 KBFX Preface:
 ============
  KBFX is an alternative to the classical K-Menu button and it's menu.
It improves the user experience by enabling the user to set a bigger (and
thus more visible) start button and by finally replacing the Win95-like
K-Menu with the Spinx bar.
If you still want the old menu, because you're used to it, it is still
available as an option in kbfx.


 Main Features:
 ==============
 Spinx Bar has 6 Basic Functionalities.
 1.Selecting an Application Group
 2.Selecting an Application
 3.Type and locate an Application
 4.Logout of the Desktop
 5.Lock the Desktop
 6.Launch KBFX settings manager
 7.Scroll up and down the application list


 Extra features:
 ===============
 1.Double buffered Widgets to minimize flicker.
 2.Animated scroll bars
 3.New Tooltip
 4.Gif/Mng File Support
 5.New Control Manager


 History
 =======
  KBFX was started on June 5th 2005 as a hobbyist project by Siraj Razick,
born out of a spontanous idea. The reason was that Siraj didn't like the
old K-Menu, which was quite a clone of the old Win95 Startmenu. So he
started coding.
The first step provided merely the possibility to call the K-Menu via a
button, that could have a different shape and size than the original
K-Menu button, which has always been an icon of a square size. To change
the default KBFX button, one still had to copy an image file to a certain
location.
After the first post in mid-june 05, KBFX has spread rapidly and it was
nice to see that until end of june, there were already a dozen posts on
kde-look with buttons and builds.
Mensur Zahirovic (called Nookie) joined Siraj on 5th of august, after
Siraj met him on yahoo. Nookie is responsible for the Web-development and
the Q&A. He also arranged the site www.kbfx.org, that replaces the
previous site www.linuxlots.com/~siraj/plugin/kde.
After that, things began to speed up. The next members were Akhmed
Fathonih, who works on the configuration modules, and Ron, who provides
distribution packages.
KBFX is no longer just another button design for the K-Menu, but now
provides an alternative to it, that is in fact more sophisticated than
the XP-Startmenu.


 Development
 ===========
  KBFX version 0.4.9 is a four month long prototypical development
approach. The release is a complete rewrite eliminating all the negative
points of the previous versions.
At the start we had a list of end requirements for version 0.4.9 and we
developed each of the feature units, testing each and every class as it
was developed.
Apart from unit testing, the quality assurance manager periodically
checked the quality of the product and the new releases that were made to
the KBFX source repository. The QA always checked the product against the
requirements that we had set to maximize quality.
This way of development helped us to discover tons of bugs and fix them
instantly, and so we debut with a rather clean and bugfree KBFX.
It was really helpful to see many users around the world checking out the
development release of KBFX from CVS, reporting and posting problems
encountered and helping to add more stability and compatibility between
distributions.
Because of this, we know the supported platforms even before KBFX is
0.4.9 is released. KBFX has been tested to work with all GCC3.x and
GCC4.x compilers. It has been tested on systems running the distributions
of Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse, Slackware, Mango, Mandrake, and Fedora
core systems.
Unfortunately, compiling on FreeBSD systems is yet to be tested, but we
plan to port KBFX to FreeBSD and PcBSD.


 Concepts
 ========
  The Spinx Menu does not try to copy the WinXP Startmenu. It is based
on a different approach and concept. Following, the concepts of the
traditional hierarchical structure and the new, flat indexed menu are
described and compared, although the new menu structure is quite
intuitive.


(Traditional) hierarchical structure

The KDE K-Menu is a good example of a flat hierarchical menu. It
organizes application shortcuts in a tree link structure, where it can
expand and open a submenu, with entries displayed based on some logical
order. This order may be task oriented, type oriented or just ordered
alphabetically. To find and launch an application, the user needs to
navigate through the submenus, untill he reaches the leaf (leaf node).
This approach is a direct adoption of the Microsoft Windows Start Menu.
They introduced it with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000. This was certainly a
huge usability advantage compared to the Windows 3.1 System with the
program manager, but a lot has changed since these days. The Windows XP
Start Menu is still based on this concept, although it is enhanced by the
functionalities to pin applications to the left column and the
automatically pinned most used applications. But still, a user must move
the mouse over the half screen, if his menu has many submenus with other
submenus, and the application is not one of his most used or pinned
applications.

Flat indexed menu

The KBFX Spinx Menu uses a different approach - the flat indexed menu.
With this type of menu it's very easy to navigate. On the left hand side,
you are given the application categories. They can be task oriented or
type oriented. On the right side of the menu, there are all the available
applications listed that belong to the activated category. The advantage
is evident - the menu reduces the mouse paths, so you can locate your
applications very fast. The user sees all the categories at a glance and
he can pick it without having to travel along a long list until he finds
the end leaf. The speed of use is further enhanced by moving the most
used and recently used applications on the top index, so that the most
used applications are just one click away.


 Team/Credits
 ============
The kbfx team is small, but very active. The members are:
  Siraj Razick: Maintainer, initiator of KBFX, Developer, Project Admin
  Mensur Zahirovic (nookie): Web-development, Q&A, Graphics, Bug Hunter,
  			     Project Admin
  Nathanael Gogniat (dracor): Documentation
  PhobosK: Package & Release Manager, Quality Assurance, Bug Hunter,
  	   Mandriva Packages, Project Admin, Developer QT/C++
  Johnny Henry Sáenz Acuña (scarebyte): Developer QT4/C++, Debian Packages
  Pascal Jungblut (Jongking): Development support

Special thanks goes to:
  Akhmad Fathonih, Asif Ali Rizwaan, Dominik, Victor, Ron (bfman), Steady

We would also like to thank everyone who has contributed to KBFX by using
it and sending feedback and bugs and everyone who has contributed button
designs or ideas.


 Other Useful Info
 =================
For Installation Instructions:
	see INSTALL
For useful howtoes:
	see HOWTO
For known bugs:
	see KNOWN_BUGS
Project Homepage:
	http://www.kbfx.org
Project Releases:
	http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=141258

