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Kommander v1.0Alpha series
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Eric Laffoon <sequitur@kde.org>
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Kommander is a visual dialog building tool which may be expanded to create
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full mainwindow applications. The primary objective is to create as much
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functionality as possible without using any scripting language. This is
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provided by the following features:
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* Specials - these are prefaced with an "@" like @widgetText. The offer
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special features like the value of a widget, functions, aliases, global
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variables and such.
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* DCOP integration - this allows Kommander dialogs to control and be
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controled in interactions with other KDE applicatins. It is a very powerful
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feature!
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* Signals and Slots - this is a little less intuitive to a new user. It is
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under review for how we process things in the first major release. These
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offer a limited event model for when a button is pushed or a widget is
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changed. Combined with "Population Text" it is rather powerful.
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The central key feature of Kommander dialogs is that you can bind text
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(Kommander Text) to a widget. So if you have @widget1 and @widget2 and
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they are line edits you can set Kommander to show their contents by
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entering @widgetText in their Kommander Text area. Then enter hello in
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@widget1 and world in @widget2. A button can have the string
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My first @widget1 @widget2 program in Kommander
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If you run this dialog from a console it will output
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My first hello world program in Kommander
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Hopefully you begin to see a small glimmering of the potential. Kommander
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enables a much faster design model for simple applications because if allows
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you to stop thinking so much about language and revert to the more basic and
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natural conceptual model. In computers language is a means to define concepts
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and as such it is a layer between concept and implementation that can impede
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progress with minutia. Kommander seeks to minimize that layer.
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Kommander also seeks to build on standards. It is built on the Qt Designer
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framework and creates *.ui files which it renames to *.kmdr. It can easily
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import any KDE widget and this can be done without having to rebuild
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Kommander, by using plugins.
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Kommander's other significant factor is how it addresses the requirements of
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language. Computer languages can be wonderful things but they tend to have
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their own dogmas and zealots often seeking to provide an advance to GUI
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design in an integrated development environment. Ironically the accpetance
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of such IDEs is limited by the number of people willing to adopt a new new
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language to gain access to a desired feature. It is really not reasonable to
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expect people to need to change over to a dozen languages to access various
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feature sets. By being language neutral and allowing a Kommander dialog to be
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extended by using any scripting language Kommander positions it's self in a
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unique position for wide spread adoption. Multiple script languages can be
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used in a single dialog and applications can be taken over by people using
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a different language than the original developer and gradually converting
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and extending it. New widgets and featurs can be instantly leveraged by all
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available languages.
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We hope that Kommander begins to get the developer support and recognition
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required to achieve the potential it offers. Our end goal is to make Kommander
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useful for novice users to extend and merge their applications. At the same
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time it should become a good prototyping tool. Also it opens the door to the
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promise of open source in a new way. We know that people can extend our GPL'd
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prgrams, but the fact remains very few have the skills. With Kommander those
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numbers see a huge multiplier! Some applications may be most logical as a
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Kommander application. We already use it in areas we want to allow
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extensibility in Quanta Plus.
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We hope you enjoy Kommander. Please help us with bug reports and example
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dialogs, as well as any requests you may have. You can join our user list
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for help developing Kommander applications at
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http://mail.tdewebdev.org/mailman/listinfo/kommander
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Best Regards from the Kommander development team!
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