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The KDE Project announced today the release of KDE Gear 23.08 as a brand-new series of this open-source software suite consisting of all default KDE applications shipping with the Plasma desktop.
KDE Gear 23.08 is here to improve the Dolphin file manager with the ability to open a duplicate tab by double-clicking on it, new context menu items and keyboard shortcuts in the Split View mode, the ability to display the progress of the calculation of an item’s size in real time, the ability to show information of a selected file in the information panel, as well as the ability to hide temporary and backup files for an uncluttered view.
The Okular document viewer in KDE Gear 23.08 now lets you add signature metadata like “reason” and “location” to digitally signed PDFs, as well as to add a background image behind it, a new option to choose the default scaling mode when printing PDFs, and the ability to copy an annotation’s text to the clipboard using the context menu in the annotations sidebar.
The Kalendar app has been renamed to Merkuro because it also features contact management capabilities on top of the calendar functionality, and it looks like it will also handle your emails in a future release, probably KDE Gear 23.12. Due to its multiple functionality, the app will now let you view only the calendar, only the contacts, or both.
KDE Gear 23.08 also updates the Itinerary travel assistant with the ability to import online railway tickets using the booking reference and passenger name, the ability to fetch booking details directly from the operator’s website (only supports Deutsche Bahn and SNCF), improved extraction of data from documents from several transport companies, as well as support for multiple types of documents that can be added to a reservation.
The Skanpage scanning utility received support for re-ordering multi-page scans using drag and drop, new adjustment options for brightness, contrast, gamma, and color balance, as well as an improved preview where you can now select multiple specific parts of the image to scan or automatically split the area into two pages.
This release also updates the Kate text editor with support for the GLSL language and the Godot game design engine, a QML language server option when using Qt 6, and interactive GDB toolview navigation buttons and a configuration window in the debugger plugin.
Also improved is the NeoChat Matrix client, which now comes with a revamped look that shows location events and a map with the location of all the users that are currently broadcasting their location using Itineray’s Matrix integration.
On top of that, the Tokodon client for the Mastodon social network received a visual overhaul with a smoother timeline and a more reliable video player, the ability to manage and moderate your instances directly from within the app, as well as the ability to share your posts through other apps, save your access token securely in KWallet, browse trending tags, browse your instance’s posts, view all blocked and muted accounts, and pin your status to your profile.
KDE Gear 23.08 continues to update the Elisa feature-rich music player with cool new features like MPRIS support for Elisa Shuffle and Repeat settings so you can control these features from the Media Player widget or using the KDE Connect on your phone. Elisa also does a better job at fetching album covers and it now offers a smoother transition when switching between album covers.
Last but not least, the Konsole terminal emulator now sends you a notification when a long-running task finishes, the Spectacle screenshot utility makes it easier to select annotations, the Gwenview image viewer now offers an improved transition from image to image, the KWordQuiz educational app was ported to QML and has a new design, and the Konqueror web browser now restores the last tabs and windows on restart and lets you change the browser identification.
KDE Gear 23.08 is a massive update and it’s making its way into the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distributions as we speak, so make sure that you update your installations on a regular basis, especially if you’re using the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
Last updated 8 months ago
