[HN Gopher] KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your...
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KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices
Author : Jiejeing
Score : 191 points
Date : 2021-04-28 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kdeconnect.kde.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (kdeconnect.kde.org)
| corty wrote:
| This is underappreciated. So useful. Just works. Can do almost
| anything.
|
| I think KDE in general needs better marketing. It is by far the
| best desktop environment available.
| Jiejeing wrote:
| I am not a huge fan of the KDE desktop experience, but KDE
| Connect among others is something that provides an amazing
| value.
| peterrus wrote:
| Works great on Gnome as well, with this extension:
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
| aantix wrote:
| Can I send/receive the same messages I received on my iPhone?
|
| Similar to the OSX message app?
|
| Agree on the better marketing. It wasn't obvious from the
| website.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Can I send/receive the same messages I received on my
| iPhone?
|
| Nope. Apple doesn't extend their messaging protocols to
| developers like that. But it does work perfectly fine on
| Android! There's both a QT5 and GTK interface for it, both of
| which are pretty fully featured and actively developed, and
| it syncs with your phones messages over WiFi or Bluetooth.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> KDE in general needs better marketing_
|
| But how would the KDE community do that without spending money?
| azangru wrote:
| Through blog posts and videos? ;-) Cool things that KDE can
| do, or how to be productive with KDE.
| ognarb wrote:
| About your point about a better marketing, as a KDE developer
| and member of the small KDE Promo team, I completely agree with
| you. Unfortunately like most of open sources projects, our
| budgets and manpower is very small. If someone is interested to
| help our promo team, feel free to join:
| https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved#Promotion. We always
| need more help with writing and proofreading announcement
| texts, maintaining the websites, doing videos, writing
| tweets/toots, ...
| Zancarius wrote:
| I absolutely love what you guys do.
|
| One of the unfortunate things I run into on social media is
| this idiotic perception that KDE is bloated and cumbersome,
| then when you drill down into the argument, you often find
| that these same people haven't used it for 10-15 years.
|
| I'm not sure how you can fix branding perceptions that are
| based on fallacious experiences that weren't updated in the
| last decade, but I think some manner of user evangelism can
| also help!
| pnutjam wrote:
| KDE is the best DE for low memory computers. I use it on an
| old HP streambook 11, with 2GB of RAM and a 32GB internal
| disk. (openSuSE)
| distortedsignal wrote:
| I've got a couple old laptops from 2007/2011 era - are
| you talking about KDE Plasma or a different DE? I'm down
| to try just about whatever you recommend.
| jraph wrote:
| I run KDE Plasma on a 10 years old underpowered tablet
| (1G RAM, Intel Atom 1.66 GHz, slow SSD - 32G too) [1].
| Anything else is unusable on this tablet. It is slow but
| it works. Xfce and LXDE are probably lighter, but were
| barely usable on it when I tried and I'm not sure they
| would be so much faster. Browsers and apps are certainly
| what eats your RAM, and with KDE you get apps that share
| a lot of code in memory. Xfce / LXDE don't provide many
| things so you will need some Gnome or KDE apps anyway.
|
| I wouldn't bet that Xfce is that much lighter than Plasma
| nowadays (but definitively disable features like search
| indexing on slow hardware). On 2G of RAM, you probably
| should choose between KDE, LXDE, XFCE, maybe MATE (or
| lighter environments), the one you like the most. I can't
| say for Cinnamon ; probably fine. Gnome is probably too
| heavy.
|
| [1] The Airis Kira Slimpad
| distortedsignal wrote:
| Good deal. Thanks for the opinion.
| pnutjam wrote:
| The KDE team put a lot of work into memory optimization.
| It's more efficient with memory than any of the other
| lightweight ones like xfce.
|
| I'm using plasma, the default for opensuse leap.
| luke2m wrote:
| Not trying to hate on KDE, I know many people who love it,
| but I have found it less performant on old hardware than
| Xfce. (Maybe its a cpu/GPU rather than ram thing?) I
| started using Linux last year, and tried KDE last month.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| If a person used KDE 10 years ago and it was bloated, and I
| haven't used it since, I don't think it's fair (or helpful
| for that matter) to use terms like 'idiotic' when trying to
| convince someone to give the project a second chance.
| bluGill wrote:
| KDE has always been the most bloated in the initial
| install. However when you actually try to do something
| you discover that whatever the environment they are all
| about as big, with KDE being the smallest since they
| trade initial bloat for in use leanness.
| solarkraft wrote:
| The fediverse presence is fairly nice!
| canadianfella wrote:
| Do you recommend KDE Neon?
| DigitallyFidget wrote:
| I just discovered that they made this for Windows finally. I had
| been using this for a decade now, and the addition to android was
| an amazing quality of life improvement for me. Now that it can
| work on Windows it's even more powerful and useful.
| j-james wrote:
| An implementation also exists for GNOME.
|
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| KDE would be more popular today if it wasn't for KDE 4.
|
| I think KDE 4 was a big regression from KDE 3 in many ways.
|
| After KDE 4 it got better and right now it's good again.
| Unfortunately, I've already made the switch to other desktop
| environments.
|
| The initial releases of Gnome 3 were also a big regression from
| Gnome 2. Now Gnome 3 has gotten much better.
| majewsky wrote:
| KDE 4.0 was a necessary stepping stone to get where KDE/Plasma
| is today.
|
| It would for sure have been nice to have a more feature-
| complete 4.0 release, but I don't see what the dev team could
| realistically have done better. There were only that many
| developers, so the only way would have been to further delay
| the 4.0 release, thus rendering KDE obsolete in a different way
| by not shipping anything for even longer.
|
| Source: I was with the KDE dev team from about 2008-2012.
| pedrovhb wrote:
| I started using KDE Connect via the Gnome extension just a few
| days ago, and it's been great so far. I have my phone muted all
| the time because notification sounds annoy me, but I don't mind
| the desktop notifications. I've been missing a lot less due to
| this, and it works instantly and seamlessly, and I spent almost
| no time configuring it all.
|
| Just earlier today I had my phone playing music connected to a
| bluetooth speaker. I was just getting to my computer and out of
| habit, hit the volume down media keys. I was surprised for a
| second when it worked, because immediately after hitting the key
| I remembered the speakers were connected to my phone, not the
| computer. Then I realized it was KDE Connect just working :)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I had a moment like that when I received a call. My smart watch
| sent a pause command to the playback notification, which was
| KDE connect, connected to my PC's audio player, which was
| controlling Kodi on my TV, pausing it nearly instantly.
|
| A single pause command bridged four devices and it all just
| worked together. That's the true power of interoperable
| software standards.
|
| Sadly, Google added a privacy constraint to Android, taking
| away the ability to monitor the clipboard in the background
| with no way to bypass the restrictions without rooting your
| phone. Automated clipboard sync was just great, and I'm sad to
| see it go.
| yorwba wrote:
| I too enjoyed clipboard sync and am sad it's gone, but it
| still works for the desktop - phone direction, and for
| transferring text in the opposite direction, I select it and
| "share" it with KDE Connect, which puts the text into a .txt
| file on the desktop and displays it. (In my case it's using a
| pager in a terminal window, I guess that's how my file
| handlers are set up?)
|
| It's not as magical as full automation, but still better than
| sending an email to myself or similar nonsense.
| ognarb wrote:
| Also a cool thing is that it will automatically pause your
| music playing on your computer, when you get a call. And resume
| it, when you end the call.
| germ wrote:
| Also can wake your monitors when you're connected to wifi!
| Took me a few months before I realized that my displays would
| sleep themselves if I was disconnected, walked in one day
| with wifi disabled, enabled it and my monitors popped up
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| KDE Connect just works, and gives that seamless integration
| between phone and computer. Pausing video automatically when a
| call comes in, easy file transfers, use your phone as a touchpad
| mouse, it's so slick.
| [deleted]
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| BTW, for those trapped in Windows land, there's an experimental
| port of the KDE Connect app for Windows that works surprisingly
| well. My wife was quite puzzled, recently, when a phone call
| cause video playback on our media PC to pause automatically...
| tssva wrote:
| A large amount of the functionality is also available through
| the "My Phone" application which ships as part of Windows 10.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I thought that was samsung only
| smoldesu wrote:
| While this is true, "My Phone" doesn't do a great job of
| staying consistently connected, and it even fails to do a lot
| of the features that Connect can offer. I still prefer
| Connect on Windows.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Same goes for MacOS, though the best experience is of course
| going to be with KDE or Gnome.
| spurgu wrote:
| I tried it some weeks back but couldn't get it to work.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I was able to get it working on my Mojave hackintosh
| (Thinkpad T460s), but ymmv.
| spurgu wrote:
| How long have you been using it for? Have you used
| different versions? Wondering if some specific versions
| are more stable than others..
| sokoloff wrote:
| Answering the call, placing a call, or just having an incoming
| call ring? I'm maybe in favor of the first, slightly opposed to
| the second, and would find the last so infuriating that I'd
| shut it off immediately.
| ralmeida4381 wrote:
| KDE on Linux is by far the best environment for development. Even
| comparing it against MacOS.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| It's miles ahead just in the File Browser alone, comparing to
| the "Finder" in OSX
| BetterDriver wrote:
| Could someone tell me whether it's battery intensive for the
| mobile phone or the laptop? I have been hesitant to install it
| lest it use too much battery of my phone for just an occasional
| use.
| bluGill wrote:
| When I'm listening to music the constantly changing song drains
| my phone's battery over the course of the day. (phone in my
| pocket either way). For every other use I don't notice it, and
| it is handy to be able to check on what my kids are doing on
| the computer when I'm away.
| tkot wrote:
| It's unfortunate that KDE Connect doesn't seem to be working on
| latest Ubuntu LTS (Focal Fossa):
| https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdeconnect/+bug/19...
| azangru wrote:
| Trying to copy an audiobook from my linux laptop to my android
| phone at the moment. I don't think I've ever been able to
| successfully pull this off before (possibly because last time I
| tried I was trying to copy files directly onto an SD card in my
| phone); but I've successfully done it now. Finally KDE Connect
| has become useful to me!
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| Its fantastic. I basically never connect phone via USB now
| (except for ADB operations). And the speed is very good, unlike
| the crappy Bluetooth or fiddly FTP. KDEConnect _just works_
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I miss KDE Connect every time I'm on windows.
|
| When watching a movie on the laptop, it's so handy to use the
| remote control to pause/play/change sound or move the timeline.
|
| Now some stuff don't work so well: file transfer is flaky
| sometimes, sending a text from the laptop has a very primitive UI
| and I never seem to be able to share the clipboard when I want
| to.
|
| But I love to ping my phone when it's lost in the house.
| Zancarius wrote:
| > I never seem to be able to share the clipboard when I want
| to.
|
| It usually works for me, but the problem I have is that
| sometimes the devices lose sync with each other if they've been
| off for any length of time. Opening the KDE Connect settings
| typically fixes this, but it's not ideal!
|
| I absolutely love KDE Connect, though. Being able to copy text
| from a laptop to a desktop or use my phone to pause music if I
| happen to leave for a walk and forgot to stop it is great! I
| haven't used it yet, but they also have presentation controls
| for your phone including a pointer that uses the phone's
| instrumentation to move an animated circle across the screen.
| Love it!
| krut-patel wrote:
| > the problem I have is that sometimes the devices lose sync
| with each other if they've been off for any length of time.
| Opening the KDE Connect settings typically fixes this, but
| it's not ideal!
|
| A slightly better solution I have found helpful is to pull
| down Yakuake (or krunner) and run `kdeconnect-cli --refresh`.
| Beats having to open a QT window, only to be closed off
| immediately.
| Zancarius wrote:
| Awesome. I'm going to try that next time. Thanks much!
| smoldesu wrote:
| > I miss KDE Connect every time I'm on windows.
|
| Poke around in here[1], I'm certain there's a build that works
| for most modern Windows 10 machines in here somewhere.
|
| [1] https://build.kde.org/job/Applications/job/kdeconnect-kde/
| pmontra wrote:
| You don't even need a computer. I use the Android app to send
| files to another phone or tablet with the computer switched off.
| I can control media playing on a tablet from my phone, ring a
| device to find it, share browser tabs.
|
| On my Ubuntu I'm using gsconnect which implements the same
| protocol.
| drewlander wrote:
| works very well. I had it on a Samsung Galaxy S7 and sending
| messages was wonky due to a known issue with that and a few other
| Samsung Galaxy phones. However it was easy to setup, use, and
| absolutely love it, well done! KDE continues to impress. As a
| side note, I just found out Kmail supports oauth2 with o365!
| pierrebai wrote:
| I see nothing on the site, nor in the docs, not even in the how-
| it-works about security. Is this not a huge security risk in the
| making? Controlling your phones and your desktops seems risky.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| All communication is encrypted, accounts are added by verifying
| each other's fingerprints. File sharing seems SFTP based.
|
| You can disable any plugins you find too risky. I haven't found
| any problem so far. All the servers and clients are open source
| so you can check the source and roll your own if you really
| want to.
| metallkopf wrote:
| i've made a headless implementation in python for communicating
| between my server and my desktop
|
| https://github.com/metallkopf/konnect
| grawprog wrote:
| I've been using KDE connect since it was first released. It's
| improved massively over the years and is a solid tool for
| managing android phones from the desktop. It's one of the first
| things I install on every new device.
| dochtman wrote:
| Is there documentations of the protocols used for this?
| severine wrote:
| Start here: https://invent.kde.org/network/kdeconnect-kde#how-
| does-it-wo...
| paol wrote:
| I'll take this opportunity to ask a technical question: clipboard
| integration via KDE Connect was a godsend, but it stopped working
| with Android 10.
|
| I think I read somewhere that Android 10 forbids apps from
| managing the clipboard. Can anyone confirm this? I hold out hope
| that clipboard integration might work again...
| derimagia wrote:
| Yeah this is correct. I was able to use a Magisk module to
| whitelist the KDE Connect app in Android 10 and it worked fine.
|
| This is only for rooted devices so it's not really something
| most people are going to be able to do.
|
| https://github.com/Kr328/Riru-ClipboardWhitelist
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| From what I remember, apps are no longer allowed access to
| clipboard if they are not open and active, I.e. on the screen.
| krut-patel wrote:
| They have come up with a workaround for this. Instead of
| actively monitoring your clipboard in the background, there now
| exists a "Send Clipboard" button/intent that shares the current
| clipboard value with the other device(s). Works well enough for
| me on Android 11.
| paol wrote:
| > "Send Clipboard" button
|
| Where does that appear? Its not on the button bar that
| appears over a text selection.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Share menu
| luke2m wrote:
| Now will someone port this to iOS?
| [deleted]
| dhosek wrote:
| I spent a few minutes on the site trying to see what was
| supported and saw nothing. I have a passing awareness of KDE so
| I could assume that the desktop platform was Linux, but the
| mobile platform was not specified anywhere in my initial
| searching. I have to admit I didn't dedicate a lot of time to
| that though, since I have no interest in running desktop Linux.
| luke2m wrote:
| KDE connect works on macOS too.
| dhosek wrote:
| Which actually makes the information lack even worse since
| there was no indication of what desktops and phones were
| supported in my cursory examination. It always amazes me
| how often basic information like this is absent from the
| promotional material for various products.
| ognarb wrote:
| There is a GSoC project about it :)
| https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2021/Ideas#Project:_KDE_Conne...
| luke2m wrote:
| Nice! Hope it gets done.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Wow, I recently rage-switched to lxde after yet another kde
| upgrade on a rolling-release os (FreeBSD) that left kde unusable.
| This is making me consider coming back to kde.
| severine wrote:
| KDE Connect works well in other environments, I use it within
| Xfce, LXDE should work as well.
| atat7024 wrote:
| KDE Connect does not require you to use KDE as your desktop
| environment, last I checked.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Can confirm, have it running on xfce right now.
| [deleted]
| ihalip wrote:
| You can use KDE Connect without the full KDE desktop
| environment. I'm on Linux Mint Cinnamon and it works just fine.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I also had issues with the kde5 packages when moving to FreeBSD
| 13. But reinstalling the packages fixed everything with all my
| settings intact. Was a 5 minute job. Works great now.
|
| I guess having an OS worth very few maintainers compared to
| Linux, Windows or Mac leads to this kind of thing. But I still
| love it. Also, all the kde maintainers are active in #kde-
| freebsd on freenode so you can get quick and super
| knowledgeable help there. Advantage of small teams is that
| there's no 'just raise a ticket and we may look at it some day'
| mentality.
|
| When I moved to it I had two minor issues. For one they gave me
| a small config change that fixed it. The other was a bug in a
| FreeBSD specific script and was fixed and moved to the live
| repo in 3 days. This was the kind of thing that would normally
| linger in an issue ticket for months or years. I was really
| impressed with how much they cared about these things. Thanks
| guys!
| cevn wrote:
| KDE upgrades are the worst. I tried upgrading on Ubuntu 21.04,
| it failed. Fedora, it failed.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I used to think so too - then I switched off Ubuntu and never
| had a KDE upgrade problem with Arch Linux for years
| azinman2 wrote:
| I assume this is Android specific?
| TheHalfDeafChef wrote:
| It would appear so. Although KDE Connect can apparently work
| with MacOS (you'd still need an android phone).
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Some features seem to be, like the virtual input. Others work
| between desktops, like clipboard sharing, remote keyboard, and
| run command.
| smoldesu wrote:
| KDE Connect is a power user's dream. If you're currently on a Mac
| wondering how people go without Handoff, synced media controls
| and desktop messaging, we don't; many of us use KDE connect. In
| all honesty, there's too many features in this app to list, and I
| recommend anyone with a spare computer and an Android phone to
| check it out. It's a legitimate gamechanger for productivity!
| spurgu wrote:
| I use a Macbook but don't use any of the Apple software and my
| phone is Android so I would love to have KDE Connect. I tried
| it a couple of weeks ago but couldn't get it to work. Will try
| again now!
|
| Edit: Build failed Action: compile for
| libs/dbus:1.13.18-3 FAILED *** Craft all failed:
| libs/dbus after 32 seconds *** fatal error: package
| libs/dbus all failed
| smoldesu wrote:
| Try grabbing their compiled DMG from the binary factory [1],
| it'll be a lot easier to work with.
|
| [1] https://binary-factory.kde.org/view/MacOS/job/kdeconnect-
| kde...
| spurgu wrote:
| Thanks! Got it installed but nothing happens when I run it.
| :| Tried grepping for processes with "kde" but get nothing.
| satya71 wrote:
| Almost want to switch to Android for this.
| unhammer wrote:
| Is there some flatpak/snap/appimage version that doesn't require
| installing all the KDE deps?
| O_H_E wrote:
| check out GSConnect if you are using Gnome. same protool
| different interface.
| Proven wrote:
| What could possibly go wrong....
| p4bl0 wrote:
| KDE is awesome. KDE Connect is awesome too. It does a lot of
| useful stuff (remote media control, remote trackpad, remote
| keyboard, etc). But the most awesome things are the little stuff:
| the ability to answer any notification from your phone directly
| from your computer's notification, the ability to just send a
| webpage to your computer and have it open the web page you
| started to read on your mobile phone. This kind of stuff quickly
| becomes a natural part of your workflow, KDE Connect doesn't even
| get in your way, it's completely transparent.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I wonder if this wouldn't work nicely when combined with
| UnifiedPush, so that one device (KDE Connect isn't restricted to
| PC<->Phone) could still communicate with another when not on the
| same network.
|
| I can imagine myself leveraging this on a smartwatch I recently
| bought to install postmarketOS on.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Boy. I got on full on KDE plasma since 5.12 I think. KDE connect
| was promptly installed and I never was able to use a USB cable
| for data transfer but with KDE connect, I can simply send a file.
|
| Its been magical. At least with plasma, the system integration is
| full and the clipboard feature is a godsend. More power to KDE
| guys
| MayeulC wrote:
| Yes, the KDE MTP implementation was recently reworked, but it's
| still randomly unusable with most android phones in my
| experience, complaining that it can't access to the device,
| etc.
|
| On the other hand, that other application, while barebones,
| seems to work 100% of the time:
| https://github.com/whoozle/android-file-transfer-linux
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(page generated 2021-04-28 23:01 UTC)