FOSSwire

An interesting trend I've noticed over the years is the thought process of how users install applications. Most of the time, a KDE user installing an application won't care what the application uses or what desktop it is designed for. They just simply install the application, use it, and get on with life.

The thoughts are different with the average GNOME user, however. A lot of times, when installing software, many GNOME users check to make sure the application was made for GNOME (GTK) before installing it. Why? In most cases, it is because the application will look different and won't fit in with the others on their system.

And with good reason. A bad looking interface is enough to pull anyone away from an application. Obviously, these Qt applications will look fine on KDE, but it's time to bring the love over to the GNOME desktop.

Qt 3

While there is no way to match a Qt3 theme exactly to your GTK theme, there are ways to tweak it to make it look presentable. One of these methods is by installing the QtCurve theme for KDE, which gives applications a more "GTK" look and feel. (If you really want to take it far, there is also a version of QtCurve for GTK.)

Once you install QtCurve, you could edit some configuration files to make the theme take effect, but the easiest (and most complete) way is to simply install kcontrol. Yes, that means bringing in a bunch of KDE dependencies, but don't worry, we'll fix that later.

Run kcontrol, either from Alt+F2 or in a terminal, and expand Appearance & Themes on the left sidebar. First, open the Style dialog. Under Widget Style, select QtCurve from the dropdown menu. You can also select another Qt theme if you think it more closely resembeles your GTK theme.

Next up are the icons. In the same section (Appearance & Themes), visit the Icons panel. Select Tango from the list, and finally hit Apply. Your KDE applications should now look almost the same as everything else on your system.

But, we're not done. Unless you want your system menu to be cluttered with a bunch of KControl options, you'll want to remove it (and extra dependencies, if any). Okay, now you're done, unless you want to configure Qt4 applications. If you do, continue on down.

Qt 4 and KDE 4

Thankfully, Trolltech saw the lack of integration from Qt 3. While a theme is available to integrate GTK apps into KDE, the reverse never existed. With the introduction of QGtkStyle, GNOME users will be able to enjoy KDE applications on their system and never feel out of place. QGtkStyle is not available for any distribution yet, but you are free to download the source and configure it using the same instructions as above, except by using qtconfig instead of kcontrol.

That's all you'll need for a nicer, better integrating desktop. It may be a bit of a pain to set up, but the end experience is worth it. Enjoy.

Tumblr is a popular mini-blogging service. Wikipedia defines a tumblelog as:

... a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video.

The service is pretty neat if you're in to quickly sharing your thoughts and creations in this way, but if you want to share something really really quickly, and not have to go through a web browser and log in, you might be out of luck.

Kumblr is a desktop application written in Python (and aimed at KDE users) that provides a simple, but functional interface to post text to your Tumblog.

Download the source and extract the package. Launching the application is a simple case of double-clicking the kumblr.py file.

Once you're launched, you just enter your Tumblr details on this screen:

And once you have done that, you see the main screen.

As I've mentioned, the interface is extremely simple. All you have to do is choose the type of posting you are making (text only at the moment, but quotes and links are supported as well as plain text) and click the Submit button.

This is an incredibly simple application and thus there's not much to say about it, but it really does the job. If you want to shave valuable seconds off posting time to Tumblr, or just want an even easier way to get your thoughts out there with no clutter, Kumblr will serve you well.

Manslide is Qt-based application for making slideshows out of a set of images on Linux.

You're unlikely to find it in any package manager right now, so you'll need to download the binary package, extract it and then run ./Manslide.

The first time you launch it, the introduction screen will be in French.

Fair enough, I suppose, and it is easy enough to switch it into your preferred language, or leave it as it is if you wish as well. After you've done that, and selected an output directory for your slideshows, you restart the program and can get started.

Unfortunately, if you are using the English language version, you'll notice that the English translation isn't all that good; there are spelling mistakes and grammar issues sprinkled liberally throughout the interface.

While we're on the subject of the interface, personally I find it a little strange. The tabs across the top - Project, Pictures, Parameters and Sound feel like they should be different sections that you can dip in and out of to tweak settings as and when you like. Instead, they actually are sequential steps, one has to come after another.

Once you have got into the Pictures section though, you find the folder of images you want, and then select them and choose Insert Slides. The pictures you picked then go into the timeline at the bottom.

The Parameters and Soundtrack tabs give you options to set different visual settings on a per-photo and set music to your slideshow. Once you're done putting it together, you then go to Export and you can export your slideshow out to MPEG2, Flash Video, XviD and several other formats.

Exporting takes some time, and once it had finished (I left the default setting as MPEG2), Manslide kindly offered to play me back the file. I agreed, but my finished slideshow movie simply flashed on and off the screen, and didn't play. Subsequent attempts to manually find the file I'd made also failed (whether this was on my part or because the application threw it away, I'm not sure).

I made a second attempt at doing the same slideshow in XviD format and had the same issues - the playback would not work, and then the actual video file would be nowhere to be seen.

Manslide could potentially be a very useful application, and creating slideshow movies from a set of images is a formidable task. Unfortunately, I can't come to any other conclusion than to say that Manslide isn't there yet, and it can't really do its job in an intuitive way. The interface is quirky and confusing and doesn't integrate very well with any other applications on a typical Linux desktop or work in the same way. But aside from that, I couldn't actually manage to get a useful result from the program at all!

As far as I'm aware, the application has also dropped out of active development, so it seems unlikely that this will change unless another developer takes up the reins.

It's a shame, because an application designed well to solve this problem could be a very good tool for a Linux or Unix desktop.