14 DAY TRIAL // Oh my god, I thought it will take forever, but here it is, K3b 1.0 Final!. A version that everyone was waiting for years, is finally here and it brings many, many new and interesting features. Sebastian Tr?g, the man we need to thank from the bottom of our hearts for this beautiful application, announced a few minutes ago the miracle: "I am proud to announce the release of K3b 1.0. After years and years of development, all the sweat (actually in the summer it can get sticky in front of the screen), all the tears (ok, admittedly, not that many), and all the countless hours I spent on a single application finally we have what I think is worth the big 1. K3b has come a long way since the early days in 1998 when it started as a dummy project for me to learn C++ and QT development. The reason for that (besides my hacking) is the amazing feedback I got from the open source community and especially all the KDE worshipers. Give yourself a hand. Without all of you K3b would not have lived this long."
What is new in this version:
? Media-centric user interface ? Always be informed about your media ? Create custom CD and DVD ? Tools for all your CD/DVD needs ? Extract single audio tracks from your audio CD (ripping) ? Create your own personal K3b default settings ? Integration into other fine KDE applications
Here are a few of the changes from the previous versions:
? K3b now includes a VideoDVD kio slave. It can be used in Konqueror through the protocol videodvd:/ to copy the files from a VideoDVD with on-the-fly decryption if libdvdcss mac is installed. (Be aware that in some countries it is not permitted to use libdvdcss.) ? New Device menu containing all the actions possible for a device (like eject, unmount, ...). This includes the possibility of assigning shortcuts to these kind of actions. ? K3b now warns if user parameters for external programs have been specified. This has been introduced because there were some bug report that were caused by faulty user parameters. ? New option in the data project to not cache the inodes. That means it is possible to have multiple actual copies of the same file on one CD/DVD. This is now the new default. ? K3b now properly unmounts media before using them. ? New Audio Track source editor dialog to cut audio track sources at the beginning and the end. ? Splitted "read retries" and "ignore read errors" for data and audio sectors in cd copy and set new defaults for audio sectors which make more sense: 5 retires and skip unreadable sectors. ? New Mediamanager which makes K3b always know which device contains which medium. This makes medium handling more smooth and the user now selects a medium instead of a device. Other advantages include: ? No waiting time anymore when asking for information on media (including for example Audio CD ripping). ? Nice default image filenames. ? CD Copy: Enable/disable options based on the source medium. ? Automatically select newly inserted media as burning medium ? DCOP call directBurn() now returns a boolean value stating if the process could be started. ? New DCOP calls cddaRip(), videocdrip(), and videodvdrip() with media:/ url support. ? K3b can now handle media:/ urls from the command line to specify devices
For more information and the full change log of this release, please visit K3b Home Page.
Please enjoy the first screenshots of K3b 1.0 Final:
You can download K3b 1.0 Final now from Softpedia.