly virtual now and can have all settings exclusive.

is like having 2 or 3 extra linux installs in 1. In fact is similar to having different "sessions", but with a nicer and easier way to set them up and control them right from your main desktop (also you control better the resources, since you can run and stop them on the fly, "switching" is instant and saves settings in real time).

i have an activities for games (my game icons on the desktop and different background), an activities for coding and an activities for reading news (with its own desktop widgets) and entertainment (music, videos, comics, etc).

i mean the name "activities" is a kinda confusing, i think they should just drop the old "virtual desktops" and replace it with this and then rename it to "virtual desktop activities" or something.

here are some mockups for future kde release:
http://bsmith1012.blogspot.com/2011/...ctivities.html

also there are some mockups in deviantart for a gnome / unity version which looks a lot like firefox 4's "panorama".
http://bigrza.deviantart.com/art/Pan...ager-200788050


if you want to know more about activities vs old virtual desktops check here:
http://www.datamation.com/open-sourc...esktops-1.html