KDE's Configuration Options
For the longest time (since Netscape’s beginnings) I’ve been a Mozilla user. First it was Netscape Navigator. Then the Netscape web server. Then it was Communicator followed by Mozilla. And now I’m a Firefox user. But recently, I’ve been frequently using KDE-integrated apps, more so due to my discovery of “fish://” last month. As such, I’ve been trying to rediscover Konqueror, which for the longest time, sucked. Okay, sucked might be a bit harsh so let’s just say that it wasn’t at all up to par when compared to the equivilent Mozilla-based product.
By default, both Konqueror and Firefox ask you if you want to save your passwords when you access a website with a login of sorts. I’m not big on saving my passwords so I never say yes and in Firefox there is an option to simply turn off asking altogether. On Monday, as I attempted to fall in love with Konqueror all over again, I tried to find a similar option in Konqueror. But alas I could not find one. But I did remember discovering last month that one of the KDE developers, Aaron, lives in Calgary, so I sent him an email. His solution? Disable KDE’s KWallet system. That would be fine except that I do use the KWallet for a couple other apps so turning it off isn’t going to work.
But the good news out of this is that Aaron stopped by my work unexpectedly to check out what Zymeta is doing, since are device runs on Linux and pretty much all the development desktops run KDE. And after talking to Aaron and getting the feeling from him that a fix would be possible, I submitted a bug requesting an option to turn off password asking.
The other thing that came out of all this is that I explored every possible configuration option that KDE has to offer and I’ve decided that KDE’s configuration options need some work. In some cases the options need work because there is no such option (like I mentioned above) and in other cases the options are poorly worded or documented. Konqueror 3.4, according to the changlelog, now allows you to open a link in a new tab by click on the middle-mouse button. This is a good example of a poorly labeled option. Konqueror labels the checkbox for this as “Open links in new tab instead of new window”, which to me doesn’t sounds like it has anything to do with middle mouse clicks. I had planned to rant more about this but Aaron tells me that the KDE people are all over that kind of thing for KDE 4 (among other radical changes).
Wed, 11 May 2005 17:41 Posted in Linux
