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The KDE Project released today KDE Gear 21.04 as the new series of their open-source and independent software suite under the new name, KDE Gear (formerly KDE Applications).
I told you a few weeks ago that the KDE Project planned on renaming its KDE Applications software suite to KDE Gear, and that the name change will kick off starting with April 2021’s release, versioned 21.04. But the name change won’t affect anyone, as you’ll still enjoy your favorite KDE Apps under the same offering.
KDE Gear 21.04 is packed with numerous improvements and new features for your favorite KDE applications. For example, the Dolphin file manager now lets you decompress multiple archives at the same time, lets you modify context menu items, lets you select the text of the filename in the information panel, displays thumbnail previews faster, and smoothly animates how icons are rearranged when you split the viewing area or resize the window.
The Kontact personal information manager now supports Autocrypt to encrypt your communication and keep you safe, and it lets you have more control over what you download when checking your messages.
The recently released KDE Itinerary traveling companion app received real time status for elevators and escalators in the train station map view, as well as a new feature that helps you distinguish between dock-based and floating rental bikes.
Moreover, the Konsole terminal emulator now lets you choose a default text editor to open when you use the Ctrl+click shortcut on a text file and its text reflow feature now works better with the Zsh shell. Also, the Elisa music player adds support for AAC files and .m3u8 playlists.
The Kate advanced text editor now comes with touchscreen scrolling support, automatically preserves and restores unsaved files or even unsaved changes in files when quitting or re-launching the app, lets you perform basic Git operations, as well as to jump back to the previous cursor position.
Okular, KDE’s document viewer app, now supports FictionBook files, support playback of Media9 PDF movie annotations, lets you digitally sign your documents, and automatically switches to an already open document when you try to open it.
Gwenview, KDE’s image and video viewer, now displays the current and remaining time when playing video files and lets you adjust the quality and compression levels for AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, JPEG XL, and WebP images.
The Spectacle screenshot utility now lets you change the default screenshot file format when using a non-English language, and KDE Connect communication assistant now features a “quick reply” action to let you reply to a text message from a desktop notification.
Last but not least, the Kdenlive video editor now supports the AV1 video coding format, the KDE Partition Manager app now correctly reports the S.M.A.R.T status for all disks, the KCalc calculator app better supports dark themes,
Check out the full release notes for more details, and make sure you update your systems to the KDE Gear 21.04 release as soon as the packages arrive in the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.
Last updated 3 years ago
