KDE Task Manager Gets a Lot of Attention for 4.11

KDE SC 4.11 is due for final release in little over two weeks with several interesting and exciting new features. However, according to Eike Hein, the task manager has received its share of work lately too. Hein says lots of bugs have been squashed and the codebase has been cleaned up, but the end-user may not notice it.

Hein said one of the reasons for rewriting the task manager was so it could keep up with the rest of KDE as it moves towards "the QML era" or Plasma 2. That's when he said that visual and operational changes were "kept to a minimum," instead focusing on "a regression-free port, but a leaner and meaner codebase along with QML's designed-in flexibility."

Some of the improvements include a much better layout. In the past our KDE Task Manager had difficulties negotiating font and other changes to the desktop or panel. Many bugs reared their ugly heads when trying to customize the task bar. Anyone remember when the individual group tasks would overlap and sometimes one or more would become inoperative? Can you recall when opening just the right combination of programs caused oddly shaped group tasks which were commonly missing fonts? Yes, those were my favorites too. Hein mentioned a couple other strange layout bugs as well and then said all these and more should corrected now.

Some of the other improvements include:

* Smarter window group pop-ups
* Other visual adjustments and polish
* Improved interaction with KWin
* more responsive setting changes
* Better performance and smoother effects

Some old features didn't make it into KDE 4.11, but might 4.11.1. I hope this includes the number of open windows per task that disappeared a couple of releases ago. Hein says don't bother complaining either because this new codebase is "here to stay" and will be the basis of migrating to KDE 5. See his full post for lots more detail.