Code-named “Caizen,” release 4.3 offers a wide variety of enhancements to KDE, which competes with Gnome as well as smaller players in the competition for Linux desktop environments. The release is expected to show up in major Linux distributions in a few months.

Improvements have been made to all the major elements of the KDE Desktop Workspace, including the Plasma Desktop Shell, the KWin window manager, Dolphin network- and content-aware file manager, KRunner search and launch system, and SystemSettings menus, says the KDE Community. Some of the biggest changes have occurred with the Plasma Desktop Shell, KDE’s desktop and panels system, which offers customizable widgets.

KDE Plasma Desktop Shell with new Air theme
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Sporting a new “Air” default theme (see above), the Plasma Desktop Shell boasts considerable performance improvements, with reduced memory usage and smoother animations, claims the project. Activities can now be tied to virtual desktops, enabling different sets of widgets for each desktop. Running jobs are now grouped in a single progress bar, and animations signify when jobs are running. Additional changes include improved keyboard shortcuts, easier widget creation, and new widgets such as a “Translatoid widget” that channels Google Translate.

Other components of the KDE Desktop Workspace have also been improved, including KRunner, which has an easier plugin discovery feature. The Dolphin file manager, meanwhile, now shows previews of files within a folder, as well as video thumbnails for quick identification, says the project. Dolphin is also touted for improved trash can, configuration dialogs, and network discovery features.

KDE’s web integration features
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The KWin window manager is said to work faster, and offers better integration with Plasma themes. Its Klipper clipboard memory tool can now automatically determine a list of applications that can handle a given object for quicker access to the content, says the KDE Community. SystemSettings is claimed to be faster, as well, and debuts an optional treeview for configuration, as well as improvements to “settingsdialogs.”

KDE applications: Click like an Egyptian

KDE has added to and enhanced its list of applications available in the KDE Software Distribution. Major categories are said to include network applications, multimedia, graphics tools, PIM suite, educational applications, games, and utilities.

Among the many listed enhancements in KDE Utilities, the “KGpg” privacy tool, which is used for encryption and signing files, now offers an improved import dialog, and also integrates the “Solid” hardware awareness technology for detecting the availability of a network connection. The Ark file compression utility, meanwhile, now supports LZMA/XZ, and has improved support for other compression formats.

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Egyptian-themed games

Many of the KDE games now offer a standard Egyptian-style theme, including KGoldrunner’s new “Curse of the Mummy” game, naturally. All the games are claimed to offer more accurate pause, resume, recording, and replaying of games. Additional improved games include KMahjongg, Killbots, and Bovo, and there’s also a new KTron game.

The KDE PIM apps are touted as being faster and more stable. Specific improved functions include the Kopete IM app, KOrganizer, Kmail, and Alarm notifier. A new Bug Report Tool is said to provide a three-star rating of the quality of the data gathered from a crash, and offers hints on improving the quality of the crash data and bug report.

KDE Application Development Framework gains LGPL licensing

The KDE 4.3 Application Development Framework, which is based on Nokia’s Qt library, is now, like Qt, “liberally licensed” under LGPL, allowing for both proprietary and open source development. The framework is also said to support cross-platform development on Linux, UNIX, Mac, and MS Windows.

The framework adds its first code integration from the Social Desktop project (see image below), offering an open collaboration platform. The platform supplies a DataEngine for Plasma applets supporting aspects of Social Desktop, but more features are expected in future releases.

Social Desktop in KDE
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Other new development framework features include a system tray protocol developed in collaboration with the Free Desktop initiative. Additional DataEngines include a Geolocation DataEngine using libgps and HostIP, which allows “plasmoids” to respond to the user’s location, and a DataEngine for the Akonadi Free Desktop PIM storage solution, which is said to be much improved. Finally, the framework now provides a PolicyKit wrapper, including an authorization manager, an authentication agent, and a library.

Availability

KDE 4.3.0 is available now for free download. More information, including links to download sites, may be found here.

– Eric Brown