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102 lines
5.7 KiB
102 lines
5.7 KiB
<chapter id="what-is-kde">
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<chapterinfo
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><date
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>2002-01-18</date
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> <releaseinfo
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>3.00.00</releaseinfo
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> </chapterinfo>
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<title
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>What is &kde;?</title>
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<anchor id="whatiskde"/>
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<sect1 id="what-is-kde-introduction">
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<title
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>What is &kde;?</title>
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<para
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>&kde; is a desktop environment. In other words, &kde; is a collection of programs, technologies and documentation that attempt to make life easier for computer users. &kde; is targeted at &UNIX; workstations. It features network transparency and a contemporary work philosophy. </para>
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<para
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>The creators of the K Desktop Environment are a world-wide group of software engineers. This group's major goal in free software development is to provide high quality software that empowers the user with easy control of his computer's resources.</para>
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<para
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>&kde; seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for &UNIX; workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under &MacOS; or &Windows; 95/NT. &kde; meets the requirement of users for an easy to use work environment. Tools used to reach this end are: enhanced inter-application communication, component reuse, global drag and drop, uniform look and feel and many more. Thus, &kde; offers much more than the traditional &UNIX; window managers.</para>
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<para
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>Stability, scaleability and openness are qualities which have made &UNIX; the undisputed choice for the information technology professional for many years. &kde; builds on top of this excellent base framework and brings new, much needed qualities: usability, user friendliness and beauty! &kde; was the first, and stays the forefront player in bringing these qualities to &UNIX;, which constituted for years, the premier platform for server computers and scientific institutions, but wasn't very attractive for desktop users.</para>
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<para
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>Without &UNIX; the Internet would not exist, or at least would have a vastly different form. &UNIX; has not, until now, addressed the needs of the average computer user. This fact is particularly unfortunate, since a number of implementations of &UNIX; (<ulink url="http://www.linux.org"
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>&Linux;</ulink
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>, <ulink url="http://www.freebsd.org"
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>FreeBSD</ulink
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>, <ulink url="http://www.netbsd.org"
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>NetBSD</ulink
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>, &etc;) are freely available on the Internet, all of which are of exceptional quality and stability. </para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-desktop">
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<title
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>&kde; The Desktop Environment</title>
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<para
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>In combination with a free implementation of &UNIX;, &kde; provides to the world an open and completely free desktop computing platform either at home or at work.</para>
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<para
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>This platform is available to anyone free of charge including its source code for anyone to modify.</para>
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<para
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>While there will always be room for improvement we believe we have now delivered a viable alternative to some of the more commonly found and commercial operating systems/desktops combinations available today. It is our hope that the combination of &UNIX; and &kde; will finally bring the same open, reliable, stable, and monopoly free computing to the average computer user that scientists and computing professionals world-wide have enjoyed for years. </para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-development-framework">
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<title
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>&kde; The Application Development Framework</title>
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<para
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>&kde; focuses on the user's needs, but it's obvious that this focus is more easily achieved by also giving developers the best tools. &kde; code contains, and comes with, some of the best development technologies of the modern computing age.</para>
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<para
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>Authoring applications under &UNIX;/X11 used to be an extremely tedious and labour intensive process. &kde; recognises the fact that a computing platform is only as good as the number of first class applications available to the users of that particular platform.</para>
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<para
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>&kde; defines new technologies in &DCOP; and KParts, created to offer a component document model and technology. Together with the complete &kde; libraries programming interface, &DCOP;/KParts are set in direct competition with other similar technologies like &Microsoft; <abbrev
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>MFC</abbrev
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>/<abbrev
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>COM</abbrev
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>/ActiveX technologies. The excellent quality and the high level of refinement of &kde;'s application programming interface (<acronym
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>API</acronym
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>) enables developers to focus on original and interesting issues and avoid reinventing the wheel.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-office-suite">
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<title
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>&kde; The Office Application Suite</title>
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<para
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>In its current form, &kde; provides, apart from the essential desktop component applications, a suite of powerful office programs known to the world by the name &koffice;.</para>
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<para
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>&koffice; is based on the &kde; &DCOP;/KParts technologies. It currently contains: a word processor with desktop publishing capabilities (&kword;), a spreadsheet application (&kspread;) and accompanying charting program (&kchart;), a presentation program (&kpresenter;) and a vector drawing program (&kontour;). Tying things together is the <application
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>KOffice Workspace</application
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>, an integrated shell to ease the use of the &koffice; components in conjunction with each other. Additional components include an email client, a news reader, and a powerful <abbrev
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>PIM</abbrev
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> (Personal Information Manager - an organiser).</para>
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<para
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>While some of those components are still in alpha development, others are already extremely powerful. For example, &kpresenter;, &kde;'s presentation application, was successfully used at the 5th International &Linux; Congress in Cologne, Germany to deliver a &kde; presentation. </para>
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<para
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>We would like to invite you to <ulink url="http://www.kde.org"
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>learn more about &kde;</ulink
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> and <ulink url="http://koffice.kde.org"
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>&koffice;</ulink
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>.</para>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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