14 DAY TRIAL // The KDE Project was proud to announce the official release and general availability of KDE Applications 17.04, the latest and most advanced stable version of the popular, open-source software suite for KDE Plasma 5 desktops.
KDE Applications 17.04 has been in development for the past one and a half months, during which it received a Beta and an RC (Release Candidate) build that brought various performance optimizations and new features to the KAlgebra mathematical graph calculator, Kdenlive video editor, Dolphin file manager, Ark archiver, and Minuet music educational software.
"On the whole, we have worked to make both the applications and the underlying libraries more stable and easier to use. By ironing out wrinkles and listening to your feedback, we have made the KDE Applications suite less prone to glitches and much friendlier," explained the developers in the release announcement.
What's new in KDE Applications 17.04
While the KAlgebra devs concentrated their efforts on porting the mobile version of the app to the latest Kirigami 2.0 user interface framework for mobile and convergent applications, they also managed to migrate the 3D backend of the desktop version to GLES, making the app's code easier and simpler to maintain.
The popular Kdenlive video editor comes with a revamped profile selection dialog, making it easier for users to set the framerate, screen size, and other parameters for their movie projects, adds the ability to play video streams straight from notifications when the rendering process has finished, and improves timeline when moving clips and the DVD Wizard.
On the other hand, the Dolphin file manager received various usability improvements, cleaner context menus to the Places panel, and interaction with metadata widgets in tooltips, which now work on the next-generation Wayland display server. The Ark archiver now comes with a built-in Search function and a brand new Libzip plugin to improve support for Zip archives.
Last but not least, the new Minuet version ships with an extra layer of scales exercises and ear-training tasks for bebop, symmetric scales, harmonic minor and harmonic major, as well as pentatonic. An all-new Test mode lets users set or take tests for answering exercises, while monitoring the progress by running a sequence of 10 exercises. KDE Applications 17.04 is coming soon to a distro near you!
