The K Desktop Environment's window manager KWin has long prided itself on its configurability. But is it getting too complicated?

Really, you can do almost anything with the windows KWin displays. Here's a humble example. Let's say you want to underline the window title and go from this...




..to this...




Yes, there's a control for it! Here's all you do:

• Right-click the title bar.
• Choose Configure Window Behaviour.
• Select Windows (on the left).
• Click on the Fine Tuning tab (under Decoration Options).
• Tick Draw separator between title bar and active window contents.

Just following those directions will give you an idea of what I'm talking about!

These thoughts were prompted by this post: How to Set Special Window Settings with KWin. It's good, useful information, but just look at all those options. Five whole tabs of them!




And then there's the drop-down selections. Here's a typical example...




Or how about these choices for Placement...




What's the difference between Force and Force Temporarily? Or between Force, Remember and Apply Initially? Please, anyone?

And while we're on the subject, what is the difference is between Special Window Settings and Special Application Settings?




Seriously, can anyone tell me? Why do we need two lots of tabbed settings that appear to be identical? I've been using KDE4 for years now, I' ve googled both numerous times but have never a satisfactory explanation. This is the nearest I've come:

There is very little difference between the two.  If you compare the two different settings, side by side, for the same application, you will find in just about every case, all available options are the same. The difference will be how each is configured.

Which is essentially saying they're the same but different.

In most operating systems, a new application that doesn't run full-screen will open in the centre of your display. But not in KDE. Most will open wedged up in the top left hand corner. And while you can position things precisely with Special Window Settings -- even to the extent of specifying which desktop to start on -- you have to set every application separately. There's even a setting for setting those settings...! (Right-click the title bar, choose Configure Window Behaviour, scroll down and click Window-Specific.)




Yes, yes, I know that that is technically an application developers' issue, but if the underlying window manager makes simple centre-positioning so tricky, who's really to blame?

Want some more fun? Did you know that Special Window Settings are infinitely recursive? You can set Special Window Settings on the Special Window Settings "Special Window Settings" window! It's do-your-head-in stuff and not particularly useful, but it brings me back to my original question: is KWin getting just too complicated for the average user?

What do you think?

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 30 )

If you've ever coded a website, you'll be aware of the horrors of Internet Explorer 6. In short, it didn't fully follow the CSS version 2 standard, necessitating a slew of browser-specific workarounds. So although HTML and CSS are ratified industry standards, the word "standard" isn't apparently in the Redmond lexicon.

And now they're doing it again.

The folks at CSS3 Wizardry have put the latest beta of IE9 to the test and discovered that...

...Microsoft has finally implemented the CSS3 selectors that were implemented by other browsers back in, what? 2003? Because Microsoft has updated IE to support CSS3 selectors and rounded corners, they want us to believe that somehow IE9 magically supports the whole slew of CSS3 visual styling. I’m afraid it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, IE9′s support for CSS3 visual styling is so poor that the results are shocking. Firefox, Chrome and Safari can render graphically rich interfaces using the sophisticated features of CSS3. IE9 does, well, rounded corners. That’s why I’m saying: IE9 is the IE6 of CSS3. Repeat that a few times until it sinks in because if you do Web development, you’re going to have to deal with it.

(More details here along with a visual comparison.)

How is it that free browsers can manage to follow standards -- and do so in a timely fashion -- while the browser you pay for (with every copy of Windows), can't?

With modern browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera you can create amazing interfaces using advanced features of HTML5 and CSS3. With IE9 you can keep making Websites like you did, um, back in 1995: lots of pieces of images chopped up and stuck all over the place like a jigsaw puzzle. Yay! Microsoft has done their best to inhibit adoption of Web standards. Your HTML5/CSS3 Websites and Web apps will look great everywhere except you know where. At least with earlier versions of IE there were CSS hacks to make it display like other browsers. There is no way to make IE9 display CSS3 like other browsers. IE9 is that bad.

And a last word from CSS3 Wizardry:

Now you know why Internet Explorer’s E is blue: it represents how IE suffocates and strangles Web innovation.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Ubuntu 10.10 ("Maverick Meerkat") is out today, so here's "12 Reasons to Try Ubuntu 10.10 Now".

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 5 )

This is interesting. I don't use inkjets much so haven't experienced it. Anyone know more...?



The website's here.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 5 )

"Full HD" (1920 x 1080 pixels) is sooo yesterday. Here comes "Super Hi-Vision" (7680 x 4320 pixels). Yup, that's 16-times full HD resolution!

Japanese public broadcaster NHK is still developing the technology, but the BBC recently made broadcasting history by sending the first SHV transmission to Japan -- at a staggering 24Gb/s.

But don't dump your HD telly yet. The Beeb are aiming at broadcasting in SHV by 2020 though there is talk of shooting some of the 2012 London Olympics in the new format, "both for public displays and to form part of the BBC's archive footage."

That's 1080p in light blue. SHV is the outer frame.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )