14 DAY TRIAL // The KDE Project announced the release of the beta version of their upcoming KDE Applications 19.04 open-source software suite for Linux-based operating systems.
KDE Applications 19.04 has been in development since early March, and a beta version is now ready for public testing to give the community an early look at the new features and improvements, as well as to help the development team ensure the quality of the user experience of the upcoming release.
KDE Applications 19.04 entering beta development phase also marks the Dependency Freeze and Feature Freeze stages, which means the KDE team will now focus their efforts only on fixing bugs and polishing the final release of the open-source office suite, which should launch on April 28th, 2019.
"The KDE Applications 19.04 releases need a thorough testing in order to maintain and improve the quality and user experience. Actual users are critical to maintaining high KDE quality, because developers simply cannot test every possible configuration," reads the release announcement.
Here's what's coming to KDE Applications 19.04
There are numerous changes implemented in the KDE Applications 19.04 software suite, but among some of the highlights we can mention the ability to launch the Dolphin file manager using the Super+E global keyboard shortcut, and support for viewing previews of a screenshot's filename in Spectacle's settings window.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Dolphin file manager will finally default to displaying the same layout for all folders and the tooltip will now correctly display monochrome icons, as you can see from the screenshot attached below courtesy of developer Nate Graham. Also, re-arranging in the Places panel works again with hidden items.
The KDE Applications software suite consists of numerous open-source applications that are vital for the KDE Plasma desktop environment to function properly. Of course, the apps can also be used in other desktop environments. KDE Applications 19.04 will be supported with three maintenance releases until July 11th, 2019.
