Difference between revisions of "Development/Guidelines"

Revision as of 17:21, 16 February 2008

Development/Guidelines

This section contains information about the industry and de facto standards KDE uses. The industry standards are ones that are used or implemented by KDE (for instance, we use the XML standard to write XML documents, and we implement the Window Manager Hint standard with KWin). KDE standards are the guidelines used internally, related to UI design and consistency. The section about policies also contains standards-like documents that relate to developer activity.

KDE Standards

KDE4 Human Interface Guidelines (KDE4 HIG): The new KDE Human (was: User) Interface Guidelines for KDE 4.x. These guidelines are under contruction, but should be your first reference (followed by checking the KDE3 User Interface Guidelines or asking questions on the usability mailinglist: kde-usability@kde.org).

KDE3 User Interface Guidelines: The KDE User Interface Guidelines for 3.x.

KDE2 User Interface Guidelines: The KDE User Interface Guidelines for 2.x.

Community Identity Guidelines (CIG): Definitions and recommendations which help the KDE Project to establish a unique, characteristic, and appealing design.

Plasma Interface Guidelines (PIG): This document is a place to collect all the "do"s, "don't"s and "how to"s for interface elements in Plasma, particularly applets and plasmoids.

KDE KControl Module Guidelines: Styleguide standards for KConfig Modules used in combination with KControl.

External Standards

XML: The Extensible Markup language. KOffice's document formats are applications of this. It is also used as configuration file format by an increasing number of KDE programs.

DOM: The Document Object Model as defined by the W3C. Qt's QDom*classes are modeled after this.

XDND: The specification for the inter-application drag and drop protocol used by Qt and Gtk. Meanwhile, several other applications use it.

Extended Window Manager Hint Standard: Also called NETWM or EWMH, the protocol for window manager interaction, supported by many window manager authors.

Desktop Entry Specification: The format of .desktop files, supported by KDE.

Icon Naming Standard: The Freedesktop naming standard for icons, supported by KDE.

MIME types: Files types (as used to show appropriate icons in the file manager and to categorize data in drag & drop and clipboard operations) follow the convention known as MIME. Here you can find a list of registered content types.

URL: Uniform resource locators, defined by RFC 1738.

SM: The X11R6.4 session management protocol. This is the backend protocol for KMainWindow's high-level session management features.

iCalendar: RFC 2445 - Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar). This is used to store KOrganizer and KTimeTracker (KArm in KDE < 4) data.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 == KDE Standards ==
-; [http://developer.kde.org/documentation/design/ui/index.html Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Documents]
+; [http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Main_Page KDE4 Human Interface Guidelines (KDE4 HIG)]
-: A list of very good Human Computer Interface documentation. If you do anything with the design of a GUI you should read this.
+: The new KDE Human (was: User) Interface Guidelines for KDE 4.x. These guidelines are under contruction, but should be your first reference (followed by checking the KDE3 User Interface Guidelines or asking questions on the usability mailinglist: kde-usability@kde.org).
+; [http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/index.html KDE3 User Interface Guidelines]
+: The KDE User Interface Guidelines for 3.x.
+; [http://developer.kde.org/documentation/design/ui/index.html KDE2 User Interface Guidelines]
+: The KDE User Interface Guidelines for 2.x.
 ; [[Development/Guidelines/CIG|Community Identity Guidelines (CIG)]]
 : Definitions and recommendations which help the KDE Project to establish a unique, characteristic, and appealing design.
-; [http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/index.html KDE User Interface Guidelines]
+; [http://techbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Projects/Plasma/PIG Plasma Interface Guidelines (PIG)]
-: The KDE User Interface Guidelines.
+: This document is a place to collect all the "do"s, "don't"s and "how to"s for interface elements in Plasma, particularly applets and plasmoids.
-; [http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Main_Page The new KDE User Interface Guidelines]
-: The new KDE User Interface Guidelines, being developed by the KDE usability team for KDE 4. It is advisable to use them as much as possible for development for KDE 4, and use the old ones as fallback (or ask on the usability mailinglist: kde-usability@kde.org).
 ; [http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/kcontrol_style/index.html KDE KControl Module Guidelines]