After a couple of weeks or so of having KDE 4.0.0 installed, which has already been upgraded to 4.0.1 thanks to the speedy Kubuntu packagers, I thought I'd post a few screenshots to show what it looks like. As I mentioned in this previous post, though the desktop is looking good, many of the applications are not quite there yet. However, I was still very pleasantly surprised to find a dark background colour scheme available in the default installation. The scheme is much better than my own incrementally built fairly dark scheme for KDE 3. These screenshots are then in KDE 4's new dark scheme, "Obsidian Coast". You can view the full size screenshots by clicking on them.

Firstly, let's take a look at a basic KDE 4 desktop. The new panel is sitting at the bottom (where until 4.0.2, later in February, hopefully, it seems it shall remain) and there's a clock widget sitting at the top left. Here I'm using the new file manager Dolphin to look at some photos.

Now, there's been a lot of controversy over the introduction of Dolphin into KDE, and its position as the default file manager. In KDE 4, the original Konqueror file managing code has gone, but the Dolphin KPart can be run inside Konqueror to allow the latter to still be used as a file manager. One very useful (in my opinion) feature of this is that you can still use tabs for file management, or indeed a mix of file browsers, web pages and SFTP connections in one Konqueror window. This has been one of the best features of Konqueror since it was introduced, allowing the logical grouping of windows according to task. This next screenshot shows the same view as before but in Konqueror, with the tab bar visible.

As I've already alluded to, one of the new things KDE 4 offers is its deskop, Plasma. This is a completely new thing, built out of the desktop widget idea which Superkaramba showcased in KDE 3. Apple OSX also has a similar thing. The desktop and the panel can be populated with various widgets, called plasmoids. The weird looking splash of paint in the top right is the button to add more plasmoids to the desktop. In this next shot, the splash of paint has been clicked, and it's asking me which widgets I'd like to add. There area quite a few available already, and they're incredibly quick and easy to write, in pretty much any language you like from HTML to C++. Here, I've dragged the "comic strip" plasmoid onto the desktop, and it's automatically pulled in the latest edition of whichever comic strip it's pre-configured to from the internet.

As I said, there are lots of plasmoids available, which can each be freely moved, resized, and rotated.

For those people (like me) who use the terminal regularly, Yakuake has been very nicely ported to KDE 4, and it's now got proper transparency. Take a look at this next screenshot.

The compositing features of the new version of the window manager, KWin extend all across the desktop environment, including dimming out-of-focus windows and the OSX style window switcher.

The launcher has also been completely redesigned, with menus behaving rather like they do on the iPod (I'm not sure what I think about this yet). There's also a search box, which I've found very handy in case you can't remember whether something was hidden away in "utilities", "system" or "settings".

KDE 4 comes with a good selection of silly addictive games too. Remember the Simon Says game?

We were looking at images in Dolphin and Konqueror eariler, but KDE 4 comes with a newly revamped Gwenview too. The browse mode, shown here, with its associated panel (on the right of the window) makes organising pictures a lot easier.

One of the most demonstrated programs in KDE 4 has to be KStars, a "desktop planetarium". This really is an excellent program, realistically simulating and labelling the night sky from any given location and time. Okay, so I haven't actually checked it against the real night sky. I live in Birmingham, and the light pollution has created this sorry state when I have to check my computer to see what I should be able to see from here... KStars also makes use of "Get New Hot Stuff", which apart from having a really cheesy name, integrates the finding and downloading of add-ons directly into the program. It works for desktop themes, backgrounds, maps and, here, planetarium data files, such as the locations of comets.

Well, that's all for now. KDE 4 is available for Ubuntu / Kubuntu, and will install alongside your existing KDE 3 or GNOME, without interfering with any of your current settings. Take a look here to find out how. There area also live CDs available from SUSE and Kubuntu.

For those of us living in my particular hemisphere, there was a total lunar eclipse last night.

Of course, I couldn't resist the temptation to get the camera out, so here are some photos I took, showing the different stages of it.

I'm actually amazed by how many eclipses there apparently are. eclipse.org.uk has a nice little feature which will tell you when other upcoming eclipses are. According to the site, there will be another total lunar eclipse in August of this year, as well as two partial solar eclipses this year alone. Lots more camera fodder.... yum!