KBFX 0.4.9.2 RC4 review
DownloadKBFX is an alternative to the classical K-Menu button and it's menu
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KBFX is an alternative to the classical K-Menu button and it's menu. KBFX project improves the user experience by enabling the user to set a bigger (and thus more visible) start button and by finally replacing the Win95-like K-Menu.
But if you still want the old menu, because you're used to it, it is still available as an option in kbfx. We recommend, however, that you give the Spinx bar a try.
History:
KBFX was started on June 5th 2005 as a hobbyist project by Siraj Razick, born out of a spontanous idea. The reason was that Siraj didn't like the old K-Menu, which was quite a clone of the old Win95 Startmenu. So he started coding.
The first step provided merely the possibility to call the K-Menu via a button, that could have a different shape and size than the original K-Menu button, which has always been an icon of a square size. To change the default KBFX button, one still had to copy an image file to a certain location.
After the first post in mid-june 05, KBFX has spread rapidly and it was nice to see that until end of june, there were already a dozen posts on kde-look with buttons and builds.
Mensur Zahirovic (called Nookie) joined Siraj on 5th of august, after Siraj met him on yahoo. Nookie is responsible for the Web-development and the Q&A. He also arranged the site www.kbfx.org, that replaces the previous site www.linuxlots.com/~siraj/plugin/kde.
After that, things began to speed up. The next members were Akhmed Fathonih, who works on the configuration modules, and Ron, who provides distribution packages.
KBFX is no longer just another button design for the K-Menu, but now provides an alternative to it, that is in fact more sophisticated than the XP-Startmenu.
KBFX version 0.4.9 is a four month long prototypical development Approach. The release is a complete rewrite eliminating all the negative points of previous versions. At the start we had a list of end requirements for version 0.4.9 and we developed each of the feature unit testing it as it was developed.
Testing each and every class along the way. Apart from unit testing, the quality assurance manager would periodically check the quality of the product and as new releases are made to the KBFX source repository. QA always check the product against the requirements that we had set to maximize quality. This way of development help us to discover tons of bugs and fix then then and there, and we debut that KBFX has any hidden bugs that can't be fixes.
And it was more than helpful to see many users around the world checking out the development release of KBFX from CVS, and reporting and posting problems encountered helping to add more stability and compatibility between distribution. Because of this even before KBFX is 0.4.9 is released we know the supported platforms. KBFX has been tested to work with all GCC3.x and GCC4.x compliers.
And also on retributions such as Gentoo, Debian , Ubantu , Suse, Slack, Mango, and Manrake, and Fedora core systems.But compiling on FreeBSD systems is yet to be tested, we will port KBFX to FreeBSD and PcBSD.
Here are some key features of "KBFX":
Selecting an Application Group
Selecting an Application
Type and locate an Application
Logout of the Desktop
Lock the Desktop
Launch KBFX settings manager
scroll up and down the application list
Extra features
Double buffered Widgets to minimize flicker.
Animated scroll bars
New Tooltip
Gif/Mng File Support
New Control Manager
Installation:
To install kbfx you need to do following things:
make -f Makefile.cvs
./configure --prefix=`kde-config --prefix`
make
make install (AS ROOT)
Workaround for Suse and Gentoo: since these distros do not install KDE in /usr ld linker dose not pick up libkio .
1. Download automake 1.6 and install
2. run kde-config --prefix and find out where your KDE prefix is
3. Given your KDE prefix is /opt/kde3/
4. Open kbfxconfigapp/Makefile.am
5. replace $(KIO_LIB) with -L/opt/kde3/lib/ -lkio
6. compile as normal
Usage:
Right-click on the panel, on which you want to place the kbfx button
Select "add applet to panel" in the context menu
Select "kbfxspinx"
A tooltip appears "kbfxpinx Added"
If you move your mouse over the button, a tooltip appears.
If you want to, you can now remove the K-Menu button and move the KBFX to the desired place on the panel. To open the menu, just click on the button.
What's New in 0.4.9.1 Stable Release:
kbfxconfig fix
slack compilation fix.
gcc 4.1 fix
What's New in 0.4.9.2 RC4 Development Release:
CHANGED some aspects of autoconf/automake behaviour
CHANGED "Toolbar Resize" behaviour - turned off by default so kicker doesn't change its size anymore
ADDED support for Mandriva 2007 compilation (no menudrake there by default)
FIXED Searchbar behaviour (thanks @gropiuskalle)
FIXED some minor bugs
KBFX 0.4.9.2 RC4 keywords