KDE.news 

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Introductions of a Dictionary, Photoframe, and Facebook Plasmoids, and a Weather and Solid DataEngine in Plasma. Usability improvements and optimisations in KListView, used for icon views in Konqueror and Dolphin. The start of a shared, common location for vocabulary files across KDE-Edu applications, with initial implementation in Kanagram. Support for application-specific caches in the Icon Cache implementation, and further progress in the KOrganizer Theming and KRDC Summer of Code projects. Better support for ALSA in KMix. Umbrello gets support for SQL code generation. The start of enhanced animation support in KPresenter. Scripting interaction with Yahoo! web services to provide weather and stock quote information in KSpread. Advancements in the KTorrent port to KDE 4. The creation of the PopUpDropper, a context-sensitive drag-and-drop widget in Amarok. Import of kollagame, a game development IDE. Systemsettings is moved to kdereview as a possible replacement for KControl in KDE 4. Read More

Linux.com reports on progress in Plasma, the new KDE 4 desktop. "If you visited the Plasma project's outdated website in past weeks, you might have got the impression that the team behind the project to revitalise the KDE desktop has not been up to much these past months. Delve into KDE's SVN repository, mailing lists, or the mind of lead developer Aaron Seigo, however, and you'll find a more exciting story." Read More

The KDE e.V. Quarterly Report is now available for Q1 2007, covering January, February and March 2007. Topics covered include the KDE PIM Meeting at Osnabrück in January 2007, progress on the Copyright Assignment (Fiduciary Licence Agreement) and reports from the Marketing Working Group, Human Computer Interaction Working Group, and Sysadmin Team. All long term KDE contributors are welcome to join KDE e.V. Read More

The CA-Browser forum, a group of leading Certificate Authorities and web browser developers, has approved the first version of Extended Validation certificates for use with web browser and other applications to certify a higher level of identity verification. This is a great step forward for security and trust on the web, and KDE is proud to have been a part of the process from the beginning to the end. Read More

KDE has a number of sub-projects that have blossomed into enormous projects of their own. A number of them, such as KOffice, or KDE-Edu get a lot of press in the open source world, while the KDE PIM project has been quietly gaining corporate acceptance as a suitable enterprise suite. Today's feature are the libraries that power the KDE PIM project, and specifically, what changes have taken place since KDE 3.5.x, wherein the KDE PIM project is one of the most successful and stable components of KDE. Read on for more details. Read More

The ninth issue of the Amarok Weekly Newsletter is out. In this issue, we interview an Amarok developer (Ian Monroe), take a look at the future of Amarok - Version 2.0 - and continue to provide nice usage tips. Read More

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Work on engine configurability, data management, a packaging system for Plasmoids and themes, and new refinements in desktop icon interaction in Plasma. The Oxygen window decoration and widget are both moved into kdebase. Further work in the Icon Cache, Kopete Messenger update, KRDC and Context Help Summer of Code projects. Improved highscore handling and network management across kdegames. New keyboard engine becomes live in KTouch, whilst the Step physics simulation package receives support for annotations. Support for many new text styling options in KOffice. Further work towards Amarok 2.0, including work on the context view and the display of lyrics. More recent and precise elevation data added to Marble. KColorScheme colour roles are added to aid usability. User documentation is started for Dolphin. More work in Strigi and NEPOMUK. Work on vector selections and a smoothing algorithm for drawing implemented in Krita. Many improvements in the KMix sound management utility. Digikam begins to be ported to KDE 4. Large scale reorganisation in the kdegraphics module: KColorEdit, KIconEdit, KPovModeller, Kuickshow and Ligature move to extragear/graphics, whilst Kooka and kmrml are removed completely. Read More

In the lead-up to KDE 4, Amarok will be undergoing a number of large changes both under the hood, and cosmetically with the user interface. I managed to interview a developer, Jeff Mitchell, to talk about the things changing in Amarok from the 1.4 stable branch to version 2.0, including the playlist redesign, the context view and the new web services framework. Read on for the interview. Read More

Hot on the heels of Apple's announcement of Safari for Windows, Clint Ecker has published a short discussion with Lars Knoll, one of the original coders behind KHTML. The article focuses on the connection between KHTML and Apple's Webkit, and in turn shows how Apple's announcement of Safari for Windows can benefit KDE and Qt. Safari on Windows will help KDE in two additional ways: improved website compatibility as more coders can now check site rendering when on Windows; and mindshare for KDE technologies for cross platform applications. Read More