Skip to content

Thursday, 19 December 2024

Together with Intel, we have been working a new plugin for Krita: the fast sketch plugin, or maybe, better, a fast inking plugin. This is an experimental plugin that makes it (sometimes) possible to automatically ink a sketch, using neural networks.

This plugin uses models to figure out how to ink a sketch: the included models were trained on openly available data: there was no scraping or stealing involved! The plugin comes with a manual that explains how to get the scripts you can use to create a model trained on your own data: what you need are before and after images of your sketch and your uncolored inked drawing, and the training software can run on your own hardware (it will take a lot of time, though).

Throughout the development process we've been discussing this plugin with artists on the Krita Artists forum.

Three iterations of running the fast sketch plugin on a sketch
Artwork by @BeARToys (CC BY-SA)

The plugin can be downloaded and extracted in a Windows Krita 5.2.6 folder and should then be enabled in the plugin manager in Krita's settings dialog.

There is also a download of Krita 5.3.0 pre-alpha available that includes the plugin for Windows and Linux. Currently, we don't have a working MacOS version ready, and since the plugin is implemented in Python, there will be no Android packages.

Download

Windows

Linux

Wednesday, 18 December 2024

Today, we bring you a report on the brand-new release of the Maui Project.

Community

To follow the Maui Project’s development or to just say hi, you can join us on our Telegram group @mauiproject

We are present on X and Mastodon:

Thanks to the KDE contributors who have helped to translate the Maui Apps and Frameworks!

Downloads & Sources

You can get the stable release packages [APKs, AppImage, TARs] directly from the KDE downloads server at https://download.kde.org/stable/maui/

All of the Maui repositories have the newly released branches and tags. You can get the sources right from the Maui group: https://invent.kde.org/maui

MauiKit 4 Frameworks & Apps

With the previous version released, MauiKit Frameworks and Maui Apps were ported over to Qt6, however, some regressions were introduced and those bugs have now been fixed with this new revision version.

Currently, there are over 10 frameworks, with two new ones recently introduced. They all, for the most part, have been fully documented, and although, the KDE doxygen agent has some minor issues when publishing some parts, you can find the documentation online at https://api.kde.org/mauikit/ (and if you find missing parts, confusing bits, or overall sections to improve – you can open a ticket at any of the framework repos and it shall be fixed shortly after)

A brief list of changes and fixes introduced to the frameworks are the following:

For MauiKit Controls

  • MauiKit is now no longer dependent on MauiKit-Style, so any other QQC2 style can be used with Maui Apps (other styles are not supported).
  • MauiKit documentation has been updated with notes on the new attached controls properties – https://api.kde.org/mauikit/mauikit/html/classControls.html
  • MauiKit fixes the toast area notifications. The toast notifications can now take multiple contextual actions.
  • MauiKit Demo app has been updated to showcase all the new control properties
  • New controls: TextField, Popup, DropDownIndicator,
  • MauiKit fixes the template delegates and the IconItem control
  • MauiKit fixes to the Page autohide toolbars
  • Update style and custom controls to use MauiKit Controls’ attached properties for level, status, title, etc.
  • Display keyboard shortcut info in the MenuItems
  • Update MauiKit Handy properties for isMobile, isTouch, and hasTransientTouchInput and fixes to the lasso selection on touch displays
  • Added more resize areas to the BaseWindow type
  • Check for system color scheme style changes and update accordingly. This works on other systems besides Plasma or Maui, such as Gnome or Android
  • The type AppsView has been renamed to SwipeView, and AppViewLoader to SwipeViewLoader
  • Update MauiKit-Style to support MauiKit Controls attached properties and respect the flat properties in buttons
  • Fixes to the MauiKit bug in the GridBrowser scrollbars policy
  • Fixes to the action buttons layout in Dialog and PopupPage controls
  • Refresh the icon when a system icon-theme change is detected – a workaround for Plasma is used and for other systems the default Qt API

For the MauiKit Frameworks

  • FileBrowsing fixes bugs with the Tagging components
  • Fixes to the models using dates. Due to a bug in Qt getting a file date time is too slow unless the UTC timezone is specified
  • Update FileBrowsing controls to use the latest Mauikit changes
  • Added a new control: FavButton, to mark files as favorites using the Tagging component quickly
  • Update and fixes to the regressions in the other frameworks
  • ImageTools fixes the OCR page
  • TextEditor fixes the line numbers implementation.

All of the frameworks are now at version 4.0.1

All of the apps have been reviewed for the regressions previously introduced in the porting to Qt6; those issues have been solved and a few new features have been added, such as:

  • Station, now allows opening selected links externally
  • Index fixes to the file previewer and support for quickly tagging files from the previewer
  • Vvave fixes to the minimode window closing
  • Update the apps to remove usage of the Qt5Compat effects module
  • Fix issues in Fiery, Strike, and Agenda
  • Fix the issue of selecting multiple items in the apps not working
  • Clip fixes to the video thumbnail previews and the opening file dialog
  • Implement the floating viewer for Pix, Vvave, Shelf, and Clip for consistency
  • Correctly open the Station terminal at the current working directory when invoked externally
  • Among many few other details

** Index, Vvave, Pix, Nota, Buho, Station, Shelf, Clip, and Communicator versions have been bumped to 4.0.1

*** Strike and Fiery browser versions have been bumped to 2.0.1

**** Agenda and Arca versions have been bumped to 1.0.1

And as for Bonsai, Era, and other applications still under development, there is still not a ported version to Qt6 as of now

 

Maui Shell

Although Maui Shell has been ported over to Qt6 and is working with the latest MauiKit4, a lot of pending issues are still present and being worked on. The next release will be dedicated fully on Maui Shell and all of its subprojects, such as Maui Settings, Maui Core, CaskServer, etc.

That’s it for now. Until the next blog post, that will be a bit closer to the 4.0.1 stable release.

Release schedule

The post Maui Release Briefing #7 appeared first on MauiKit — #UIFramework.

Ruqola 2.4.0 is a feature and bugfix release of the Rocket.chat messenger app.

Some of the new features in this release of Ruqola include:

  • Allow to clean up room history when room was not opened for a long time.
  • Add restore button in administrator server settings dialog.
  • Improve changing password (show validation info).
  • Improve register new account (Add reason support).
  • Implement mute/unmute user.
  • Add color to the text in the account tab.
  • Allow to show private installed applications.

Some bug fixing:

  • Fix editing message.
  • Show permissions in Rocket.Chat Marketplace.
  • Fix reconnect server.
  • Fix single application on Windows/MacOs
  • Fix select created room/discussion/teams
  • Fix filter discussion in administrator mode
  • Fix message video support
  • Fix highlight text in quoted message
  • Fix open discussion channel
  • Allow to show application market settings

URL: https://download.kde.org/stable/ruqola/
Source: ruqola-2.4.0.tar.xz
SHA256: f532e421ae731dfc2e88b78ab61de01e0e367a31a4fe34497664a66fc737225c
Signed by: E0A3EB202F8E57528E13E72FD7574483BB57B18D Jonathan Riddell jr@jriddell.org
https://jriddell.org/jriddell.pgp

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

I recently saw one of my old branded “stripes” wallpapers in a screenshot of FreeBSD by someone on X, and that triggered me to make a new wallpaper in a similar style.

There was a call for artwork for the next Debian release – Trixie, and I made a modified version of one of my old wallpapers for it. As it was not chosen to be the default in Trixie, I decided to post it here for people who might like it.

It is, like all my wallpapers, a calm non-distracting one. (it is much prettier full-4k-size than in the thumbnail below)

Trixie Tracks
Trixie Tracks

If you like it, you can download it from Debian’s Wiki – in 1920x1080 and 4k versions. There is also a version with the Debian logo there for inspiration if you want to create a custom distribution-branded one.

Sunday, 15 December 2024

The open source project I work on for the longest time is KDE and there more specific Kate.

This means I look at user bug reports for over 20 years now.

The statistics tell me our team got more than 9000 bugs since around 2001 (just for Kate, this excludes the libraries like KTextEditor that we maintain, too).

Kate Bug Statistics

That is a bit more than one bug per day for over two decades.

And as the statistics show, especially in the last years we were able to keep the open bug count down, that means we fixed a lot of them.

Given we are a small team, I think that is a nice achievement.

We not just survived over 20 years, we are still alive and kicking and not just a still compiling zombie project.

Thanks a lot to all people that are contributing to this success!

Let’s keep this up in the next year and the ones following.

This release includes fixes for GreaseMonkey, VerticalTabs, Navigation bar (security icon), stability fixes, does not advertise the FTP support, fixes printing and more small fixes.

GreaseMonkey

  1. Fixed loading of sites ending with *.user.js name. (BUG: 467459)
  2. GreaseMonkey got a support for running scripts on sites through context menu. (BUG: 469855)
GreaseMonkey context menu

VerticalTabs

  1. Enabled switching tabs with mouse wheel when the scrollbar is visible. (BUG: 394066)
  2. Pinned tabs are now arranged vertically like a normal tabs in this plugin. (BUG: 452818)
VerticalTabs: Pinned tabs

Site security icon

Falkon now display more proper security icon in the url bar based on the state if the SSL certificate exceptions. (BUG: 420902)

Various security icons

Removed FTP support

The FTP support in Chomium and QtWebEngine which is based on it was removed a while ago. So with this update Falkon will not advertise to the system that it support FTP protocol and it will instead try to open other program to handle it. (BUG: 494222)

Others

And more:

  • Fix printing to real CUPS printer. (BUG: 497051)
  • Preferences: Fix crash when un/loading of plugins (BUG: 492023)
  • Random fixes

Short changelog

  • Do not advertise ftp support to the system (BUG: 494222)
  • GreaseMonkey: Add support for context menu (BUG: 469855)
  • GreaseMonkey: Check content type of url *.user.js (BUG: 467459)
  • VerticalTabs: Fix tab switching with mouse wheel (BUG: 394066)
  • VerticalTabs: Arrange pinned tabs vertically (BUG: 452818)
  • Set security icon according to certificate error. (BUG: 420902)
  • Preferences: Fix crash when un/loading of plugins (BUG: 492023)
  • Fix printing to real CUPS printer (BUG: 497051)
  • Random fixes

Friday, 13 December 2024

This release fixes some bugs. Have a look at the changelog for more details.

Changelog

Bugfixes:

  • Fix displaying files of each message in appropriate message bubble (melvo)
  • Fix sending fallback messages for clients not supporting XEP-0447: Stateless file sharing (melvo)
  • Fix margins within message bubbles (melvo)
  • Fix hiding hidden message part (melvo)
  • Fix displaying marker for new messages (melvo)

Download

Or install Kaidan for your distribution:

Packaging status

Monday, 9 December 2024

Screenshot of Kaidan in widescreen Screenshot of Kaidan

We finally made it: Kaidan’s next release with so many features that we cannot summarize them in one sentence!

Most of the work has been funded by NLnet via NGI Assure and NGI Zero Entrust with public money provided by the European Commission. If you want Kaidan’s progress to continue and keep more free software projects alive, please share and sign the open letter for further funding!

Now to the bunch of Kaidan’s new and great features:

Group chats with invitations, user listing, participant mentioning and private/public group chat filtering are supported now. In order to use it, you need an XMPP provider that supports MIX-Core, MIX-PAM and MIX-Admin. Unfortunately, there are not many providers supporting it yet since it is a comparatively recent group chat variant.

You do not need to quote messages just to reply to them any longer. The messages are referenced internally without bloating the conversation. After clicking on a referenced message, Kaidan even jumps to it. In addition, Kaidan allows you to remove unwanted messages locally.

We added an overview of all shared media to quickly find the image you received some time ago. You can define when to download media automatically. Furthermore, connecting to the server is now really fast - no need to wait multiple seconds just to see your latest offline messages anymore.

If you enter a chat address (e.g., to add a contact), its server part is now autocompleted if available. We added filter options for contacts and group chats. After adding labels to them, you can even search by those labels. And if you do not want to get any messages from someone, you can block them.

In case you need to move to a new account (e.g., if you are dissatisfied with your current XMPP provider), Kaidan helps you with that. For example, it transfers your contacts and informs them about the move. The redesigned onboarding user interface including many fixes assists with choosing a new provider and creating an account on it.

We updated Kaidan to the API v2 of XMPP Providers to stay up-to-date with the project’s data. If you are an operator of a public XMPP provider and would like Kaidan’s users to easily create accounts on it, simply ask to add it to the provider list.

The complete list of changes can be found in the changelog section. There is also a technical overview of all currently supported features.

Please note that we currently focus on new features instead of supporting more systems. Once Kaidan has a reasonable feature set, we will work on that topic again. Even if Kaidan is making good progress, keep in mind that it is not yet a stable app.

Changelog

Features:

  • Add server address completion (fazevedo)
  • Allow to edit account’s profile (jbb)
  • Store and display delivery states of message reactions (melvo)
  • Send pending message reactions after going online (melvo)
  • Enable user to resend a message reaction if it previously failed (melvo)
  • Open contact addition as page (mobile) or dialog (desktop) (melvo)
  • Add option to open chat if contact exists on adding contact (melvo)
  • Use consistent page with search bar for searching its content (melvo)
  • Add local message removal (taibsu)
  • Allow reacting to own messages (melvo)
  • Add login option to chat (melvo)
  • Display day of the week or “yesterday” for last messages (taibsu, melvo)
  • Add media overview (fazevedo, melvo)
  • Add contact list filtering by account and labels (i.e., roster groups) (incl. addition/removal) (melvo, tech-bash)
  • Add message date sections to chat (melvo)
  • Add support for automatic media downloads (fazevedo)
  • Add filtering contacts by availability (melvo)
  • Add item to contact list on first received direct message (melvo)
  • Add support for blocking chat addresses (lnj)
  • Improve notes chat (chat with oneself) usage (melvo)
  • Place avatar above chat address and name in account/contact details on narrow window (melvo)
  • Reload camera device for QR code scanning as soon as it is plugged in / enabled (melvo)
  • Provide slider for QR code scanning to adjust camera zoom (melvo)
  • Add contact to contact list on receiving presence subscription request (melvo)
  • Add encryption key authentication via entering key IDs (melvo)
  • Improve connecting to server and authentication (XEP-0388: Extensible SASL Profile (SASL 2), XEP-0386: Bind 2, XEP-0484: Fast Authentication Streamlining Tokens, XEP-0368: SRV records for XMPP over TLS) (lnj)
  • Support media sharing with more clients even for sharing multiple files at once (XEP-0447: Stateless file sharing v0.3) (lnj)
  • Display and check media upload size limit (fazevedo)
  • Redesign message input field to use rounded corners and resized/symbolic buttons (melvo)
  • Add support for moving account data to another account, informing contacts and restoring settings for moved contacts (XEP-0283: Moved) (fazevedo)
  • Add group chat support with invitations, user listing, participant mentioning and private/public group chat filtering (XEP-0369: Mediated Information eXchange (MIX), XEP-0405: Mediated Information eXchange (MIX): Participant Server Requirements, XEP-0406: Mediated Information eXchange (MIX): MIX Administration, XEP-0407: Mediated Information eXchange (MIX): Miscellaneous Capabilities) (melvo)
  • Add button to cancel message correction (melvo)
  • Display marker for new messages (melvo)
  • Add enhanced account-wide and per contact notification settings depending on group chat mentions and presence (melvo)
  • Focus input fields appropriately (melvo)
  • Add support for replying to messages (XEP-0461: Message Replies) (melvo)
  • Indicate that Kaidan is busy during account deletion and group chat actions (melvo)
  • Hide account deletion button if In-Band Registration is not supported (melvo)
  • Embed login area in page for QR code scanning and page for web registration instead of opening start page (melvo)
  • Redesign onboarding user interface including new page for choosing provider to create account on (melvo)
  • Handle various corner cases that can occur during account creation (melvo)
  • Update to XMPP Providers v2 (melvo)
  • Hide voice message button if uploading is not supported (melvo)
  • Replace custom images for message delivery states with regular theme icons (melvo)
  • Free up message content space by hiding unneeded avatars and increasing maximum message bubble width (melvo)
  • Highlight draft message text to easily see what is not sent yet (melvo)
  • Store sent media in suitable directories with appropriate file extensions (melvo)
  • Allow sending media with less steps from recording to sending (melvo)
  • Add media to be sent in scrollable area above message input field (melvo)
  • Display original images (if available) as previews instead of their thumbnails (melvo)
  • Display high resolution thumbnails for locally stored videos as previews instead of their thumbnails (melvo)
  • Send smaller thumbnails (melvo)
  • Show camera status and reload camera once plugged in for taking pictures or recording videos (melvo)
  • Add zoom slider for taking pictures or recording videos (melvo)
  • Show overlay with description when files are dragged to be dropped on chats for being shared (melvo)
  • Show location previews on a map (melvo)
  • Open locations in user-defined way (system default, in-app, web) (melvo)
  • Delete media that is only captured for sending but not sent (melvo)
  • Add voice message recorder to message input field (melvo)
  • Add inline audio player (melvo)
  • Add context menu entry for opening directory of media files (melvo)
  • Show collapsible buttons to send media/locations inside of message input field (melvo)
  • Move button for adding hidden message part to new collapsible button area (melvo)

Bugfixes:

  • Fix index out of range error in message search (taibsu)
  • Fix updating last message information in contact list (melvo)
  • Fix multiple corrections of the same message (melvo, taibsu)
  • Request delivery receipts for pending messages (melvo)
  • Fix sorting roster items (melvo)
  • Fix displaying spoiler messages (melvo)
  • Fix displaying errors and encryption warnings for messages (melvo)
  • Fix fetching messages from server’s archive (melvo)
  • Fix various encryption problems (melvo)
  • Send delivery receipts for catched up messages (melvo)
  • Do not hide last message date if contact name is too long (melvo)
  • Fix displaying emojis (melvo)
  • Fix several OMEMO bugs (melvo)
  • Remove all locally stored data related to removed accounts (melvo)
  • Fix displaying media preview file names/sizes (melvo)
  • Fix disconnecting from server when application window is closed including timeout on connection problems (melvo)
  • Fix media/location sharing (melvo)
  • Fix handling emoji message reactions (melvo)
  • Fix moving pinned chats (fazevedo)
  • Fix drag and drop for files and pasting them (melvo)
  • Fix sending/displaying media in selected order (lnj, melvo)

Notes:

  • Kaidan is REUSE-compliant now
  • Kaidan requires Qt 5.15 and QXmpp 1.9 now

Download

Or install Kaidan for your distribution:

Packaging status

Sunday, 8 December 2024

Hey team!

Back with a series of updates on the Plasma Design System work that we are doing. All videos contain English captions.

Leave your feedback or let us know if you have any questions.

Saturday, 7 December 2024

This time, it’s a short one: We ported KPhotoAlbum to Qt6/KF6. That’s it ;-)

The port itself has been done by Johannes and me, additional commits have been contributed by Randall Rude and Fabian Würfl. Thanks for working on KPA with us!

One thing that’s worth mentioning is: For the map/geodata functionality, we need Marble. The Qt5/KF5 version of Marble can’t be co-installed with the Qt6/KF6 version, and this one is not released yet. But Marble 24.12.0 (which will be the first official Qt6/KF6 release) will be released in a few days. So just wait until it's out before upgrading to KPA 6, to not lose the map parts.

Maybe, the Qt6/KF6 version contains some regressions. The codebase is quite well advanced in years in some parts, and we had to mess with quite some legacy issues to make the whole thing fit for Qt6/KF6. So if you notice anything, please file a respective bug report and/or contact us via our mailing list or Matrix channel (cf. User support → Communication). Thanks for your participation (hopefully, it won’t be necessary too much).

Have a lot of fun with KPhotoAlbum 6 :-)

— Tobias