The State Of KDE Plasma For Summer 2017

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The State Of KDE Plasma For Summer 2017

Last week was KDE's annual Akademy conference where developers and enthusiasts came together to recap the past year of KDE software development as well as some of what's ahead...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=State-Of-Plasma-Summer-2017

[bug77]

HiDPI support is one thing I can't wrap my head around. I mean it seems to be so complicated, yet Plasma has supported vector graphics for some time (just look at how panel can scale). Wouldn't it be easier to use vector graphics everywhere and be done with it? And yes, I understand there's the odd embedded image here and there that you can't display nicely, but HiDPi support is mostly about text. And text can be vectorized (I'd say rather easily, but I'm not really sure).

[schmidtbag]

HiDPI support is one thing I can't wrap my head around. I mean it seems to be so complicated, yet Plasma has supported vector graphics for some time (just look at how panel can scale). Wouldn't it be easier to use vector graphics everywhere and be done with it? And yes, I understand there's the odd embedded image here and there that you can't display nicely, but HiDPi support is mostly about text. And text can be vectorized (I'd say rather easily, but I'm not really sure).

I'm inclined to agree, but there has to be some reason why it's so difficult. To my knowledge, window decorations, panels, text, mouse pointers, and most icons are already vectors, or at least highly scalable. Perhaps Qt widgets have scaling issues? Or maybe the problem is figuring out a way to get everything to scale based on a single number?

[oldgaro]

My beloved KDE, great days back there. Hope all the best for those guys! ...

[bug77]

I'm inclined to agree, but there has to be some reason why it's so difficult. To my knowledge, window decorations, panels, text, mouse pointers, and most icons are already vectors, or at least highly scalable. Perhaps Qt widgets have scaling issues? Or maybe the problem is figuring out a way to get everything to scale based on a single number?

Well, I'm not sure difficulty is the main problem here. It's not supporting HiDPI has been a walk in the park so far. Like you, there must be some reason, but I haven't figured it out yet (I'm sure KDE developers are loosing sleep over this).

[bosjc]

From what I have read, it seems to be a limitation in X - it can only support whole number scaling (i.e. 2x 3x), which is what GTK/Gnome had implemented, vs KDE that was able to hack in non-whole number scaling (1.5x, etc). Plasma also then has to make sure the scale factor is set for everything - not just QT5, but GTK3 and any other toolkit that supports it. Lastly, QT4/GTK2 and before don't support scaling at all. So, yeah, I think its a pretty easy problem conceptually until you start dealing with the underlying subsystems that weren't designed for it (X) and the complexity of multiple toolkits that all do their own thing.

[bug77]

From what I have read, it seems to be a limitation in X - it can only support whole number scaling (i.e. 2x 3x), which is what GTK/Gnome had implemented, vs KDE that was able to hack in non-whole number scaling (1.5x, etc). Plasma also then has to make sure the scale factor is set for everything - not just QT5, but GTK3 and any other toolkit that supports it. Lastly, QT4/GTK2 and before don't support scaling at all. So, yeah, I think its a pretty easy problem conceptually until you start dealing with the underlying subsystems that weren't designed for it (X) and the complexity of multiple toolkits that all do their own thing.

I've never heard of that X limitation (not saying it's not there) and I believe nobody will object to HiDPI support that doesn't handle Qt4 or GTK2. But yeah, KDE developers are usually careful about how GTK apps look in KDE.

[Thaodan]

I'm inclined to agree, but there has to be some reason why it's so difficult. To my knowledge, window decorations, panels, text, mouse pointers, and most icons are already vectors, or at least highly scalable. Perhaps Qt widgets have scaling issues? Or maybe the problem is figuring out a way to get everything to scale based on a single number?

If found this blog post, that explains the issues with scaling very good.

https://blog.hetzenecker.me/2017-06-25-gsoc-preparation-plasma/

[schmidtbag]

If found this blog post, that explains the issues with scaling very good.
https://blog.hetzenecker.me/2017-06-...ration-plasma/

Thanks for sharing the link - that really does do a good job explaining the situation. What a headache, but, it seems like a good chunk of that ought to be a one-time fix. I'm not entirely sure if I'm right about that though.

[bug77]

Thanks for sharing the link - that really does do a good job explaining the situation. What a headache, but, it seems like a good chunk of that ought to be a one-time fix. I'm not entirely sure if I'm right about that though.

Yeah, it's definitely not a one-time fix, because plasma 5.10 is already out and that fix would render the whole summer plans moot.
On the other hand, it there are problems figuring out sizes, I guess my idea of going full svg wouldn't work either, because you'd still need box sizes for vectors. Maybe it's possible after computing sizes is figured out?

Thaodan What's with posting useful, on topic links in the forums, are you trying to get a bad rep? Joking aside, thanks for the link.