KDE.news 

KWin, KDE's window manager, has been around since KDE 2.0 (replacing KWM in KDE 1.x) and has grown to be a mature and stable window manager over the years. For KDE 4, however, there were a few people rumbling about visual effects, and perhaps KWin was feeling a little envious of its younger cousins Compiz and Beryl. While these new effects have created a lot of buzz around Linux and UNIX, long-term KDE users have wished they can enjoy the effects of Compiz/Beryl while still having the tried and tested window manager that is KWin. As a result, for KDE 4, KWin has received a huge graphical upgrade, with composite and GL support. Read on for more details. Read More

With only a month to go the schedule for aKademy 2007 is filling up. Our tutorial day has been popular enough to fill up two days covering subjects from Interview in Qt 4 to Emacs, Kopete plugins and an introduction to KDE development. Over in the Birds of a Feather meetings[?] we have sessions including LSB compliance, Qt Jambi, Korundum and the intriguing KDE Matchmaker. Such a high quality programme would normally cost hundreds of euro in the proprietary software world, but this is free software and thanks to an increasing number of sponsors we do not charge you a penny, but please remember to register your attendance or we cannot let you in. For those of you new to the British Isles, we will have a number of European to British power adaptors on sale at aKademy at cost price. Finally, for those unsure if they are coming to aKademy, this video shows the fun we had last year. Read More

Krita development is in a crucial phase, we are adding fun, useful and amazing stuff at a stunning rate. But there are things that no Krita developer can do, because we lack the proper hardware. Krita's renaissance started with a simple Wacom Graphire tablet, and it led to some great new possibilities. But to implement support for modern tablet features like tilt and stylus rotation we need to buy more advanced tablets and art pens, and to make that possible, we need your help! Read More

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Continued work in Plasma, particularly in the clock visualisations. Kalzium uses the GetHotNewStuff framework to download new molecules for its 3d viewer, plus speed optimisations for the rendering of these molecules. The start of fullscreen support in the Gwenview image viewer. Work begins on a WebKit-based KPart. A KControl module is created to allow for easy manipulation of KWin "Composite" settings. Continued work on the OpenChange Akonadi resource which enables interoperability with Exchange servers. Statistics plugin for a graphical representation of connection speeds in KTorrent. Improved handling of HDR imagery in Krita. Branch created for the integration of Solid-based connection management and notification in Konqueror. Read More

This year Germany's LinuxTag conference and exhibition takes place in in Berlin's Messe for the first time. As with previous years there will be a KDE booth, where you can meet some of the people behind KDE. Meet them and talk about the project, programs, features and, of course, about the upcoming KDE 4 platform. On Thursday, KDE 4 will be the topic of a talk in the "Linux, Wow" track. Read More

Are you fed up with cryptic error messages you don't understand? Then get involved! This week's target of the HIG Hunting Season is warnings and error messages. Read on for more details. Read More

For the next interview in the fortnightly People Behind KDE series we remain in North America, down to the deserts of Arizona to meet an astronomer who uses his work expertise to bring the galaxy to our desktops - tonight's star of People Behind KDE is Jason Harris. Read More

KDE will be exhibiting at LUGRadio Live 2007 which is back in Wolverhampton, England on July 7th and 8th. The event, now in its third year, is the largest gathering of Free Software projects in the UK. LUGRadio Live overlaps with the end of aKademy in Glasgow so you may want to stop by on your way home. Read More

Again, after a delay brought on by a bout Real Life (tm), we return to bring you updates on the state of Konsole, KDE's UNIX terminal program. Konsole has been a staple of KDE since KDE 1.0, as has been showing signs of a little bit of clutter and wear. So, Robert Knight has stepped in to clean up the program's code, and more than anything else, fix a cluttered and difficult interface. Read on for the details. Read More

The KDE project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.7, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. This release brings a renewed focus to KDE-PIM applications. KAddressBook, KOrganizer and KAlarm received attention with bugfixes, while KMail additionally witnessed the addition of new features and improvements with both interface work and IMAP handling: it can manage IMAP quotas, and copy and move all folders. Read on for more details. Read More