View source for Promo/Kdelibs

So, what's so great about the KDE Platform? Why should Qt developers use our libraries?

What's here so far is a dump of the "why kdelibs?" thread. it needs cleaning up and filling in.

==notes==

Back on the "why kdelibs?" topic, what about a KDE-Demo, just like Qt
Demo, that shows the unique features the KDE platform (kdelibs,
kdepimlibs, kdegames, etc) has to offer? That'd be a quick way for
people to see the widgets, libraries, etc that make KDE rock. It'd be
certainly easier than delving into api.kde.org and see if Joe
Developer finds some interesting class/library/whatever. The examples
in kdeexamples and Techbase could be a starting point.

==KDElibs==

In general, we provide lots of convenience classes and methods for things that 
are either awkward to do in Qt, or you have to do yourself. We also provide workspace integration and consistency.

===KIO===
network and file-archive transparency.

KIO provides easy transparent, abstract, async, reliable & fast support for 
quite some protocols. 
Qt has to offer nothing like this. (the QNetwork module is nice, but not 
comparable at all - sorry trolls)

===Solid===
protects against changes like HAL -> udisks

===KConfig===
QSettings' implementation of groups is a joke:

settings.beginGroup("foobar");
// everything written now will be in that group
settings.setValue("myValue", ...);
settings.endGroup();

To read it:
settings.value("foobar/myValue");

I much prefer the KConfig way of doing this:
grp = settings->group("foobar");
grp->writeEntry("bar", ...);

To read it:
grp = settings->group("foobar");
grp->readentry("bar", ...);

Much more straight forward and easier for big applications (like KDevelop) 
with plugins. The plugin would just take some KConfigGroup ptr and save it's 
settings there, no need to come up with some unique name or anything, the 
parent app could handle that.

===ThreadWeaver===
ThreadWeaver is reliable
The API is also really good to work with.
QtConcurrent has imo a strange custom api and I heard that it's not a good 
implementation from people that know a lot about concurrency.

QtConcurrent is meant for massively parallel number crunching on university servers, not really for gui applications, iirc.

Threadweaver: Threading APIs to suit practical needs of applications.

===KJobs===
using KJobs is easy and straight forward.
KJob provides asynchronous APIs for executing tasks. Includes progress reporting.

===KLocale===
More powerful i18n than QObject::tr and friends. Based on gettext.
The most important feature specific to KDE on top of Gettext is Transcript (
http://techbase.kde.org/Localization/Concepts/Transcript).

===KAction===
...

===KXmlGui===
provides a consistent menu structure

===Kross===
Cross-language script interpretation

===KDEUI===
K* ui widgets, most notably KUrlRequester
ItemViews, Add-ons to the Qt itemviews API.
If you're using Qt ItemViews for serious business, you want to use the stuff in kdeui/itemviews

==pimlibs==

===KMime===
Qt based library for handling emails

===KIMAP===
Qt based library for asynchronous IMAP communication
Depends: kmime, kjob

==kdesupport==
i'm not sure what parts of kdesupport are written by kde and which aren't, but I'll include those mentioned in the thread anyways:

===Automoc===
Automoc can be used independent from KDE:
http://techbase.kde.org/Automoc4

==consistency==

I get consistent ui design and functionality, making it easy to use 
applications. One of my favurites is KAction and the standard actions and 
shortcuts and dialogs. Many KDE apps uses KXMLGUI, which provides a consistent 
menu structure. I get kde widgets for a lot of things, so i know how to use 
them. I love all that, and whenever i find some non-KDE application that I 
need, I find myself wishing that it was KDE, or that there would be a KDE 
alternative...

Of course there is also the high level of integration in KDE, and do not 
forget world class file dialogs. I miss those in non-KDE apps too!

* Proper localization of Calendar Systems, i.e. your app will play nicer in 
foreign countries
* Far more date formatting options than Qt has
* Proper timezone handling
* World's best File Dialog.
* Extra features added to the print dialog on *nix that Qt seems to have no 
interest in supporting
* Unit Conversion library, e.g. km <-> miles
* All that Semantic stuff
* GUI widgets that integrate all this good stuff so you don't have to
* A holidays library that no other platform has an equivalent for

==other stuff==
KShell helpers - what are these? FIXME

KParts esp. KTextEditor
KStandardActions?
localisation
phonon
nepomuk
akonadi
strigi?
http://kde.org/developerplatform/
QCA
KStandardDirs
the KDE mime system, 
plasma
KUrl
KIcon?
KDED, KLauncher, kdeinit, ksycoca
KDateTime
kDebug

"I'm not a KDE user, but I'm a Qt application
developper, and I found very useful things in kdelibs. KIMAP is now
a central part of our app, we are using KJobs everywhere we can, and
we are contibuting back with KSmtp, a job-based SMTP library (more on
that in a future announcement)."