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<chapter id="what-is-tde">
<chapterinfo><date>2002-01-18</date> <releaseinfo>3.00.00</releaseinfo> </chapterinfo>
<title>What is &tde;?</title>
<anchor id="whatistde"/>
<sect1 id="what-is-tde-introduction">
<title>What is &tde;?</title>
<para>&tde; is a desktop environment. In other words, &tde; is a collection of programs, technologies and documentation that attempt to make life easier for computer users. &tde; is targeted at &UNIX; workstations. It features network transparency and a contemporary work philosophy. </para>
<para>The creators of the K Desktop Environment are a world-wide group of software engineers. This group's major goal in free software development is to provide high quality software that empowers the user with easy control of his computer's resources.</para>
<para>&tde; seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for &UNIX; workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under &MacOS; or &Windows; 95/NT. &tde; meets the requirement of users for an easy to use work environment. Tools used to reach this end are: enhanced inter-application communication, component reuse, global drag and drop, uniform look and feel and many more. Thus, &tde; offers much more than the traditional &UNIX; window managers.</para>
<para>Stability, scaleability and openness are qualities which have made &UNIX; the undisputed choice for the information technology professional for many years. &tde; builds on top of this excellent base framework and brings new, much needed qualities: usability, user friendliness and beauty! &tde; was the first, and stays the forefront player in bringing these qualities to &UNIX;, which constituted for years, the premier platform for server computers and scientific institutions, but wasn't very attractive for desktop users.</para>
<para>Without &UNIX; the Internet would not exist, or at least would have a vastly different form. &UNIX; has not, until now, addressed the needs of the average computer user. This fact is particularly unfortunate, since a number of implementations of &UNIX; (<ulink url="http://www.linux.org">&Linux;</ulink>, <ulink url="http://www.freebsd.org">FreeBSD</ulink>, <ulink url="http://www.netbsd.org">NetBSD</ulink>, &etc;) are freely available on the Internet, all of which are of exceptional quality and stability. </para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="what-is-tde-the-desktop">
<title>&tde; The Desktop Environment</title>
<para>In combination with a free implementation of &UNIX;, &tde; provides to the world an open and completely free desktop computing platform either at home or at work.</para>
<para>This platform is available to anyone free of charge including its source code for anyone to modify.</para>
<para>While there will always be room for improvement we believe we have now delivered a viable alternative to some of the more commonly found and commercial operating systems/desktops combinations available today. It is our hope that the combination of &UNIX; and &tde; will finally bring the same open, reliable, stable, and monopoly free computing to the average computer user that scientists and computing professionals world-wide have enjoyed for years. </para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="what-is-tde-the-development-framework">
<title>&tde; The Application Development Framework</title>
<para>&tde; focuses on the user's needs, but it's obvious that this focus is more easily achieved by also giving developers the best tools. &tde; code contains, and comes with, some of the best development technologies of the modern computing age.</para>
<para>Authoring applications under &UNIX;/X11 used to be an extremely tedious and labour intensive process. &tde; recognises the fact that a computing platform is only as good as the number of first class applications available to the users of that particular platform.</para>
<para>&tde; defines new technologies in &DCOP; and KParts, created to offer a component document model and technology. Together with the complete &tde; libraries programming interface, &DCOP;/KParts are set in direct competition with other similar technologies like &Microsoft; <abbrev>MFC</abbrev>/<abbrev>COM</abbrev>/ActiveX technologies. The excellent quality and the high level of refinement of &tde;'s application programming interface (<acronym>API</acronym>) enables developers to focus on original and interesting issues and avoid reinventing the wheel.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="what-is-tde-the-office-suite">
<title>&tde; The Office Application Suite</title>
<para>In its current form, &tde; provides, apart from the essential desktop component applications, a suite of powerful office programs known to the world by the name &koffice;.</para>
<para>&koffice; is based on the &tde; &DCOP;/KParts technologies. It currently contains: a word processor with desktop publishing capabilities (&kword;), a spreadsheet application (&kspread;) and accompanying charting program (&kchart;), a presentation program (&kpresenter;) and a vector drawing program (&kontour;). Tying things together is the <application>KOffice Workspace</application>, an integrated shell to ease the use of the &koffice; components in conjunction with each other. Additional components include an email client, a news reader, and a powerful <abbrev>PIM</abbrev> (Personal Information Manager - an organiser).</para>
<para>While some of those components are still in alpha development, others are already extremely powerful. For example, &kpresenter;, &tde;'s presentation application, was successfully used at the 5th International &Linux; Congress in Cologne, Germany to deliver a &tde; presentation. </para>
<para>We would like to invite you to <ulink url="http://www.kde.org">learn more about &tde;</ulink> and <ulink url="http://koffice.kde.org">&koffice;</ulink>.</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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