After more than 4 years of development, the release of the free office suite Calligra 4.0 has been published, created in 2010 as a result of the restructuring of the KOffice project. The office suite is built on KDE technologies and applies a unified embedding object system for all applications in the suite. The components responsible for functionality and user interface are separated, allowing for the creation of both lightweight mobile versions and fully functional desktop variants of the office suite on a single foundation. The Open Document (ODF) format is used as the base format. Ready binary builds will soon be prepared for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows.
Key Changes:
- The transition from KDE 5 technologies and the Qt 5 library to the use of Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 libraries has been completed.
- The user interface has been significantly revamped. In the Words text processor, Sheets spreadsheet application, and Stage presentation editor, a new design for the sidebar has been proposed, with style elements already included in the Breeze theme.
- The pinned dock panel for inserting custom shapes has been removed, and a pop-up menu invoked from the toolbar has been added to all Calligra applications as a replacement.
- The contents of the toolbar have been optimized, with clipboard operations (copy, cut, and paste) excluded.
- The settings dialogs have been redesigned, using a new flat style for list displays, which is also applied in the KDE System Settings configurator and most applications based on the Kirigami framework.
- The initial interface shown when launching various office suite applications (Launcher) has been altered and transitioned to a borderless style.
- The webshape plugin, which allows embedding content from web pages, has been migrated from the outdated QtWebkit module to the current QtWebEngine browser engine. In addition to its use in the Braindump note-taking system, the webshape plugin can now also be used to insert rendered pages from sites into documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Components of Calligra 4.0 and the associated changes:
- Calligra Words (formerly KWord) is a word processor. It supports opening and saving documents in ODF and MS Word formats (.doc, .docx). Images, tables, and charts can be integrated into documents, with objects from other Calligra applications being draggable via a drag-and-drop interface.
- The editing area is highlighted with shadows for a clearer representation of the document boundaries.
- The Style Manager dialog has been updated.
- The Page Layout settings dialog has been updated.
- The editing area is highlighted with shadows for a clearer representation of the document boundaries.
- Calligra Sheets (formerly KSpread) is a spreadsheet application focused on various calculations and business computations. It supports the use of templates, chart integration, and formula insertion, with a large collection of mathematical and statistical functions available.
- The cell editor has been moved from the left panel of the spreadsheet to a separate widget displayed at the top, taking up less space.
- The scripting system based on the unsupported Kross framework has been removed. Future plans include providing script support using Python.
- The cell editor has been moved from the left panel of the spreadsheet to a separate widget displayed at the top, taking up less space.
- Calligra Stages (formerly KPresenter) is a system for preparing presentations. It supports the use of text, images, charts, and other content supported by Calligra applications in presentations. Support for new effects, content types, and presentation processing methods may be implemented through plugins.
- The sidebar has been modernized.
- Compatibility of tooltips with environments based on the Wayland protocol has been ensured.
- The sidebar has been modernized.
- Karbon is a vector graphic editor distinguished by its flexible customization options and support for extending functionality through plugins. It is suitable for creating logos, illustrations, and realistic vector images.
- Changes mainly concern the new sidebar and the porting to Qt6/KF6.
- Changes mainly concern the new sidebar and the porting to Qt6/KF6.
- Braindump is a note-taking system for visualizing ideas and structuring content. It uses the openDocument format for information storage, allowing notes to include not only text but also images and multimedia inserts.
- Support for building has been resumed, but due to the lack of an active maintainer, this component is currently disabled by default in Calligra releases.
The release did not include the project management system Plan, the hybrid sub-notebook edition Gemini, the vector graphic editor Karbon, the diagram and flowchart editor Flow, and the visual data management environment Kexi. These components are being developed using their own release preparation timelines.
Source: opennet.ru
