KDE3Apps for KDE 4

Status quo

Currently we have NO way to start KDE 3 apps in KDE 4 when the KDE 4 successor is installed.

Issues

The status quo (as described in HaraldSitter/KdeFour/Apps4For3) is causing one major issue, since the current KDE 4 desktop files are named different than the KDE 3 version (so they can coexist on a KDE 3 desktop) one has 2 menu entries in the KDE 4 version one named '$KApp' and the other named '$KApp KDE 4'. One usually would asume the first is starting the KDE 3 version, which is not the case¹, in fact it's very confusing and filling your menu with semi-duplicated entries.

Solution

This issue disappears with the solution proposed in HaraldSitter/KdeFour/Apps4For3 since the stock KDE 4 desktop files will override the KDE 3 ones (in XDG default path). So if you have the KDE 4 successor of a KDE 3 app installed, one will not be able to launch the KDE 3 version, which makes sense -> if the KDE 4 version is too buggy to use it one probably wouldn't want to have it installed anyway, and removing will reveal the KDE 3 version (because the executable in $KDE4DIR isn't anymore the first found executable).

Other solution

I can't think of any proper solution which would make KDE 3 apps available in KDE 4 (like for example KDE 4 Apps in KDE 3), unless we want to edit all existing KDE 3 packages and add rules to create a similiar wrapper system to the one described in HaraldSitter/KdeFour/Apps4For3, but in my opinion this isn't worth the work, since (as discribed above) it doesn't make sense to have a unsuable KDE 4 applications installed.