KDE Commit-Digest for 6th May 2012
In this week's KDE Commit-Digest, Frederik Gladhorn writes about the current state of development in KDE-Accessibility.
As usual, there is also a change list that includes:
- Marble gets the first version of FlightGear position provider
- KPhotoAlbum saves the video length in a database; search for the length is also possible
LaKademy 2012 ‒ Artwork, Localization, Promotion, Development
LaKademy is over. April 27th to May 1st were days of hard work, meeting old and new friends, having much fun while realizing how far crazy guy imaginations can go. It was a great summit and sprint. Compared to the first (and only one so far) Akademy-BR in 2010, there is clear evidence that we are making progress building a strong and mature KDE community in Latin America. We met in a lovely hostel in Porto Alegre, Brazil and were well taken care of during the event.
Akademy Community Keynote: Agustín Benito Bethencourt (toscalix)
Agustín Benito Bethencourt (aka "toscalix") recently joined the KDE e.V. Board of Directors. He will be presenting the KDE Community Keynote at Akademy 2012 in Tallinn.
KDE Ships May Updates to Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform
Today KDE released updates for its Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. These updates are the third in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.8 series. 4.8.3 updates bring many bugfixes and translation updates on top of the latest edition in the 4.8 series and are recommended updates for everyone running 4.8.2 or earlier versions. As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone. KDE’s software is already translated into more than 55 languages, with more to come.
KDE Commit-Digest for 22nd April 2012
In this week's KDE Commit-Digest:
- Konsole gains a Web Shortcuts menu that allows searching selected text using any of the search providers; search scrollback is now possible in Konsole KPart
- New placement policy in KDEWorkspace: allow "under mouse"; work to include screenlocker into ksmserver
- Amarok ships the Free Music Charts by default; Amarok's iPod collection completely rewritten
Presentation List for Akademy 2012 Tallinn
The Akademy 2012 Program Committee is proud to present the Akademy 2012 Sessions. Given the broad nature of KDE, the proposals submitted contained a wealth of interesting and valuable topics. From those, 28 proposals were selected that we felt would address the most relevant topics and be deep enough in the areas of most interest to the KDE Community.
Google Summer of Code & Season of KDE 2012 - there is place for everyone!
Google has published the list of 60 student proposals that have been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2012 for KDE. It means that 60 students will be able to work full-time on changing the world this summer! A big thank you to Google for making this possible.
LaKademy — First KDE Event for All of Latin America
Latin America is a big place with many opportunities for KDE; major deployments of KDE software are proof. Over the years, groups of KDE developers have emerged in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and probably other places. These groups work together to make a better KDE. As we know, meeting and talking in person is important to strengthen the bonds in a community. So we decided to organize a Latin American meeting of KDE contributors following the lead of the first Akademy-br in 2009. Like Akademy-br, the first LaKademy will be similar to a sprint for developers and one for people interested in promoting KDE in this part of the world.
The first LaKademy is taking place in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil from April 27th to May 1st, 2012. People were invited from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. 12 known KDE contributors have confirmed their presence, along with 6 newcomers. Current KDE contributors recommended newcomers based on their abilities and their potential to become long-time KDE contributors.
KDE Commit-Digest for 15th April 2012
Akademy Keynote: Dr. Mathias Klang - Freedom of Expression
Mathias Klang photo by Ola Waagen
Dr. Mathias Klang is a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Göteborg in Sweden. His research revolves within the field of legal informatics with particular interest in copyright, democracy, human rights, free expression, censorship, open access and ethics. He holds Master of Laws and Ph.D. degrees.
Dr. Klang will deliver one of the keynote talks at Akademy 2012 in Tallinn, Estonia. My interview with another keynoter, Dr. Will Schroeder, was published recently on the Dot.
Provident License Agreements for KDAB
(Matthias) Kalle Dalheimer is the President and Founder of KDAB, and also one of the founding members of the KDE project and KDE e.V. He hasn't personally been very active in KDE lately, but some of the old-timers will remember that he served as President and Treasurer of KDE e.V. for a few years. He also wrote the first C++ class ever used in kdelibs (KConfig) even though it's doubtful that any of the code is still left in today's codebase.
KDE China User: A KDE Meeting in Beijing
KDE China User meeting
On March 30th, a grand meeting called KDE China User was held in Beijing. This meeting provided KDE users, community members and technophiles with a nice "face-to-face" opportunity to discuss KDE's latest and cutting edge technology trends. Read on to find out what transpired at the meeting and what the future might hold for KDE in China.
KDE Commit-Digest for 8th April 2012
In this week's KDE Commit-Digest:
- In KDevelop, C++11 gets noexcept keyword support; external scripts can be run from Project context menu; performance improved in compiler error-detection regexps
- Amarok gets a diagnostics dialog for easy bug reporting
- Konversation supports SSL Client Certificate authentication using PEM files
The First Version of Calligra Released
The Calligra team has announced the first release ever of the Calligra suite. This marks the end of a long development period lasting almost one and a half year. It is the first release in a long series which is planned to make improved applications every 4 months.
Take the tour to discover some of the apps of Calligra.
Akademy Keynote: Dr. Will Schroeder, KitWare CEO
Will Schroeder
Dr. Will Schroeder is one of the keynote speakers for Akademy 2012 in Tallinn, Estonia. Will is the CEO of Kitware Inc., a proven leader in the creation and support of open-source software.
Simon Speech Recognition Project Moves to KDE
Simon, KDE's speech recognition software, has recently migrated from Sourceforge to KDE's Git infrastructure. Developed to allow people with physical disabilities to control their computers entirely by voice, Simon has found its way into voice-controlled media centers in homes for the elderly and most recently in assistive care-giving robots.
The move has also brought Simon into KDE Extragear, the kde-accessibility mailing list, and KDE's accessibility sub-forum for user support.
The community around Simon has grown since the move, so this is a good time to join in for those interested in improving Simon or KDE's other accessibility projects. The Simon Listens e.V. is also accepting tax-deductible donations (translated from German) to further support development of their software.
Simon's lead developer Peter Grasch shares his experience migrating to the KDE ecosystem.
KDE Commit-Digest for 1st April 2012
In this week's KDE Commit-Digest:
- KDev-Python's new debugger gains a DUChain-supported local declaration list
- Digikam adds loc.alize.us support to their geolocation service
- Okular now remembers exact bookmark positions and more than one bookmark per page
- KWin adds Global Shortcut support for scripts and scripted effects and cursor-key navigation to Flip Switch and Cover Switch effects
KDE Ships April Updates to Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform
Today KDE released updates for its Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform.
These updates are the second in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.8 series. 4.8.2 updates bring many bugfixes and translation updates on top of the latest edition in the 4.8 series and are recommended updates for everyone running 4.8.1 or earlier versions. As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone. KDE’s software is already translated into more than 55 languages, with more to come.
Significant bugfixes include making encryption of multiple folders using GPG work, XRender fixes in the KWin window and compositing manager, a series of bugfixes to the newly introduced Dolphin view engine and improvements in the Plasma Quick-based new window switcher, which made its first appearance in 4.8.0. Kontact and its device counterpart Kontact Touch have received a number of important bugfixes as well as performance improvements.
The changelog and Bugzilla list more, but not all improvements since 4.8.1.
Note that these changelogs are incomplete. For a complete list of changes that went into 4.8.2, you can browse the Subversion and Git logs. 4.8.2 also ships a more complete set of translations for many of the 55+ supported languages.
To download source code or packages to install go to the 4.8.2 Info Page. If you would like to find out more about the KDE Workspaces and Applications 4.8, please refer to the 4.8 release notes and its earlier versions.
The KDE and openSUSE communities welcome you to COSCUP 2012!
Aaron in action at COSCUP 2011
COSCUP is the largest FLOSS conference organized by local communities in Taiwan. The conference has sessions for new users, enthusiastic promoters, coders or anyone who is interested in cutting-edge FLOSS technologies. This year, KDE and openSUSE will be jointly organizing one of the three dedicated tracks and we're happy to announce the CfP is open!
