KDE Plasma 5 Officially Released

[Cyber Killer]

Oh, so this isn't only about despising visual design, but also about not understanding the meaning of "official release". If your software isn't "completely usable", you release a beta. Software Development 101.

But 4.0 was completely usable, it just didn't have new versions and all features of everything that 3.5 had. I used 4.0 and was quite happy with it.

[Luke_Wolf]

Oh, so this isn't only about despising visual design, but also about not understanding the meaning of "official release". If your software isn't "completely usable", you release a beta. Software Development 101.

With KDE SC 4.0-4.2 it was supposed to be a developer targeted release with "Here there be dragons" labels all over it.

[deck]

Oh, so this isn't only about despising visual design, but also about not understanding the meaning of "official release". If your software isn't "completely usable", you release a beta. Software Development 101.

That might be feasible for a highly commercialized product. I should think the reality of a project like Plasma is that it depends on some level of testing out in the wild.

I can't believe how much people bitch and moan about software they don't pay a dime to use. It is even more astonishing when they complain even though they have complete flexibility to remain on the stable release if they choose to.

I for one applaud the efforts of the KDE Plasma team for putting in work in the thankless space that is the end user desktop. Lord knows you will never satisfy everyone, but your work is appreciated regardless.

[Sho_]

It is even more astonishing when they complain even though they have complete flexibility to remain on the stable release if they choose to.

I think this is a point worth highlighting, btw: During the KDE 3->4 transition, we stopped the world for *several years* between the last 3.x feature release and 4.0. This time around we kept releasing 4.x, and got major things like revamping the semantic desktop implementation done in parallel to developing Plasma 5. So not only is the stable release available, it also continued to be supported and enhanced. I'd like to think that's an example of us learning and improving how we do things.

(And thanks for the compliments!)

[Commander]

I think this is a point worth highlighting, btw: During the KDE 3->4 transition, we stopped the world for *several years* between the last 3.x feature release and 4.0. This time around we kept releasing 4.x, and got major things like revamping the semantic desktop implementation done in parallel to developing Plasma 5. So not only is the stable release available, it also continued to be supported and enhanced. I'd like to think that's an example of us learning and improving how we do things.

(And thanks for the compliments!)

I must ask, will there be a dark window theme for breeze like the plasma theme? For one thing i'm always annoyed that there are really very few dark themes that are easy on the eyes that actually look good and work.

Also thanks for all your hard work and all other developers on KDE, really impressed on how well each release gets. Gonna try the RC out sooner or later on Arch and gonna post bugs for multi-monitor issues =)

Best Regards

[Sho_]

^ I'm not part of the Visual Design Group so I'm a bit uncomfortable speaking on their behalf -- but as far as I know the general idea is to align the Plasma and application theming more, and the dark variant of Breeze, which is currently available for Plasma and for Qt Quick Controls, should eventually also be available for QWidget-based apps. Following the blogs of Jens Reuterberg & co is a good way to keep on top of that .

(And thanks again!)

[erendorn]

Oh, so this isn't only about despising visual design, but also about not understanding the meaning of "official release". If your software isn't "completely usable", you release a beta. Software Development 101.

Actually, software developers use a more subtle but more flexible concept than "beta / non beta", and this concept is commonly known as "release notes".
Here, it takes the form of a full blog post explaining what changed, what's new, and what's not working.

If you cannot read release notes, don't use releases directly, wait for someone who can read to make the packaging choices for you.

[TheBlackCat]

Oh, so this isn't only about despising visual design, but also about not understanding the meaning of "official release". If your software isn't "completely usable", you release a beta. Software Development 101.

No, "official release" means "API stable", not "feature complete". You must be new to the open-source world. Tons of open-source x.0.0 releases are chosen done when the API is stable but the software is not feature-complete or necessarily even 100% stable. Take Gnome, Wayland, etc.

If you actually look at the semantic version numbering spec, which KDE follows, you will see that nowhere does is say that an x.0.0 release has to be completely stable, it just says it has to be API stable: http://semver.org/

[zanny]

I must ask, will there be a dark window theme for breeze like the plasma theme? For one thing i'm always annoyed that there are really very few dark themes that are easy on the eyes that actually look good and work.

Also thanks for all your hard work and all other developers on KDE, really impressed on how well each release gets. Gonna try the RC out sooner or later on Arch and gonna post bugs for multi-monitor issues =)

Best Regards

There has always been Obsidian Coat in the base color theme set. It isn't a black theme, but it is a dark one. And I know Ember is really popular, and thet guy that made that made a flatter version called Hex for Plasma 5.

I do agree they should have (mostly) color inverted versions of their white themes in the stock releases, though.

[Nobu]

300 differences, where?

I'm pretty sure he said "300 places". His meaning being, you can find the "list of changes" all over the place, on various websites, etc..