Bug 387106

Summary:	Show KDE-Applications version in 'About System'
Product:	[Applications] kinfocenter	Reporter:	Bogdan Mihaila <bogdan.mihaila>
Component:	InfoSummary	Assignee:	David Hubner <hubn3rd>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist
Priority:	NOR
Version:	5.11.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Screenshot of current About System

Description Bogdan Mihaila 2017-11-19 14:28:35 UTC

Created attachment 108962 [details]
Screenshot of current About System

The 'about system' view in Kinfocenter shows a nice summary of KDE related software versions installed on the system. However, what is missing is the version of KDE-Applications, see the screenshot. Nowadays, distribution updates and releases always advertise the version of KDE Applications they ship with, e.g. https://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-applications-17.08.0.php
It would be great for a user to see what they have installed on their system from that common Kinfocenter. So they can see that the Ubuntu update comes with KDE-Applications version X as advertised.

I know it is not a trivial task to retrieve the information as KDE Applications can be installed in different versions (see older duplicate bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=364085 ) but most users rely on their distribution packages and as such are consistent on the versions of KDE Applications installed. This especially as KDE tries to advertise and release all relevant apps under one umbrella version (see above release announcement). So by e.g. taking the version of Dolphin (probably the most common app in KDE Applications) one could display the version of KDE Applications in Kinfocenter. This is about solving the most common use case of distribution users and ignoring the versions inconsistency for people who install applications across different versions.
 
Note that a similar "hack" is done for the Plasma version display in Kinfocenter (see https://github.com/KDE/kinfocenter/blob/653900d27bb6102d43a0ef8868a5246aacc4f86c/Modules/about-distro/src/Module.cpp#L250 ) that can also come with mixed applet versions.

Comment 1 Christoph Feck 2017-11-29 18:54:44 UTC

If you need the Dolphin version, use the "About Dolphin" item there. As you said, every application can have a different version number. Or use Discover to get an overview of all installed applications including their versions.

With the current trend of per-application flatpaks, snaps, or appimages, the variety in installed versions will increase.

Distributions that enforce a single version on all applications could just patch that version into the KInfoCenter sources, but Plasma developers will not do it.

Comment 2 Bogdan Mihaila 2017-12-18 08:13:47 UTC

Hi

> If you need the Dolphin version, use the "About Dolphin" item there.

This is not about getting the Dolphin Version! or any other KDE application's version but about showing all system relevant versions in one place: Qt, Plasma, KDE Frameworks, ... KDE Applications
Dolphin was a suggestion from where to retrieve the information for 'KDE Applications' as it is the most common representative and should be always installed.

> With the current trend of per-application flatpaks, snaps, or appimages, the variety in installed versions will increase.

Very much aware of that as already  mentioned. However, major distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, ...) that still comprise the big share in userbase do keep the 'KDE Applications' at one common version and advertise that as I showed with the link to the Kubuntu release announcements. So the solution is intended for those distributions.

> Distributions that enforce a single version on all applications could just patch that version into the KInfoCenter sources, but Plasma developers will not do it.

Fair enough and you have a point there that it is not Plasma's duty to add that info but the distributions should add it if they think the 'KDE Applications' they ship are homogeneous. I guess I'll take this suggestion to the distributions' trackers instead.