KDissert - Application of the Month
See also the overview of KDissert.
Thomas Nagy (photographed) is the author of KDissert.
Why did you start writing KDissert?
It was started in 2003 when I was still a student at engineering college. At that time we had lots of projects and then lots of reports to write. I was looking for a tool that would increase my productivity.
The word processing tools or the LaTeX system are helpful for producing the documents but not for creating the ideas. On the other hand, mindmapping software (freemind etc) are really helpful for gathering and structuring ideas but make it quite difficult to create the final documents.
After few failures, I managed to build a solid framework on which the final application was built ever since. When the application became usable enough I chose to release it under an open-source license (GPL) to share the method I have found and let other students work more efficiently too.
Is KDissert capable of completely replacing KPresenter or OpenOffice.org Impress?
Not at all, in fact KDissert comes as the first element in the chain, feeding KPresenter or OpenOffice.org Impress with generated documents. Most of the time, the documents generated require minor modifications such as picture positioning.
Is KDissert the first KDE application which uses the Scons/bksys build system?
Yes, in fact the bksys build system was made for KDissert in the first place. It was successful and then other KDE projects wanted to use the same system afterwards.
Did it play a certain role in the transition from autotools to Scons/bksys?
Yes, it did. It was the first proof that KDE applications could be built and installed easily on several operating systems without autotools.
What does the future look like for KDissert? Is it true that KDissert will become part of the KOffice suite?
There will be lots of changes in a near future:
- Switch to the Qt4 library (anti-aliased shapes for the map objects)
- Framework extensions (map folding)
- Creation of core libraries (generate documents without the GUI)
- Custom editable attachments (tables, diagrams, ...)
The integration in the KOffice suite is an interesting question, and I have not decided anything yet. KOffice may provide interesting things like real-time preview of generated documents, but on the other hand it perhaps provides too many features.
Do you have an estimation of how popular KDissert is?
A small community has started to arise around KDissert, there are about 90 subscribers on the KDissert mailing list, and I am getting some positive feedback from students from all over the world.
How much time do you spend on KDE?
About one hour a day during the week, depending on the mood and on the weather, and several more on the weekends.
Are there other projects you're working on outside KDE?
Of course, there are proprietary projects concerning my job, but I cannot describe them here.
Which distribution do you use? For a particular reason?
I am using several systems at the moment including Fedora Core 4, OpenSuse and Kubuntu. This is mostly to check if bksys works and if KDissert compiles and installs properly. Right now I am using OpenSuse as it provides a proper KDE+Qt environment. Debian is troublesome as the Qt and KDE libraries (binaries, libraries and includes) are spread on the system (there are no QTDIR or KDEDIR variables).
Thank you.
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