KDE Archive

KDE has announced its latest set of releases, providing major updates to KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications, and the KDE Platform. Version 4.8 provides many new features, and improved stability, performance and dynamic power management.

"Mobile devices that adapt to who you are, reflecting what you are doing when you are doing it. This concept is at the heart of the Plasma Active user experience. Plasma Active One was released in October 2011, providing early adopters the first opportunity to experience Activities on a tablet. Since then, the design and development team behind this open source touch interface has been hard at work on an update. The fruits of their labor were released today, December 14, 2011 as Plasma Active Two."

Disappointed with KDE 4's performance and other shortcomings, Timothy Pearson continued KDE 3.5 development under the name Trinity. Today the first third major update of the Trinity Desktop Environment is released, providing an alternative upgrade path for KDE users who do not feel comfortable with KDE 4.

KDE has announced the release of Plasma Active One, which is a KDE 4.x style interface and API designed for touch devices. The Plasma Active Team states that "Plasma Active is innovative technology for an intelligent user experience. It is intended for all types of tablets, smartphones and touch computing devices such as set-top boxes, smart TVs, home automation, in-vehicle infotainment".

"After years of focusing on further improving KDE4 two weeks ago the developers of the free desktop announced the next big step for their project: KDE Frameworks 5.0. But as long-time developer - and Plasma team leader - Aaron Seigo points out in an interview with derStandard.at/web, the source-incompatible changes shall be held to a minimum. Also calls Frameworks 5.0 only the "first step", new Applications and Workspace releases are to follow later, Seigo goes on to talk about the chances in the mobile market with Plasma Active and further areas of collaboration with the other big free desktop: GNOME."

KDE is working on some interesting stuff. Wayland support for one, but they're also going to work on the frameworks for... KDE 5.0. Yes, I'd say KDE 4 still is far, far from done, but 5.0 is already on the horizon. This time around though, they're not going to pull a KDE 4.0, since this is mostly going to be about lower-level changes.

Looks as though Facebook has banned the use of kipi-plugins as a way to export photos to the social networking site using KDE applications like digiKam and Gwenview. Adding insult to injury, photos that were previously uploaded using this software have been deleted without warning.

"KDE has released a release candidate of the upcoming 4.7 release of the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Frameworks, which is planned for July 27, 2011. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing last-minute showstopper bugs and finishing translation and documentation that comes along with the releases." Focuses of this release are Kwin support for OpenGL-ES 2.0 (oooh purty!), an interface refresh for Dolphin, and loads of other stuff.

New open source projects have been launched by KDE developers aimed at bringing a consistent user interface across a varied of touch screen interfaces like tablets and entertainment devices and take data integration to a new level. The new Plasma Active and Contour projects were developed to offer a new user experience for tablets, smartphones and set top boxes.

Before we get underway: I'm sorry, we don't have enough headline space to write 'KDE Releases Development Platform, Applications and Plasma Workspaces 4.6.0'. Then again, do any non-anal people every refer to it that way? No? I thought so. In any case, there's a new KDE version out with lots of new features, bug fixes, and performance enhancements.

"The KDE community today announces the start of the Calligra Suite project, a continuation of the KOffice project. The new name reflects the wider value of the KOffice technology platform beyond just desktop office applications. With a new name for the Suite and new names for the productivity applications, the Calligra community welcomes a new stage in the development of free productivity and creativity applications for desktop and mobile devices."

"KDE releases 4.6 beta1 of Workspaces, Applications and Development Frameworks, bringing significant improvements to desktop search, a revamped activity system and a significant performance boost to window management and desktop effects. Efforts all across the KDE codebase pay off by making KDE's frameworks more suitable for usage on all devices. The release provides a testing base for a stable release in January 2011."

Ambition. Too little, and you stagnate. Too much, and you end up stumbling. Keep this in mind. KDE4 was, and is, a very brave and ambitious effort, and while in my personal opinion they've still got a long way to go, especially in the performance department (I regained some hope lately), they're getting there. Imagine my surprise that after the recently announced overhaul of Plasma, a rather wild idea has popped up that would mean Qt5 and KDE5 - assuming the idea gets enough support, of course.

The KDevelop hackers are proud and happy to announce the release of KDevelop 4.1. The main features include: Git integration, project fetching, an hex editor, PHP 5.3 support and patch exporting.