<chapter id="what-is-tde">
<chapterinfo>
<date>&tde-release-date;</date>
<releaseinfo>&tde-release-version;</releaseinfo>
</chapterinfo>
<title>What is the Trinity Desktop Environment?</title>
<anchor id="whatistde"/>

<sect1 id="what-is-tde-introduction">
<title>What is the Trinity Desktop Environment?</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. &tde; features network transparency and a contemporary work
flow philosophy.</para>

<para>Historically, the Trinity Desktop Environment is a fork of the K Desktop Environment
version 3.5, originally written by the KDE Team, a world-wide network of
software engineers committed to Free Software development. This group's
major goal in free software development is to provide high quality software
that empowers the user with easy control of their computer's resources.</para>

<para>The &tde; developers continue the tradition of KDE 3.5.</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;. &tde; meets the requirement
of users for an easy to use work environment. Tools used to reach
this goal are: enhanced inter-application communication, component
reuse, generalized drag and drop, uniform look and feel and many
more. Thus, &tde; offers much more than the traditional &UNIX; window
managers.</para>

<para>Stability, scalability 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; remains as a forefront
player in bringing these qualities to &UNIX; systems, 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 recent years, addressed the
needs of the average computer user. This fact is particularly
unfortunate, since a number of implementations of &UNIX; systems (<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; systems, &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
provide 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; systems 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 systems used to be an extremely
tedious and labor intensive process. &tde; developers recognize 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; includes technologies such as &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 office programs known as &koffice;.</para>

<para>&koffice; is based on the &tde; &DCOP;/KParts
technologies. It 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 (&karbon14;). 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 organizer).</para>

</sect1>
</chapter>
