KDE Ships Second Release Candidate of Applications, Platform and Plasma Workspaces 4.10

January 4, 2013. Today KDE released the second release candidate for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. Meanwhile, the KDE release team has decided to schedule a third release candidate to allow for more testing, pushing the 4.10 releases into the first week of February 2013. Further testing and bug fixing will allow KDE to deliver rock-stable products to millions of users world wide.



Plasma Desktop with Dolphin Plasma Desktop with Dolphin

Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces. Plasma Quick, KDE's extensions on top of QtQuick allow deeper integration with the system and more powerful apps and Plasma components. Plasma Containments can now be written in QtQuick. Various Plasma widgets have been rewritten in QtQuick, notably the system tray, pager, notifications, lock & logout, weather and weather station, comic strip and calculator plasmoids. Many performance, quality and usability improvements make Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces easier to use.

-- Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces. Plasma Quick, KDE's extensions on top of QtQuick allow deeper integration with the system and more powerful apps and Plasma components. Plasma Containments can now be written in QtQuick. Various Plasma widgets have been rewritten in QtQuick, notably the system tray, pager, notifications, lock & logout, weather and weather station, comic strip and calculator plasmoids. Many performance, quality and usability improvements make Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces easier to use. New Screen Locker -- A new screen locking mechanism based on QtQuick brings more flexibility and security to Plasma Desktop.

-- A new screen locking mechanism based on QtQuick brings more flexibility and security to Plasma Desktop. Animated Wallpapers -- Thanks to a new QtQuick-based wallpaper engine, animated wallpapers are now much easier to create.

-- Thanks to a new QtQuick-based wallpaper engine, animated wallpapers are now much easier to create. Improved Zooming in Okular -- A technique called tiled rendering allows Okular to zoom in much further while reducing memory consumption. Okular Active, the touch-friendly version of the powerful document reader is now part of KDE SC.

-- A technique called tiled rendering allows Okular to zoom in much further while reducing memory consumption. Okular Active, the touch-friendly version of the powerful document reader is now part of KDE SC. Faster indexing -- Improvements in the Nepomuk semantic engine allow faster indexing of files. The new Tags kioslave allows users to browse their files by tags in any KDE-powered application.

-- Improvements in the Nepomuk semantic engine allow faster indexing of files. The new Tags kioslave allows users to browse their files by tags in any KDE-powered application. Color Correction -- Gwenview, KDE's smart image viewer and Plasma's window manager now support color correction and can be adjusted to the color profile of different monitors, allowing for more natural representation of photos and graphics.

-- Gwenview, KDE's smart image viewer and Plasma's window manager now support color correction and can be adjusted to the color profile of different monitors, allowing for more natural representation of photos and graphics. Notifications -- Plasma's notifications are now rendered using QtQuick, notifications themselves, especially concerning power management have been cleaned up.

-- Plasma's notifications are now rendered using QtQuick, notifications themselves, especially concerning power management have been cleaned up. New Print Manager -- Setup of printers and monitoring jobs was improved thanks to a new implementation of the Print Manager.

-- Setup of printers and monitoring jobs was improved thanks to a new implementation of the Print Manager. Kate, KDE's Advanced Text Editor received multiple improvements regarding user feedback. It is now extensible using Python plugins.

received multiple improvements regarding user feedback. It is now extensible using Python plugins. KTouch -- KDE's touch-typing learning utility has been rewritten and features a cleaner, more elegant user interface.

-- KDE's touch-typing learning utility has been rewritten and features a cleaner, more elegant user interface. libkdegames improvements -- Many parts of libkdegames have been rewritten, porting instructions for 3rd party developers are available.

-- Many parts of libkdegames have been rewritten, porting instructions for 3rd party developers are available. KSudoku now allows printing puzzles.

now allows printing puzzles. KJumpingCube has seen a large number of improvements making the game more enjoyable.

Testing

Highlights of 4.10 include, but are not limited to:More improvements can be found in the 4.10 Feature Plan . As with any large number of changes, we need to give 4.10 a good testing in order to maintain and improve the quality and user experience when users install the update.

KDE is running an extra detailed beta-testing program throughout the 4.10 beta and RC releases. To participate, get the latest KDE 4.10. Instructions for installing the latest test release can be found here.

Some areas of KDE deserve extra testing attention this time around. We have checklists for testing in general, and recommendations for special attention on the wiki.

Get Involved

The KDE beta-testing program is a way for everyone to contribute to the ongoing quality of KDE software. You can make a difference by carefully testing the programs that are part of the KDE 4.10 beta and assist developers by identifying legitimate bugs. This means higher quality software, more features and happier users and developers.

Beta Testing Program is structured so that any KDE user can give back to KDE, regardless of their skill level. If you want to be part of this quality improvement program, please contact the Team on the IRC channel #kde-quality on freenode.net. The Team Leaders want to know ahead of time who is involved in order to coordinate all of the testing activities. They are also committed to having this project be fun and rewarding. After checking in, you can install the beta through your distribution package manager. The KDE Community wiki has instructions. This page will be updated as beta packages for other distributions become available. With the beta installed, you can proceed with testing. Please contact the Team on IRC #kde-quality if you need help getting started.

KDE Software Compilation 4.10 RC2

The KDE Software Compilation, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE's software can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Installing 4.10 RC2 Binary Packages

Packages. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of 4.10 RC2 (internally 4.9.97) for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks.

Package Locations. For a current list of available binary packages of which the KDE Project has been informed, please visit the Community Wiki.

Compiling 4.10 RC2

The complete source code for 4.10 RC2 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing 4.9.97 are available from the 4.9.97 Info Page.

Supporting KDE

KDE is a Free Software community that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether it is help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information or become a KDE e.V. supporting member through our new Join the Game initiative.

About KDE

KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and macOS.

Trademark Notices. KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are registered trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

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