KDE.news 

The first version of KTechLab was released a couple of weeks before the new year. While only at version 0.1 it already contains a lot of functionality for developing and simulating electronic circuits. Currently KTechLab can create circuit diagrams for electronics and flow diagrams for PIC chips (a family of programmable chips). It can even compile and run your flow diagrams in a circuit. This review contains an introduction and a look at the features to be expected in future versions. Read More

The first stable version of Gambas has been released. Gambas is a Visual Basic like development environment (screenshots) where the programmes are cross-platform single executable files that can be deployed in a manner reminiscent of Java. The platform is in fact powerful enough that the IDE itself is written in Gambas. For a brief introduction try this OSNews article regarding Gambas or the Gambas Wiki. Gambas currently integrates with the KDE desktop environment by supporting Qt at the graphical component level as well as enabling DCOP interaction at the desktop level. Read More

Qt4Lab is an extension to the Qt application framework from Trolltech. This project will be developed according to the Open Source philosophy and will be distributed under LGPL. Qt4Lab provides widget plugins and utilities for Rapid Application Prototyping for developing SCADA applications. The application field is automotive/aerospace. Widgets plugins are developed on GNU/Linux and are available for GNU/Linux and Windows NT/2000/XP. Release 0.1.0 is now available (screenshots). Read More

In this week's KDE CVS-Digest (experimental layout): Gwenview adds support for animated pictures. digiKam adds more image editing plugins: Sheartool, anti-vignetting, lensdistortion. KWin adds dynamic keybindings. PwManager adds Smartcard interface. Read More

The biographies of KDE speakers at FOSDEM 2005 are up for Matthias Ettrich, Harald Fernengel and Alexander Dymo. FOSDEM will interview speakers before the event so if you have questions about the future of KDE or KDevelop please send them to fosdem@gmail.com or add a comment to this story and we will send them on. Read More

KDE.ie has been launched by the new KDE representative in Ireland, Barry O'Donovan. If you are a KDE developer, contributor and/or enthusiast in Ireland then please join the kde-ie mailing list. If you know of any KDE contribututors, commercial supporters or candidates for case studies please contact kde-ie. Read More

NewsForge is running a Platonic dialog considering the eternal question: "Should KDE be ported to Windows?". The voices of Socrates, Glaucon and Thrasymachus present the various arguments for and against the issue, making for an easy to understand presentation of the various aspects of this classic debate that will likely pop up again with KDE 4. Read More

Three security advisories have been issued by the KDE Security Team over the last days for two distinct vulnerabilities that have been found: all KDE releases up to and including KDE 3.3.2 are vunerable to a FTP KIO Slave Command Injection. Another xpdf Buffer Overflow has been found affecting kpdf in all KDE versions and also all KOffice 1.3 versions. Read More

Christian Paratschek is a long term Gnome user who has has not looked at KDE for over two years. He has written about his experiences of testing out SimplyMepis for a week, comparing the two desktop environments and their applications and finding the areas in which KDE can tempt even a dyed-in-the-wool Gnome fan. Read More

The author of the Independent Qt Tutorial has published an example-driven article about Qt 4 Beta 1. The text touches the new Designer and some of the code-level changes that will affect application developers. Read More