KDE Releases Frameworks 5

The KDE Community has released KDE Frameworks 5. This framework is the foundation for the KDE desktop environment and applications. All KDE code has been converted to Qt5 and much of the new functionality is housed in about fifty libraries.

The list of changes to KDE Frameworks 5, which consists of more than fifty parts, is long. One of the revamped libraries is KArchive. It provides access to a number of commonly used compression codecs. KDE developers are provided with an API through ThreadWeaver to manage threads. KConfig also allows the creation and retrieval of KDE configuration files in xml.

Solid is also part of the KDE Frameworks 5. This tool can detect hardware and then show applications a list of available components. Also things like the network and battery status can be requested via Solid. The Kl18n component should facilitate the translation of Qt apps.

KDE Frameworks 5 also forms the basis for the updated KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment. With the Breeze artwork, the user interface has been refreshed, while the desktop should be more responsive with the switch to Qt Quick. Plasma 5 should be available this month and test code is already available in the early alpha builds of Ubuntu 14.10, among others.