Difference between revisions of "Projects/Network Management"

Revision as of 21:39, 6 November 2009

Overview

Network Management describes the interaction between the KDE desktop and the system's network information and configuration layers. This means:

• Informative functions: "Am I online"?
• Control functions: "Connect to to the internet using my WWAN card"
• Integration: Tell Konqueror when the computer is not connected to the Internet so it can automatically work in offline mode.

Status

KDE 4

Support in Solid for the informational parts of the NetworkManager interface is complete, in [1]. Backends for NetworkManager 0.6 and 0.7 exist, in kdebase/workspace/solid/networkmanager-0.*. A backend for wicd is being worked on by Dario Freddi. Backends for other platforms would be welcome, contact the team for help on getting involved.

The user interface consists of a Plasma applet, a System Settings KCModule, and a kded module. It is a work in progress at playground/base/plasma/applets/networkmanager.

KDE 3

A rewrite of KNetworkManager for KDE 3 (by openSUSE) is nearly complete. This supports NetworkManager 0.7, which has a different interface to NetworkManager 0.6. More information can be found at the openSUSE KNetworkManager project page.

User feedback on KDE 3 KNetworkManager

extracted from bugs.kde.org

UI

• Cleaner notifications on status change #132000
• More information in tooltip, including VPN connections #132151
• Show channel in tooltip #135054
• Found networks with ESSIDs with configured connections should show up in network list #133900
• Make passphrase entry more intuitive #142349
• Enable cancelling a connection #143259
• Attractive popup notifications [ http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147519 #147519]
• Show network activity in system tray #148095
• Make hex the default WEP key type #151437
• Support WEP key indices #150926
• Indicate encrypted connection in tray #159673

General

• Support Ad-hoc mode #138882
• Make KWallet use optional #140332
• Make saving secrets optional #163551
• Provide a log of connection information #144819
• Import/export VPN connections #146159

KDE 4 Architecture

see this blog entry for now

Applet Design and Usability

to be done