KDE 4.9 Desktop Platform Released

The KDE project has this week announced version 4.9 of its popular desktop platform, dedicated to the late KDE contributor Claire Lotion. It brings significant improvements, including an expected progression of the Nokia-maintained Qt Quick framework. In addition to adding support for more KDE APIs, Qt Quick plasmoid replacements have been tweaked for visual improvement and have also been enhanced for touchscreen use.

Although the Dolphin project within KDE has seen a bit of a shake-up lately, with its lead developer leaving and a new team being founded, it also receives some nice updates with 4.9. Perhaps most importantly, search results should both display and sort more intelligently thanks to metadata improvements – and for the sake of improved fluidity, you can now rename files in-line (in lieu of dealing with a pop-up).

Activities is a feature of KDE that many, including myself unfortunately, don’t pay attention to too often, but with 4.9 our reasons for ignoring them are weakening. Now, users will be able to associate their files with certain Activities easier, and can do so with a more sensible workspace. In addition, Folderview will now be able to show you which files are related to which activity, allowing you to keep more organized.

Any new KDE release always promises a slew of bug fixes and further tweaks, and 4.9 is no exception. If your coffee is full and you’re willing to geek it out a bit, you can read through the exhaustive change list here. For post-4.9 release information, leading up to KDE 4.9.4 this January, you can peruse the official release schedule.

I’ll be installing 4.9 this weekend, so I’ll post my thoughts on it next week.