Any avid followers of the weather wallpaper probably noticed that in KDE 4.3.80 the weather wallpaper configuration page sported an “Advanced…” button that opened up a dialog that looked something like this:
You may have also noticed, as attentive as you are, that the custom-wallpaper-for-different-weathers feature does not work. π¦
The story behind that is that this summer right after trunk opened after KDE 4.3 I committed the initial code for that dialog and then went on a road trip with the family. I knew that the code had a few bugs in it, and it didn’t save the custom pairings at all, but figured I would get around to fixing it later. The trip was over in a week or two, but I found myself busy over the summer and fall with one thing or the other, and pretty soon it was KDE 4.4 beta time. Well, I wish I had gotten around to fixing it before KDE SC 4.3.80, but I didn’t and nothing can change that. The good news is that things should work reasonably better for KDE SC 4.4 beta 2.
The Good News ™
The bug where the custom wallpaper only changes in the wallpaper preview is still there, but your custom changes are saved and will take effect next time plasma-desktop is started. Sucks I know. π¦ That’s the one bug I really need to fix before KDE SC 4.4.0. But other than that things work much better, and the advanced config dialog even sets the weather condition combobox to the current weather condition. In KDE SC 4.4 beta2 the weather wallpaper will also have integration with the sexy new KNewStuff3 for getting custom wallpapers. π
The Future
Unfortunately since I’ve procrastinated until after string freeze I’m not able to copy the advances that the regular “Image” wallpaper plugin has made in its config dialog. π¦ For KDE 4.5 I plan to scrap the advanced dialog entirely and smartly incorporate what was in the advanced dialog into the main dialog with some smarter layouting.
So, KDE SC 4.4 is going to rock, and SC 4.5 is going to rock even harder, though that shouldn’t surprise anybody. π
P.S. Right before I posted I realized that I forgot to use “SC” in every instance of KDE, and had to go back and add it to all of them. π
Jonathan's Blog 
You missed one π For KDE 4.5
a short comment on “kde rocks”:
kde really has a lot of good features and technology on board.
what it doesn’t have is a consistant interface design – i mean apps and dialogues. (see the example above).
not properly layed out interfaces just give the impression, that s.th. isn’t reliable or controlable.
for the above example: why not putting each category into its own line? maybe with added whitspace to separate logical units.
sorry for my remarks – i always admire kde but using the interface puts me off.
Hi,
just wondering, do you know of any change in weather dataengine that happened somewhere before kde sc 4.3? (btw, do we call older releases this way or the old way?) I am asking because support for my city was dropped and before that it was working fine (maybe it was even sooner than 4.3).
Thanks
Nope, I’ve not really been following work on the weather dataengine. I did see that the NOAA data source now works with the wallpaper for SC 4.4, however.
So recently the bbc changed up how the data is sent over rss, so the search seems to be broken: I wrote a little workaround here.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1353963
Hopefully that helps!
great, thanks; works as a charm
> Right before I posted I realized that I forgot to use βSCβ in every instance of KDE, and had to go back and add it to all of them.
But you forgot to add ‘SC’ here:
“noticed that in KDE 4.3.80”
“right after trunk opened after KDE 4.3”
“and pretty soon it was KDE 4.4 beta time”
“For KDE 4.5 I plan to”
(also, the new branding of KDE (or KDE SC?) sucks, but it’s OT)
Sounds great, but as Christoph says, the interface is inconsistent and cluttered. Widgets are aligned all over te place and there is a huge gap between te upper and lower widgets. The “Author” text is floating in the middle. Why is it so hard to create a clean, user-friendly and consistent UI? I’d love to participate to KDE USability, mainly because lots of parts of the KDE UI plainly suck. I just don’t know where to start.
There are two other fields besides author that wallpapers may provide info for. But when they don’t, it just displays what it can.
Oh my.
This dialog box sucks. As already mentioned it gives the impression of bad software quality.
And this “KDE SC” nonsense doesn’t make anything better in KDE.
Can’t see anything rock there…
For everybody who was complaining, here’s what’s in trunk now: http://imagebin.ca/view/iihUmmu.html
Stay tuned for KDE SC 4.4 beta2. π
It’s much, much better now π
that’s alright, man!
it’s clearly layed out, logical and understandable.
good work!
the whole kde-sc would need this type of general cleanup. then kde would really rock!
in the latest trunk image I think the ‘Picture’ text should be ‘Wallpaper’ to keep it consistent with ‘Get New Wallpapers’
What font is that?? π
Seems like I answer this every blog : D
Segoe UI, everybody’s favorite nonfreee font π