KDE4 - New look, new concepts, less functionality -- for now!

The KDE project, on 11 January 2008, released the first official version of the KDE4 series of Desktop Environments for Linux and Unix systems -- and soon for Windows and Mac OSX apparently.
KDE 4.0.0 packages were made available for my Kubuntu 7.10 installation, which I have installed and playerd with and I am here to give some initial impressions! Please note that the KDE4 series is just being released to create a solid foundation for the future of KDE, and that it is by no means feature complete or 'finished' in any way. This is a .0.0 release (4.0.0) meaning that future bug fixes and improvements will come with the first major update -- 4.1.x -- in about six months. At that point, the new KDE 4-series desktop will be much more usable.

KDE 4.0.0 is still usable now, however, and 'release early, release often' is the Free Software way to get bugs in to the open and fixed. Upgrade to 4.0.0 at your own risk of having too much fun exploring the new desktop and finding and reporting bugs!

Desktop
The current Desktop is nice, but limited. A photo slideshow can exist in the background but images are stretched to fit the screen; this isn't (yet) configurable.
Icons and files which exist in your Desktop/ folder are also scattered across the Desktop; right-clicking to align icons cleans them up somewhat, but not much and not in a grid-like layout. Each icon also can be 'selected', the same as a Widget, to have a translucent border around it which allows for rotating and resizing; hovering over an icon gives it this border and one has to re-hover to remove it. Sometimes my whole desktop seems to have these icon borders, which don't make much sense yet without tooltips. What is the Red X for? I hope its not deleting my file -- that is too easy to lose work! And if it did... where is my Trashcan?Luckily it all looks better when one removes the Icons from the desktop; this means to get to these files you have to use a file manager, and to make that easier you may want to change where your web browser default-downloads files (Firefox defaults to the ~/Desktop/ folder for example).

Widgets
The desktop is no longer divided between the Desktop (wallpaper and icons) and the Kicker (the old panel with the KMenu, clock, task manager, etc). Now, Widgets can be placed on the Desktop OR the Plasma Panel (not Kicker). Currently there are not a lot of widgets available, but I would expect this to increase as (1) SuperKaramba widgets are ported to Plasma, (2) current KDE applets are ported to Plasma, and (3) Mac OSX widget support is added to KDE4. Until then, here are the available Widgets:
Any of these items can be added to either the Desktop or the Panel, but not all make sens in the wrong place. Who wants a System Tray, which tells you which apps are running in the background (like a music player or chat program), to be added to the Desktop? This interchangeability is handy for some of the applets (er, widgets), but at this point it's not making a lot of sense. Additionally, the Widget description isn't very useful at this point, so there will be some confusion as which do what and why.
To get a Widget from the Add Widgets box to the Desktop, one clicks "Add Widget"; to get a Widget onto the Panel, however, its a drag-and-drop task. This seems inconsistent, as Add Widget doesn't say *where* it is being added (Desktop) and Drag-and-Drop to the Panel isn't (imho) intuitive. Both should be Drag-and-Drop, and there should also be an [Add Widget to Desktop] and [Add Widget to Panel] buttons.
I am not sure what the Gold Star does next to these Widgets, but the red Minus sign will remove, with one click, ALL of the added widgets of that type. This can be painful to learn, since I removed my integral Panel's Task Manager (open programs) and had to rebuild my Panel with drag-and-drop of one applet at a time, trial and error.

Panel
The Panel holds widgets such as the Kickoff menu (ouch), links to added Apps, a Pager, a digital or analog Clock, running programs (Task manager) and backround apps (System Tray). It also seems to flake out now and again; notice my Clock and some open apps are all hidden:


Right-Clicking, or Configurability
When I want to change a setting, I am accustomed to right-clicking on a visual aspect of the Desktop or the Windows Manager. Right-click the Desktop to change the Desktop; right-click the Kicker to change the Kicker. But this doesn't seem to work so well in the current KDE 4.0.0. Right-clicking on the Plasma Panel only gives the options for that Widget which is placed there; I have found no ways to change the overall location of Widgets to rearrange them, nor any way to Hide the Plasma Panel or add a second Panel or change the colour or transparency; basically, a lot of functionality is missing here still.
Right-clicking on the Desktop is even less useful (this is with Desktop Icons turned off, or there would be two Icon entries here for arranging the Desktop icons):

The two ways to configure the Desktop are from the Desktop's right-click option, or from the new System Settings, which replaces the wonderful KControl with the Kubuntu System Settings (the Kubuntu System Settings has becaome the KDE4 default for all KDE4, not just on Kubuntu). On the left is from System Settings; on the right is the right-click Configure Desktop option. They are totally different and have no overlap; in my eyes they should be identical. The right-click allows to setup Wallpaper only at this point, while the System Settings > Desktop is for visual effects (which I've not yet tried) and the Screen Saver setups:

The new KMenu, named Kickoff, is not very fun to use. The menu is subdivided into Favorites, Applications, Computer (cdrom drive, usb drives, etc), Recently Used, and Leave. Passing the mouse over any of these auto-switches to that tab, making navigation a hassle; drilling through the menu levels in Applications doesn't leave any visual trail as the where you are in the menu, and the Back option isn't obvious. Clicking Leave brings up options to reboot or logoff; clicking any of these brings up another menu to do the same. Too many clicks to log off or reboot, but I bet this will be clarified with new releases.

Also notice in this picture, the Leave tab is missing and the Search box near the top is missing -- this is due to the flaking-out of Plasma, I think, just like the Panel above is missing its clock etc.
Here is the best Plasma flakeout I've seen yet (above -- ouch! its supposed to be a normal photo)... but even with this, newer updates and releases of the KDE4 series of desktops shows a lot of promise. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor the awesomeness of the KDE3 series (especially in 3.5.8, the current release) -- those have had a lot of work and testing and feedback put into them, and the same will happen with KDE4 over time.

Congrats to the developers and supporters of KDE -- a lot of work has gone into this, it is obviuous, and it has been a lot of fun trying out and learning some of the new technologies behind KDE4.