14 DAY TRIAL // The KDE Project released today the final version of the KDE Applications 19.04 open-source office suite for the KDE Plasma desktop environment and GNU/Linux operating systems.
More than three months in development, the KDE Applications 19.04 software suite is here today to bring you a mix of new features, improvements, and optimizations to your favorite KDE apps. It's packed with various enhancements to the Dolphin file manager, Kdenlive video editor, Kate text editor, KMail email client, Okular document viewer, Gwenview image editor, and Spectacle screenshot utility.
"Our community continuously works on improving the software included in our KDE Application series. Along with new features, we improve the design, usability and stability of all our utilities, games, and creativity tools. Our aim is to make your life easier by making KDE software more enjoyable to use. We hope you like all the new enhancements and bug fixes you'll find in 19.04," read today's announcement.
Here's what's new in KDE Applications 19.04
Highlights of the KDE Applications 19.04 software suite release include thumbnail support for Microsoft Office files, Blender files, .epub and .fb2 eBook files, and PCX files in the Dolphin file manager, along with a smarter tab placement feature and more practical tagging of items, better support for the SMB (Samba) protocol for sharing files with Windows OSes, and fixes for numerous memory leaks for better performance.
The Okular document viewer app now lets users view and verify the digital signatures of PDF files, as well as editing of LaTeX documents in TexStudio, supports touchscreen navigation, and it now correctly displays links in Markdown documents. The KMail email client now comes with improved grammar features, automatic detection of phone numbers, a much-improved Markdown plugin, improved IMAP fetching, and improved performance & reliability.
The KOrganizer calendar app gets improved sync of recurrent events from Google Calendar, support for showing event reminders on all desktops, and more modern event views. The Spectacle screenshot utility now lets users choose a compression level for all lossy image formats, comes with new options for the Rectangular Region mode, and offers better support for the Wayland display server.
The Konsole terminal emulator also received a bunch of enhancements in the KDE Applications 19.04 release, among which we can mention a revamped Edit Profile dialog, improved tab management, better support for displaying underline-style cursors, bold text, Emoji characters, as well as box and line characters, along with various other minor optimizations for better performance and reliability.
The Kdenlive video editor gets a new QML-powered timeline with separate tracks for audio and video, as well as keyboard navigation, a new voice-over feature for the in-track audio recording, improved copy and paste between different project windows, support for external BlackMagic displays, and improved handling of keyframes. And the Kate text editor brings support for invisible whitespace character, as well as useful new actions and plugins.
Last but not least, the Gwenview image viewer and organizer now features complete support for touchscreens with gestures for panning, swiping, and zooming, support for 512px thumbnails, better support for back and forward navigation with the mouse buttons, and support for files created with the Krita digital painting tool. The KmPlot mathematical function plotter and Kolf miniature golf game got some minor improvements as well.
The KDE Applications 19.04 software suite will soon be available for installation from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distributions, but you can also download individual source packages from the official website. KDE Applications 19.04 will be supported with three maintenance updates until July 11, 2019, when the last point release, KDE Applications 19.04.3, hits the streets.
