First Plasma NM release

It is with great pleasure we're announcing today the first release of our project - Plasma NM 0.9.3.0. As you've probably heard before, it's a brand new Plasma applet written QML/C++ to manage your network connections. This applet is meant as a drop-in replacement for the older widget-based networkmanagement applet.

For an overview of what motivated us to basically start from scratch on this applet as well as occasional progress statuses, please see Jan's blog.

A picture, even better a video, is worth a thousand words they say, so here it is :)

The initial email has been sent a few moments ago to the @kde-packager mailing list, so you can expect Plasma NM to land in your favorite distro's update channels anytime soon. Fedora^[1], among others (Kubuntu, openSUSE), already contains a preview snapshot of the applet, with the update to the final version in the works.

Alternatively, you can grab those 3 tarballs and compile by yourself:

1. http://download.kde.org/unstable/modemmanager-qt/0.5.0/src/libmm-qt-0.5.0.tar.xz
2. http://download.kde.org/unstable/networkmanagement/0.9.0/src/libnm-qt-0.9.0.tar.xz 
3. http://download.kde.org/unstable/plasma-nm/plasma-nm-0.9.3.0.tar.xz

[1] $ yum install kde-plasma-nm

This month (August) in Red Hat KDE

The holiday season is over but the coding monkeys at Red Hat didn't rest much nevertheless :) Let's have a look how we spent the last month.

General (everyone)

• kdenetwork, kdesdk & kdetoys split package reviews
• RHEL package reviews
• Attended meeting for planning of possible Akademy in Brno next year

Plasma NM (jgrulich, ltinkl)

• reimplemented applet - the design came up from usability session and discussion on Akademy
• implemented the last missing feature - bluetooth device pairing
• some fixes for ad-hoc connections
• network active-settings - added configuration for wired and wireless connections
• a lot of small changes and improvements

Solid & co. (ltinkl)

• Solid QML interface review
• fix recognizing Audio CD disks (kdebz#324031)
• glue code in BlueDevil for pairing BT devices with Plasma NM

SDDM (mbriza)

Worked on my proposed feature for Fedora 20 - SDDM as the default KDE display manager instead of KDM (Change tracking bug: #998542)

• spent most time debugging why only in Fedora the sessions logged in by
• SDDM aren't fully functional (pulseaudio, polkit...)
• this problem was resolved by switching to usage of the GDM PAM configuration
• currently working on patching the upstream project to have some new
• features in 0.2.0 (multiseat, will continue with XDMCP) so far opened two bug fixing pull requests, one was merged, I'll
• have to test the second one with more use cases to be accepted

Akonadi (dvratil)

• rebased Volker Krause's parttable-optimization branch to master
• fixed some queries and wrote database migration code for parttable-optimization branch
• bug fixes
• started planning server-side change recording

KDE PIM (dvratil)

• implemented support for CONDSTORE IMAP extension
• implemented support for FETCH response to IDLE command

KDE Telepathy (dvratil)

• implemented KTp Logger - an abstraction layer for access to chat logs that can support various backends as logs sources
• ported all KTp components to use KTp Logger instead of TelepathyLoggerQt

KScreen (dvratil)

• Fixed libkscreen crash in xrandr backend

RHEL

• KDE-4.11 import/build, doxygen and Qt fixes (than)
• texlive fixes and pkg reviews (than)

[1] Martin Bříza (mbriza), Jan Grulich (jgrulich), Than Ngo (than), Lukáš Tinkl (ltinkl), Dan Vrátil (dvratil)


You can find us on #fedora-kde channel on Freenode IRC

This month (July) in Red Hat KDE

After a couple of really hot days I'm back with a short overview of what kept us[1] busy while working on KDE in Red Hat this month.

General

• dvratil and jgrulich attended Akademy, the annual KDE developers' conference in Bilbao, Spain 
• dvratil did a lightning talk about KScreen, became maintainer of Akonadi and did usability testing of KScreen KCM 
• wrote article for community.redhat.com together (dvratil, jgrulich, ltoscano and skumari (not finished ATM) 
• Fedora 19 release party - What's new in F19/KDE talk (ltinkl, mbriza) 
• KDE feature for F20: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/KDE411

Plasma-nm (ltinkl, jgrulich)

• submitted plasma-nm as a new feature for Fedora 20 → https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Plasma-nm
• #321907 - Missing "DHCP, address only" settings 
• #322192 - WPA2 dialog blocks Plasma 
• implemented import/export VPN connections 
• a lot of bugfixes and usability improvements 
• usability session on Akademy with usability experts 
• a new draft for plasma-nm applet (we had a very long discussion with usability experts on Akademy) which should be much better from usability point of view 
• working on Active Network Setting for Plasma Active 
• cleaning up last bits for a first official release

KScreen (dvratil)

• rewritten underlying application logic from JS to C++ 
• started fixing some issues found during the usability sessions at Akademy 

Akonadi/KDEPIM (dvratil)

• started working on server-side filtering of notifications 
• various optimizations in Akonadi (https://www.progdan.cz/2013/07/whats-new-in-the-akonadi-world/) 
• improved Akonadi Console (debugging tool for Akonadi) 

DM (mbriza):

• Proposed SDDM as the default DM for upcoming Fedora 20. Packaged it, opened a review request, currently being processed to be included in git. 
• #983619 - have a patch complete, didn't push yet 
• #975079 - further multiseat work, in cooperation with the SUSE folks 

[1] Martin Bříza (mbriza), Jan Grulich (jgrulich), Than Ngo (than), Lukáš Tinkl (ltinkl), Dan Vrátil (dvratil)

You can find us on #fedora-kde channel on Freenode IRC

This month (June) in Red Hat KDE

So what kept us[1] busy while working on KDE in Red Hat this month?

KScreen

• VNC fixes (mbriza, dvratil) 
• KScreen 1.0.0 release (dvratil)

KDE PIM, Telepathy

• finally solved all regressions from Akonadi batch notifications (dvratil)
• implemented file monitoring in icaldir and vcarddir resources (dvratil)
• digged into KIMAP Session crash/endless loop (dvratil)
• LibKGAPI 2.0.1 release (dvratil)
• added support for yet another incompatible Microsoft timezone format (dvratil)

Plasma NM

• ported advanced permissions widgets (jgrulich) 
• added L2TP and OpenSwan VPN plugins (jgrulich) 
• added secrets migration from the previous NM applet (jgrulich) 
• mostly editor fixes and improvements focused to VPN plugins (jgrulich) 
• started working on network active settings (jgrulich) 
• initial port of libmm-qt to MM 0.8 spec (ltinkl) 
• make connections searchable in the editor (ltinkl) 
• memory leak fixes (ltinkl) 
• ported the connection editor to XML GUI (ltinkl) 
• use KAcceleratorManager to automatically assign accels (ltinkl) 
• wifi settings validation (ltinkl) 
• added OpenConnect and PPTP VPN plugins (ltinkl) 

Display Managers

• #975079 - multiseat KDM support (mbriza) 
• #857366 - Inconsistency in TTYs opened with new sessions (mbriza) 
• #966095 - Console login does not work (mbriza) 

General KDE fixes

• #921735: bad permissions after dragging from trash directly w/o restore (ltinkl, mbriza) 
• #857002 - Reproducible segfault with Umbrello (mbriza) 
• #886237 - kde-settings, 6.5 fast errata, disable Java by default (than) 
• #882895 - KDE Crash when switching activity of 2 desktops from activity applet (than) 
• #974069 - doxygen, hangs in a infinity loop (than) 
• #974202 - ctags, corrupted filenames in tags file (than) 
• #969590 - kde-plasma-akonadi-contacts: icon conflict with skype (jgrulich) 
• #970690 - Nunito font in private directory (jgrulich) 
• kdebz#310166: Up/Down keys should not move to the left view when on the first/last position (ltinkl) 

[1] Martin Bříza (mbriza), Jan Grulich (jgrulich), Than Ngo (than), Lukáš Tinkl (ltinkl), Dan Vrátil (dvratil)

You can find us on #fedora-kde channel on Freenode IRC

This month (May) in Redhat KDE

So what kept us[1] busy while working on KDE in Red Hat this month?

•  KScreen (dvratil) 
• KScreen 0.9.92
• fixed some little KCM annoyances 
• had a very long discussion about direction of KScreen KCM 

• KDE Telepathy (dvratil)
• released TelepathyLoggerQt 0.8.0
• implemented several wishes for 0.7.0
• continued porting LogViewer to KPeople
• started planning of "Conversations" 

• LibKGAPI (dvratil)
• release LibKGAPI 2.0.0 

• KDE PIM (dvratil) 
• merged Akonadi batch notifications
• fixed several regressions introduced by the merge
• discussed potential architecture change of Akonadi server  

• libnm-qt (jgrulich, ltinkl)
• added Utils class with some useful functions (converting IPv6 adresses, MAC addresses etc.)

• plasma-nm (jgrulich, ltinkl)
• reworked connection model
• added some configurations to the applet, ported detail widget from the old networkmanagement
• added wimax support
• finished support for multiple devices of the same kind
• added validations to the connection editor
• memleak fixes
• i18n cleanups
• band/channel config for adhoc mode
• setting widgets validation
• OpenVPN plugin
• support for Bond, Bridge, Infiniband and Vlan
• added product for plasma-nm to KDE bugzilla
• a lot of bugfixes and small improvements
• preparation for the first (alpha) release 

• kdisplaymanager (mbriza)
• prepared the structure of the KDisplayManager class for upstream inclusion.
• wrote a patch for KDM to add an option to disable saving cookies on NFS partitions. Was promised testers, waiting.
• looking into crashes in the KDE PIM stack, still not sure where to fix them, but have basic image.
• some minor bug triaging, most notably for F19 wallpaper. 

[1] Martin Bříza (mbriza), Jan Grulich (jgrulich), Than Ngo (than), Lukáš Tinkl (ltinkl), Dan Vrátil (dvratil)

You can find us on #fedora-kde channel on Freenode IRC

Solid Developers Sprint, take 2

The past couple of days have been very hectic, not only for me but also for all the KDE hackers who call themselves gearheads. When Àlex Fiestas first suggested we should do the next Solid in Red Hat offices in Brno, Czech Republic, I immediately liked the idea. Organizing the sprint was not an easy task, from arranging the meeting rooms, people, getting accommodation for the participants but it was very well worth it. Four days of almost non-stop hacking, several brainstorm sessions, use case discussions is already bringing its fruits. We also came up with several interesting GSoc ideas for other people to tackle.

Here's the rough outline of projects and topics that have been touched (topics with names inside brackets are already being worked on); I hope the others will blog about their respective projects in detail later as well:

General topics

• bugzilla cleanup and triage (Alex)
• discussions about a better website with a brand new logo (Alex)
• systemd integration (everyone, everywhere ;)
• unit testing

Discussions on the roof :)

Power management

• more reliable brightness handling (Dario, Alex, Lukáš)
• hybrid suspend support (Lukáš, Dario)
• screen locker (Dario, Oliver)
• better modes definition (on AC, on Battery, on Low Battery) (Alex)
• specific testing app (solid-power) similar to solid-hardware/kscreen-console (Alex)

Alex and Dario

KScreen

• support for various XRandr versions (Alex, Dan)
• xcb port
• new GUI (Dan)
• unit testing
• saving/creating modes

libsolid

• cross platform (Patrick)
• Network Status
• cleanups, deprecations; Solid::Control finally killed ;) (Alex)
• solid-partitioner review (Dario, Lukáš, Alex)

plasma-nm

Jan and yours truly, with great help from Lamarque, have progressed a lot with the new Network Management QML applet, I'll save this for another blogpost :)

Jan and Lamarque

The full list of topics is quite exhaustive, if you are curious, you can find it here: http://community.kde.org/Solid/Meetings/Forge2

Final words

Cast and crew: Martin Bříza (systemd, kscreen, sddm), Àlex Fiestas (everything), Dario Freddi (powerdevil), Jan Grulich (plasma-nm), Oliver Henshaw (powerdevil, systemd), Patrick Spendrin (windows), Lamarque Souza (networkmanagement) with Joseph Wenninger (advisor) and Luigi Toscano (guide) - thanks for participating and making this a very productive event. Big thanks goes to Red Hat for letting this happen and last but not least, the whole KDE for having such a great community and sponsoring the travel and accommodation expenses.

Fedora KDE test day

Just a quick heads up, the Fedora KDE SIG is organizing a KDE test day, make sure you don't miss it if you care about quality of your beloved desktop under Fedora :)

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2013-03-14_KDE_4.10