The "K team" has made official a few moments ago the launch of KDE Gear 23.08. This is the August 2023 set of applications, and it is a zero-point update, so it comes with new features and not just patches to improve what already exists. And this time also in the form of a name change: it's time to say goodbye to Kalendar to welcome Merkuro, and they have reasons for this change.
Kalendar had the name of an application to check dates and appointments, but for a long time it had done more than that. It is also used to save contacts, and to be able to include everything in the same application, a non-exclusive name is necessary, and the one chosen has been merkuro. In addition to the new name and tweaking the interface, the application can now be divided into two, so it is possible to have only the calendar, only the contacts, or both, depending on our needs.
Other highlights of KDE Gear 23.08
- Dolphin now hides temporary and backup files. It also shows the progress of the calculation of the size of an article while it is being carried out and you can duplicate a tab with just a double click on it, among other new features.
- Okular now allows signatures of various pieces of metadata, such as reason or location, and you can add a background image to it. Among other new features, it now allows you to choose the default scaling mode when printing PDFs.
- Itinerary can now import train tickets online using the booking reference and passenger name, and get the booking details directly from the operator's website (Deutsche Bahn and SNCF only).
- Skanpage now supports drag-and-drop reordering of multi-page scans and offers more adjustment options such as brightness, contrast and color balance.
- Kate, on her way to becoming or getting closer to what an IDE offers, now supports the GLSL language and Godot's layout engine in the LSP client. It also includes the QML server option when using Qt6.
- NeoChat can now show events with location next to a map.
- Elisa does a better job of finding cover files and introduces a smooth transition when switching from one to another. In addition, repeat and shuffle settings can now be controlled via MPRIS, allowing it to be done with KDE Connect.
- Gwenview has improved the transition from one image to another, as well as the use of the zoom bar.
- Spectacle allows you to select annotations when you hover over them.
- Partition Manager, the tool for creating and modifying disk partitions, gets a new icon that distinguishes it from Filelight.
- Konqueror, the classic KDE web browser/file explorer, restores the last tabs and windows on reboot and you can change the browser id.
- Konsole, the KDE terminal emulator, can send a notification when a long running task is finished.
Your code now available
KDE Gear 23.08 has been announced a few moments ago, but that just means it's your code available. Now it is the turn of the developers to implement it in their respective distributions. The first to receive it will be KDE neon, if it hasn't already, and soon after it will arrive in Rolling Release distributions and is expected in Kubuntu + Backports. Some of them should also appear very soon on Flathub and Snapcraft.
The above is a summary of what KDE has published. For all the details, it is worth visiting the original article at this link. The full list of changes is here.
KDE has taken advantage of this release for a dedication: «KDE Gear 23.08 is dedicated to our good friend Dani Gutiérrez Porset. Dani was a generous and militant Free Software activist who organized many KDE related events, including the 2013 Akademy. Dani left us for the great servant of heaven on July 16. Goian bego». Rest in peace.