Blue Blazer

庆祝中期考试结束，今天给Ark加入了lzma支持 ：）
http://tukaani.org/xz/

由于Ark有libarchive插件，我其实只需要支持解压纯的.xz和.lzma了。。

KDE目前从核心库到应用程序都支持lzma压缩算法了。
kdelibs （KXzFilter）， kdebase， ark...

.xz, .lzma, .tar.lzma

PS1:
lzma是libarchive的可选依赖，自己编译下libarchive也可以命令行做这种事情了：
tar cfa aabb.tar.lzma abcde/

PS2:
测试了一下，压缩时间、解压时间、压缩率都优于gz、bzip2，缺点是内存占用很吓人，大一点的文件一般都占用几百MB内存，我压kernel src时候居然要占用650多MB，看了一下代码发现他的最大内存占用阀值＝所有内存／3

Hello, i've hesitated to put this blog post on KDE, afraid being told this is a crazy idea.Finally i'm open for challenges, at least this post shows an idea.

Plasma is maturing, more widgets have been added. As a result it enables some other possiblites.

Recently i've seen the beauty of Ribbon UI in Office 14 and Windows 7.
And googling the Ribbon UI on Linux, found two implementations:
GTK# version in Mono:

It seems to be (maybe intended to be) 1-1 copy of M$'s Ribbon UI, where's their creativities?

Vtk designer's menustrip:

Looks OK ,and that's all. It's just bigger icons on a bar.....

Not satisfied with the above two, i'm writing my own:

My Korat::MenuBar's Features:

• Adaptive layout according to width (use own greedy relaxing algorithm), similar to M$'s Ribbon UI.
• Users are very easy to wrap their graphics widgets to be adaptive layoutable. You just need to provide only three other functions (typedef QList WeightList;):
  • QList availableWidths();
    
  • qreal getWidth(const WeightList &);
  • void adjustWidth(const WeightList &);
• Use plasma extensively: theme, palette, Plasma::IconWidget, Plasma::LineEdit etc....,

Pics comming....
Widest：

Medium:

Narrow:

Too narrow, scroll button appears:


Also i'm thinking of bringing more powers and beauties of plasma and graphics model/view to normal widget based application, so i start a Korat UI project(plan):

Its goal is to provide a normal QWidget - Korat::MainWindow,
which correctly provide a view on a QGraphicsWidget - Korat::MainWindowGraphics

Feature plan of Korat::MainWindow:

1. Fully QGraphicsWidget based, goes deeper on the way that Plasma::Dialog do, correctly manage the layout for you (handle spacing, margins, theme change etc...), It's auto themed according to your plasma theme, provide animated layout(Kinetic ?), and other animation effects.
   
2. Integrate KRunner into the main window. Application and its plugins can provide its own krunner plugin, the main window manage/merge them, To quickly search this application's actions, help info, quickly tag the document etc... anything that krunner can do. (You can see from my above pics, there's a filter button and a lineedit besides the tabbar, that's it).
   
3. Ribbon like menubar as i mentioned above, but merge the application and its plugins' sub actions( maybe need to extend kde's xml gui somehow )
   
4. Provide optional Drawers on four corners of central graphics widget, optional Docks on four edges of central graphics widget. Manage their position,size,layout to ease your programming .
   
5. A statusbar(notification area) on bottom.

The Korat::MainWindow's base architecture is done and the Ribbon like Menubar is nearly finished (some scrolling bugs not fixed yet).

Future plan:

1. brainstorm and implement the Drawer, Dock, StatusBar.
2. Port(hack) my own version of KJots to use this UI, since it's one of my favourite KDE application, so it deserves to have a beautiful and easy to use GUI.
   
3. Experiment XML Gui support.
   

Source code under trunk/playground/base/plasma/widgets/koratbar

Thanks for reading, finally a pic for "korat“ , kudos for plasma developers.

Sth. about Portable Meta-Information storage with File Forks/Resource Forks.

Portable meta-information has been discussed twice recently on planetkde:
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3923
http://zwabel.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/portable-meta-information/

Portable meta information can be thought as File's meta information is not stored centrally (they may still be indexed in a central database to optimize query).

It introduces some benefits:

1. You can transfer the files around without loose the meta informations, I only concern move files locally now.

2. When you re-install your system or your central database broken, as long as your files are still there, their meta information aren't lost.

3. Everything is file, as long as we standardlize the file format, apps/libraries needn't to learn nepomuk query, manipulate database to perform basic meta info operation (like backup, remove etc....)

My thought is realistic:
1. Will nepomuk really be more usable with portable/distributed stored meta information ?
I don't know much of nepomuk's server implementations, afaik it seems use a central database to index/store these information, so I've a question to ask : when user move his file to another local folder, will the file's meta information get lost , updated later(next time to index) or updated instantly (use inotify )? The first result(lost) is totally un acceptable, the second is OK, but nepomuk's value/power will be limited, the third is good, just stick to central storage.

2. How to implement it ?
someone has suggested to use side-car file, other suggested xattr.
There is a seems better way to implement it : file forks/resource forks (not process fork),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(filesystem)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork
It's invented by Apple , store text file's encoding, applications' icon ...

Quote:
Apple's HFS, and the original Apple Macintosh file system MFS, were designed to allow a file to have a resource fork to store metadata that would be used by the system's graphical user interface (GUI), such as a file's icon to be used by the Finder or the menus and dialog boxes associated with an application.

It tightly bonded/embed to a file unlike side-car file, but also bypass the size limit of xattrs(Extended File Attributes), the size limit is the largest file you can create, and you can also assign serveral meta info file to one file.
This is a practise proof method,but only modern filesystem support it:
Only Apple's HFS, Microsoft's NTFS, Solaris's ZFS has full support.

And extensively used by Apple(store all sorts of metadata) and Microsoft(store its system backup related infomation, security control info).

Something need to mention, that Mac OS X's unix command line utilities (cp, mv, ....) can handle file with resource/file forks correctly. And Microsoft name it alternate data stream (ADS).

You can refer their dev docs to see how they design the api.

Oops the main linux file system, ext2/3/4, XFS, JFS... doesn't support it well.

3. Is it possible/hard to implement it under linux ? (you can skip the following paragraphs if you're not interested in implementing such things in kernel)

In my personal opinion, not hard indeed, i want :) and asume it to be implemented in VFS level (so all sorts of filesystem beneath this level gain support).
The simplest way is to add a "dentry" to each "general inode", that from the filesystem's view(not user visible), a regular file can be associated with a "directory" too, all metadata files resides under that "directory".
like this:
/home/xx/xxx/a.jpeg ----> nepomuk.xml

user.encoding

user.img.source.url

....
And make getfattr/setfattr related system call to lookup that dentry too, this method also remains backward compatible with xattrs (Extended file attributes), but remove the size limit put on them.

Or we can add new system call like getfmeta/setfmeta ....

Of course, we need more analysis/profiling to say sth. on the memory/time performance.
:) Just make a predication, the extra memory requirement it introduces(an extra "dentry" pointer) is affordable, and there's no/very subtle extra time needed by open/write ..regular system call, and it will be fast than create side-car files, since we needn't to create/open the side-car files from user space and pollute a directory with side-car file per data file, kernel handles it ..

Also need some security concerns.

Anyway, to implement portable meta information, i think we need support from underline library/filesystem/architecture.

4. This method's disadvantages:

a.We have no POSIX standard to define the API, and Apple's HFS, Microsoft's NTFS and Solaris's ZFS use different api for similar functionalities. We may need to abstract the api to make KDE cross platform.

b.No major filesystems under linux provide file forks / resources forks support now. Need to implement it or make feature requirement.

c.We can't directly associate a xml as a file's meta info, since xml is not an appendable format, data corruption may happens when we update this file's meta info while user eject the source disk, suddenly power goes off ,etc.......... These problems need to be solved if we want to support portable/distributed meta information.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading..

Regards,

修补了Amarok2编码检测的bug.........
Amarok2可以像千千静听那样显示歌词了，
感谢Sanfanling的IrcShow-X，So cool
把IrcShow-X通过XEmbed集成进了amarok2的Context View,
理论上可以将符合XEmbed规范的任意窗口(甚至Firefox, Openoffice)嵌入到Amarok2中去 ：）



Amarok2中的Dolphin文件浏览器 ：）


Google在Chrome里声称的“安全”的沙盒技术也是基于这个原理，
每个Tab是单独的进程，浏览器进程也是独立出来的，
Linux下的实现每个Tab通过XEmbed或其他组件技术？嵌入到浏览器中，
而浏览器通过Socket或dbus等IPC手段控制Tab,
这样任何个Tab挂掉或被恶意脚本“攻陷”都理论上不会挂掉/影响浏览器进程，
而浏览器进程挂掉的话，各个Tab就自动变成单个单个的窗口：）

Hello, i've implement gnome's global menu in Bespin's XBar.
Now xbar users can get global menu both for GTK and Qt4 applications.
Pics comming....
Gnome's Epiphany web browser:

KOffice2's Krita application:

I just dumplicate the mail and add some more pics :)
Moved to kdereview/plasma/applets/

It's mainly an applet for input methods, so that persons use difference input methods can share the same user interface and the unified systemsettings input method configure integration.
And also include a standalone application and a control module for systemsettings now.

Its main features:

• Multiple backend support, currently support SCIM and IBus(1.1.0+ version)
• Able to float out and embbed into panel dynamically, The floating statusbar(a qwidget) is just a view on the same qgraphicswidget.
• Skin support:
  1. You can choose the skin to follow current plasma theme, then it will auto switch skin when user change plasma theme.
  2. Use custom theme, support install theme from Get Hot New Stuff
  3. Internally use javascript to layout svg, enable the abilities to do adaptive svg layout and "theme" the layout.
• KCModule based configure, config pages for ui, backends are combined to one dialog.
• Provide a standalone version with floating statusbar only if you don't want to add the applet to panel.
  

Its design is simple, just provide a dbus service for input methods
Backends(SCIM,IBus, fcitx ...) <-------->dbus<---------->kimpanel (org.kde.impanel)
communicate by signals only.

Currently the above features are finished, Except:

• Only one kcmodule for ui now, haven't provide kcmodule for backend,
• The kcmodule is working, but lack help text, theme auto preview , other eyecandies........
• The extra two themes are only make for horizontal statusbar and horizontal candidate window layout only, but default theme fully working.
  

And it's also stable now, no crashes in my everyday use.

The backend need to be configured before test this applet, see backend/scim/README and backend/ibus/README
You can even mix use SCIM and IBus for different types of programs(eg. scim for qt, IBus for xim and gtk), but you still have the same user interface
and can't tell the difference without looking at their logo icon.

I'd like to include it in KDE 4.3 but it will be soft freeze is in early April,
So i think i have to ask for review now.

Pics comming

As my first post, first say hello to everyone :)

Want a fancy input method user interface?
Want to put it inside your panel ?

I'm currently writing a plasma applet for input method, which enables different input methods (scim etc..) to share same unified user interface under KDE.
Its main features are there and with a fully working scim backend.
Have a look at some pics:

• Not a new input method, user interface only.
  
• DBus-based, signal only backend<->user interface communicate
  
• Svg themed, currently theme according to your plasma theme.
• Layout to try to make the icon as large as possible under certain size.
  
• Can expand/collapse from an applet to widget.
  

Its user interface is modern and highly integrated to KDE, which give you better user experience when typing text.
And it also break the situation which we only have gtk based input method now whose user interface is designed without concern KIG, KDE integration ...

The source code is under playground/base/plasma/applets/kimpanel
If you're a CJK person whom use input method a lot, have a try ！

对scim呆板的界面厌烦了，对gtk不怎么感冒。
想要一个漂亮的能和系统主题相适应的输入法面板。

于是自己写了一个:）

• 支持透明，支持采用Svg来作皮肤。KDE4 下面根据当前桌面(Plasma)主题自动换皮肤、和文字配色方案。还能根据你是否启用桌面效果调整外观。
• 图形界面和后端是分开的，将来支持ibus也是可以做到的。
• 简洁小巧，图形界面程序只有68k大，scim后端支持程序只有176k大小。
  

默认Oxygen主题下效果

Clean Blend主题下效果