The Open Source Initiative in DA-IICT is our effort to get more students interested in open source, and get them to start contributing to projects. As part of that I evangelized KDE, showed off our cool apps, and demonstrated how Krunner + Kwin + Plasma come together to improve productivity a LOT. Here are the slides, Unfortunately my notes were handwritten, so you can't glean much from here. But someone else might be able to use it ( please attribute it to me though, thanks ).
Download the slides ( pdf, 461k )
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tiling screencast
With a lot of requests to see tiling in action, I've uploaded my first ever video. Unfortunately I couldn't get my microphone to work. There are also a few glitches, forgive me for that.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Dynamic layouts are here
kwin-tiling now features dynamic layout switching per desktop. Use Meta+PgUp for Columns and Meta+PgDn for Spiral. Watch the windows change their place on the fly!
A few bugs in both the layouts are also fixed. Overall kwin-tiling is pretty stable for now, so give it a whirl and notify me of any bugs you can find.
What it still lacks is Xinerama awareness, but otherwise its virtually feature complete for the first release.
Unfortunately since college has begun I've been able to work on Kwin for only a few hours a week, so progress is a bit slow.
But the good news is that since GSoC is over, we should start seeing loads of new features being integrated into trunk/ to play around with.
A few bugs in both the layouts are also fixed. Overall kwin-tiling is pretty stable for now, so give it a whirl and notify me of any bugs you can find.
What it still lacks is Xinerama awareness, but otherwise its virtually feature complete for the first release.
Unfortunately since college has begun I've been able to work on Kwin for only a few hours a week, so progress is a bit slow.
But the good news is that since GSoC is over, we should start seeing loads of new features being integrated into trunk/ to play around with.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Introducing Cq
Cq ( Commit Queue ) is a bridge between Mercurial and Subversion. Its whole objective is to allow you to work offline on Subversion repositories, but continue doing atomic commits. Useful when you are on the move and don't have internet access.
The premise is that you copy the working copy into a Mercurial repository. Hack away in the repository, and commit to the repository. Once you are back online, run cq commit to actually commit the changes to the Subversion repository. So it keeps track of commit messages and diffs using Mercurial hooks.
This is not stable software yet, and shouldn't be used for critical code. That said, it definitely won't delete any code unless you tell it to. I also have no idea how this will interact with mercurial branches or some uncommon svn operations. Get it from Bitbucket and read the README to use Cq. You can fork it or send patches or feature requests on Bitbucket or email.
(KDE folks might be interested in this)
The premise is that you copy the working copy into a Mercurial repository. Hack away in the repository, and commit to the repository. Once you are back online, run cq commit to actually commit the changes to the Subversion repository. So it keeps track of commit messages and diffs using Mercurial hooks.
This is not stable software yet, and shouldn't be used for critical code. That said, it definitely won't delete any code unless you tell it to. I also have no idea how this will interact with mercurial branches or some uncommon svn operations. Get it from Bitbucket and read the README to use Cq. You can fork it or send patches or feature requests on Bitbucket or email.
(KDE folks might be interested in this)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Hello Planet
( One of my entries already got aggregated, but this is the traditional introduction )
Hello KDE people! My name is Nikhil Marathe. I'm a relatively new KDE developer ( ~3 months ), currently working on implementing tiling in kwin.
I started using KDE when I switched to ( what was ) Mandrake in 2001. I think it was KDE 3.2. Well I loved it, and have stuck with KDE ever since, following every release with great excitement. But I never considered myself able enough to hack the code. But it seems all those years of learning paid off, and motivation come in the form of Google's Summer of Code. Unfortunately tiling support didn't get a slot, but I decided to implement it anyway. And now it's coming along just fine. Thanks to Martin (mgraesslin), my mentor, for his guidance and Jonathan for his early interest in the code.
So a little bit about myself. I'm 18 years old. I'm an Indian. I'm currently in the 2nd year of the undergraduate course at DA-IICT. Though I'm currently in Gandhinagar, I'm a Mumbai boy through and through.
When I'm not hacking away I usually read or play football.
Thats it. I hope to keep contributing to KDE for many more years. I remember when I used to read the Planet wondering whether I would ever feature on it. Some dreams do come true!
Hello KDE people! My name is Nikhil Marathe. I'm a relatively new KDE developer ( ~3 months ), currently working on implementing tiling in kwin.
I started using KDE when I switched to ( what was ) Mandrake in 2001. I think it was KDE 3.2. Well I loved it, and have stuck with KDE ever since, following every release with great excitement. But I never considered myself able enough to hack the code. But it seems all those years of learning paid off, and motivation come in the form of Google's Summer of Code. Unfortunately tiling support didn't get a slot, but I decided to implement it anyway. And now it's coming along just fine. Thanks to Martin (mgraesslin), my mentor, for his guidance and Jonathan for his early interest in the code.
So a little bit about myself. I'm 18 years old. I'm an Indian. I'm currently in the 2nd year of the undergraduate course at DA-IICT. Though I'm currently in Gandhinagar, I'm a Mumbai boy through and through.
When I'm not hacking away I usually read or play football.
Thats it. I hope to keep contributing to KDE for many more years. I remember when I used to read the Planet wondering whether I would ever feature on it. Some dreams do come true!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
KWin tiling progress
Between yesterday and today I made quite a lot of changes in kwin-tiling. Layouts now have a superclass which manages certain things. Each desktop now has its own layout. The root tile is no longer stored directly by the workspace, instead the workspace stores layouts for each desktop. For now each desktop has the Spiral layout, but it should be possible to dynamically change layouts for each desktop a few weeks down the line. Right now the plan is to fix certain layout issues ( such as spiral not understanding when a window is removed and adjusting the next one properly ).
The other major change is that cross virtual desktop moving is now supported. This was a major problem when it first arose, but once the first change was implemented, it was simply a matter of removing a tile from the old desktop and adding it to the new desktop.
There is no screenshot because none of these changes can be shown in a static image. But you can always try using the branch!
In other news I'm back in college. The third semester began yesterday, which means development time is now seriously down. I hacked on a (cool?) tool in the last two weeks, and I'll be announcing that soon. I'm also planning to add my blog to PlanetKDE.
The other major change is that cross virtual desktop moving is now supported. This was a major problem when it first arose, but once the first change was implemented, it was simply a matter of removing a tile from the old desktop and adding it to the new desktop.
There is no screenshot because none of these changes can be shown in a static image. But you can always try using the branch!
In other news I'm back in college. The third semester began yesterday, which means development time is now seriously down. I hacked on a (cool?) tool in the last two weeks, and I'll be announcing that soon. I'm also planning to add my blog to PlanetKDE.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Prince
I've just returned from watching the Half Blood Prince, and it was a mess. I don't know what they were playing at, but I've never seen a worse Potter movie. The linear plot is suffocating. While the movie begins with somewhat of a bang, the rest of it proceeds at some enforced speed limit, leaving no climatic or anti-climatic moments. In addition some of the key characters are missing or have such restricted roles that is it disgusting to watch ( the Dursleys, Neville Longbottom ). In addition Harry actually seems to be supporting the Ministry. The lack of Rufus Scrimgeour even prevents him from being Dumbledore's man through-and-through. Ron Weasley is made somewhat of a tag-along for the Harry-Hermione pair. It seems they were trying to put forth the idea of a Harry-Hermione pair, but that is ruined by the obvious Harry-Ginny romance throughout the movie. The only point where Ron does something is to play Quidditch.
Speaking of Quidditch, if you expected a nice match like the first three movies, you will instead be treated to the 7 Great Saves of Ronald Weasley.
Darkness is indeed rising, but that does not mean that the Order of the Phoenix do nothing while Death Eaters abound. It was somewhat of a joke to see Arthur, Tonks and Lupin running (yes!), when Harry and Ginny are trapped by the Death Eaters. But wait a minute, what is Bellatrix doing at the Burrow, and how does it just burn down. Wasn't it given the most protection by the Ministry of Magic?
It was also surprising to see the absence of the Order and Dumbledore's army at the Lightning Struck Tower ( or Dumbledore's tower as in the movie ). Meanwhile Harry stands around like some idiot while the Death Eaters and Dumbledore have a chat.
The Half Blood Prince was essentially meant to explain Voldemort's past, the story of the Gaunts, and hints to the Deathly Hallows. All of this is pushed aside and replaced by two tiny memories of the orphanage and Horace Slughorn. The ring has no mention of the Peverell coat of arms, nor physically nor in speaking.
If deviations from the book are not enough, David Yates failure to capture key moments was particularly visible. The kissing scene is just pathetic, the fear in the Wizarding world seems to be totally absent and the whole lake scene was just too lame. There is no palpable sense of magic about the cave ( quartz isn't magical you know ), nothing special in the potion ( it looks like water ) and the return to Hogwarts is far too easy. Dumbledore's death is very very underplayed. There is no dead silence, no grief in any of the characters except for a few unnatural tears.
Overall every scene seems to have some kind of half-heartedness in its execution. The only thing the movie has going for it is the comedy and some of the romance. The fixation with feet is also a bit annoying. Who the hell ties their boyfriend's shoelaces? Since the previous movie Hogwarts seems to have become just another Muggle school, with robes hardly ever being worn. I think that HBP will only do well because it is riding on the success of the earlier movies. But do not expect book fans to come out satisfied. This is the only Potter movie which doesn't leave you with a sense of magic when you get out of the theater. I don't know how it has received brilliant pre-release reviews but apparently the reviewers seem to have seen the movie as some disconnected one of a kind event, but it fails to capture Harry Potter, the story as well as the phenomenon.
Speaking of Quidditch, if you expected a nice match like the first three movies, you will instead be treated to the 7 Great Saves of Ronald Weasley.
Darkness is indeed rising, but that does not mean that the Order of the Phoenix do nothing while Death Eaters abound. It was somewhat of a joke to see Arthur, Tonks and Lupin running (yes!), when Harry and Ginny are trapped by the Death Eaters. But wait a minute, what is Bellatrix doing at the Burrow, and how does it just burn down. Wasn't it given the most protection by the Ministry of Magic?
It was also surprising to see the absence of the Order and Dumbledore's army at the Lightning Struck Tower ( or Dumbledore's tower as in the movie ). Meanwhile Harry stands around like some idiot while the Death Eaters and Dumbledore have a chat.
The Half Blood Prince was essentially meant to explain Voldemort's past, the story of the Gaunts, and hints to the Deathly Hallows. All of this is pushed aside and replaced by two tiny memories of the orphanage and Horace Slughorn. The ring has no mention of the Peverell coat of arms, nor physically nor in speaking.
If deviations from the book are not enough, David Yates failure to capture key moments was particularly visible. The kissing scene is just pathetic, the fear in the Wizarding world seems to be totally absent and the whole lake scene was just too lame. There is no palpable sense of magic about the cave ( quartz isn't magical you know ), nothing special in the potion ( it looks like water ) and the return to Hogwarts is far too easy. Dumbledore's death is very very underplayed. There is no dead silence, no grief in any of the characters except for a few unnatural tears.
Overall every scene seems to have some kind of half-heartedness in its execution. The only thing the movie has going for it is the comedy and some of the romance. The fixation with feet is also a bit annoying. Who the hell ties their boyfriend's shoelaces? Since the previous movie Hogwarts seems to have become just another Muggle school, with robes hardly ever being worn. I think that HBP will only do well because it is riding on the success of the earlier movies. But do not expect book fans to come out satisfied. This is the only Potter movie which doesn't leave you with a sense of magic when you get out of the theater. I don't know how it has received brilliant pre-release reviews but apparently the reviewers seem to have seen the movie as some disconnected one of a kind event, but it fails to capture Harry Potter, the story as well as the phenomenon.
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