KDE Resources

Getting Started

• KDE Website
• The official project website
• Try KDE
• Ways to try KDE for yourself
• No need to install
• LiveCDs, VMWare images, Remote Sessions
• New User's Guide
• What you want to know to get started
• KOffice Website
• The KDE office suite

Further Information

• KDE News
• What's happening in KDE
• KDE Wiki
• KOffice Wiki
• KDE://radio
• The KDE podcast
• KDE e. V. Non-Profit Organization Website
• Business & legal info

Who is KDE?

• KDE Developer's Blogs
• People Behind KDE
• A Series of Interviews with KDE contributors
• KDE Women

KDE Talk

• The developers are friendly, but very busy
• KDE is a worldwide project, keep timezones in mind

• KDE Forum
• Mailing Lists
• IRC Channels
• RSS Feeds
• Newsgroups

KDE 4

• aKademy 2006
• Videos & slides from the annual KDE conference
• Lots of info on KDE's future

Development Tools & Projects

Trolltech's Qt4

• The next major release of the Q toolkit
• The foundation of KDE

• Introduction to Qt 4
• Qt Documentation
• The Qt 4 Dance
• Qtopia
• Qt platform for embedded development
• KDE News, "The Road to KDE 4: Full Mac OS X Support"

Kitware's CMake

• The build system replacing GNU autotools

• CMake Website
• CMake Wiki
• LWN, " Why the KDE project switched to CMake -- and how"
• Quick Introduction to CMake for KDE Developers
• aKademy 2006, "An Introduction to CMake, CTest and Dart"
• Dart Website
• Kitware's automated testing service
• KDE's Dart Page

FreeDesktop.org Technologies

• D-Bus
• The cross-desktop IPC system replacing DCOP
• aKademy 2006, "QtDBus and Interoperability"
• OpenSync
• The new cross-desktop synchronisation framework
• OpenSync in KDE
• KDE News, "OpenSync: Synching on the Free Desktop"

ThreadWeaver

• The new threading convenience library

• Summary & API Documentation
• Subversion Repository

Quality Analysis

• Data-mining tools to find flaws & help developers

• The English Breakfast Network
• aKademy 2006, "English Breakfast Network"
• The Software Quality Observatory for Open Source Software
• KDE News, "SQO-OSS Project Launched with KDE"

Summer of Code

• KDE Projects in Google's Summer of Code
• The Season of KDE
• Google could only take 25, but 200 applicants for KDE left over
• KDE started similar initiative to allow more applicants to participate
• LWN, "Season of KDE fosters young students"

Desktop Frameworks & Projects

Tenor

• Context-aware search framework

• Strigi
• A lightweight crawler & indexer
• Doesn't require Qt or KDE
• Jos van den Oever's Blog Entry on the Srigi BoF session at aKademy 2006
• Strigi Subversion Repository
• NEPOMUK
• "Semantic" contextual metadata framework
• QRDF Subversion Repository
• Qt RDF storage plugin
• Used by NEPOMUK
• Working branch, subject to change
• NEPOMUK-KDE Wiki
• NEPOMUK-KDE Subversion Repository
• Working branch, subject to change

Oxygen

• The new set of artwork for KDE4
• Includes icons, widget style, window decorations, sounds, etc.

• Website
• Somewhat outdated
• Subversion Repository
• Working copy of icon theme in theme/
• Script to generate KDE3 icon theme in utils/
• Working branch, subject to change

Plasma

• Radical reworking of desktop concepts

• Website
• aKademy 2006, "Plasma: What the Bleep Is It?"
• Developers' Wiki
• Subversion Repository
• Working branch, subject to change

KWin Composite Support

• XRender & AIGLX 3D window manager

• Demo Videos
• Subversion Repository
• Working branch, subject to change

NX

• X11-based remote desktop protocol
• Much faster & more secure than X11 or VNC/RDP

• OSNews, "Interview: NX - Revolution of Network Computing?"
• NoMachine
• Original creator of NX
• FreeNX
• GPL NX implementation
• Based on code released by NoMachine

Web Services

• KDE and the Wikipedia
• GetHotNewStuff Framework
• Desktop-integrated content service
• KNewStuff Subversion Repository
• Working branch, subject to change

Solid

• Platform-independent hardware API
• Uses HAL & NetworkManager on Linux

• Website
• KDE News, "KDE 4 Set to Make Device Interaction Solid"
• aKademy 2006, "Phonons in Solids - Internals and Usage Explained"
• Developers' Wiki
• API Documentation
• Subversion Repository

Phonon

• Platform-independent Multimedia API
• Sends audio directly to pluggable audio backends
• Backends include Xine, GStreamer, NMM

• Website
• KDE News, "Phonon: Multimedia in KDE 4"
• aKademy 2006, "Phonons in Solids - Internals and Usage Explained"
• API Documentation
• Subversion Repository

Akonadi

• Personal Information Data Service

• Website
• Computerworld, "KDE 4: the ultimate business desktop?"
• aKademy 2006, "Akonadi - The KDE 4.0 PIM Framework"
• API Documentation
• Temporary location, subject to change
• Subversion Repository

Kross

• Language-independent application-scripting framework

• Website
• KDE News, "Sebastian Sauer Talks About Scripting with Kross"
• aKademy 2006, "Kross - The Scripting Framework"
• Subversion Repository

LiveUI

• Dynamic UI generation & layout at runtime
• Replacement for XMLGUI

• Wiki Page
• Subversion Repository

Sonnet

• Linguistic framework based on FreeDesktop.org's Enchant & Elixir
• Replacement for KSpell

• Zack Rusin's Blog Post Announcing Sonnet
• Jacob Rideout's Blog Post Summarizing Sonnet
• Subversion Repository

Decibel

• Real-time communications framework
• IM, VOIP, Telephone, etc.

• Telepathy
• FreeDesktop.org low-level communication backend
• Tapioca
• Qt implementation of Telepathy spec
• Decibel Website
• High-level interface to Telepathy
• KDE News, "The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel"
• aKademy 2006, "Decibel - You Are Not Alone!"
• Decibel Subversion Repository

Marble

• Widget for showing geographical info

• Torsten Rahn's Blog Post Announcing Marble
• Subversion Repository

KIO Improvements

• See KDE://radio interview with Allan Sandfeld about new seeking in KIO

• KIO API Documentation
• KIO Subversion Repository
• KDE News, "The Road to KDE 4: Job Progress Reimagined"
• KUIServer Subversion Repository
• Multisegment KGet Subversion Repository
• Download one file from multiple sources simultaneously

Usability

• OpenUsability
• Headquarters for Free Software usability projects
• KDE Human Interface Guidelines Project
• New guidelines to make KDE more consistent & easier to use
• aKademy 2006, "Keeping Users in Mind"
• aKademy 2006, "Accessibility of KDE 4.x applications"
• aKademy 2006, "How to Make Your Application or Widget Style Accessible"
• Wiki Page for HCI Day at aKademy 2006
• KDE Community Interface Guidelines Project
• How to bring KDE to the outside world

Apps

Konqueror

• Dolphin Website
• The new prototype file manager
• Aaron Seigo's Blog Entry on Dolphin & Konqueror
• Dolphin Subversion Repository
• KDE News, "WebKit Ported to Qt 4"
• Yahoo Video, "Lars Knoll and George Staikos on KHTML and WebKit"
• aKademy 2006, "State of KHTML"
• aKademy 2006, " Towards a More Secure Networked Desktop Environment"

Okular

• The new universal document viewer

• Website
• Summer of Code Application
• Subversion Repository

WorKflow

• The new graphical task automation tool

• KDE-Apps Page
• Summer of Code Application
• Subversion Repository

KOffice

• KDE News, "The Road to KDE 4: New KOffice Technologies"
• KOffice 2 Goals Wiki Page
• Thomas Zander's Blog Post on Flake
• Flake Wiki Page
• Flake API Documentation
• Pigment API Documentation
• The new KOffice colour management framework

KDevelop

• Wiki Page for KDevelop 4
• KDE News, "KDevelop Authors Talk About Their Coming Releases"
• KDE News, "Quanta Starts Transition to KDevelop Framework"
• aKademy 2006, "Accomplishments And Challenges Of The KDevelop Team"
• KDevelop Subversion Repository

Getting Involved

• KDE is a great place to start contributing to Free Software
• Put your work on your resumé to give a concrete example of your abilities
• No clue where to start? Send an email to howtohelp@kde.org

• Get Involved with KDE
• Get Involved with KOffice
• aKademy 2006, "KDE Support - a challenging way to contribute"
• User support is excellent way to contribute that doesn't require technical skills

Quality Team

• A good entry point into helping KDE
• No matter what you can or cannot do, they can show you how to help

• KDE Quality Team Website
• Quality Team HowTo
• Contributors Support and Coordination Mailing List

Documentation

• Documentation is possibly the best way to contribute for newcomers

• KDE Documentation Project Website
• The goals of the KDE Editorial Team
• Joining the KDE Documentation Team
• Quality Team: Documentation Guide
• Adding WhatsThis Help To KDE Applications
• Try the UI designer, adding WhatsThis help to an app is easy but much-appreciated
• English Documentation Mailing List
• #kde-docs on Freenode IRC

Translation & Localisation

• Speak another language? Translating apps is a fun way to contribute.

• KDE Localisation Website
• Application Localisation Mailing List
• Documentation Localisation Mailing List
• #kde-i18n on Freenode IRC

Promotion

• Help get the word out about KDE
• Blog about it
• Write an article or give a presentation...

• Quality Team: Communication And Promotion Guide
• SpreadKDE
• KDE Promotion Mailing List

Usability

• You don't have to be OpenUsability or KDE expert to submit a report
• Go step-by-step through a task you often perform or find important in KDE
• Provide information on what could be improved to make it easier or more convenient
• Please give some reasoning why you think so & avoid flaming

• Quality Team: User Interface Guide
• KDE Usability Project
• KDE on OpenUsability
• KDE Usability Project Mailing List
• #kde-usability on Freenode IRC

Artwork

• Lots of new artwork is coming for KDE4
• Experience with vector graphics is particularly helpful
• Learn from talented & experienced artists

• KDE Artists Website
• KDE Artists Wiki Page
• KDE Artwork Mailing List
• #kde-artists on Freenode IRC

Bugs

• Developers need all the help they can get dealing with bug reports
• Coding knowledge is useful, but not necessary

• Quality Team: Bug Reports Management Guide
• KDE Bug Tracking System

Code

• C++ is primary language
• However, bindings are available for Python, Ruby, Perl, Java, JavaScript, and C#
• Qt & KDElibs are very well documented
• Pick a simple app, try to understand it

• Quality Team: Programming Guide
• Trolltech Technical Documentation
• The Independent Qt Tutorial
• #qt on Freenode IRC
• KDE Devleloper Resources
• KDE Development Mailing List
• #kde-devel on Freenode IRC
• KOffice Developer Resources
• KOffice Development Mailing List
• Junior Jobs
• Junior Jobs are problems with code that developers recommend for newcomers
• Look for JJ: in the titles of bugzilla entries