KOffice, the KDE office suite, released version 1.6 beta1. This release incorporates a number of new features, mainly from the Google Summer of Code projects, as well as a great number of bug fixes. It also signals the start of the feature freeze that always preceeds a release of a major new version, thus giving the developers exactly a month to fix outstanding bugs. We urge everybody that is interested in KOffice to install and test this version to make sure that the final 1.6 has a high quality.
This release includes:
* a frame-based, full-featured word processor (KWord);
* a spreadsheet application (KSpread);
* a presentation application (KPresenter);
* a flowchart application (Kivio);
* an integrated database application (Kexi);
* a new project management application (KPlato).
* a pixel based image editing and paint application (Krita);
* a vector-drawing application (Karbon14).
Additionally, KOffice includes robust embeddable objects:
* business quality reporting software (Kugar)
* full-featured charting engine (KChart)
* mathematical formula handling (KFormula)
as well as a built-in thesaurus (KThesaurus) and support for many different file formats.
Highlights
The main energy of the KOffice developement team is currently focused on the revolutionary 2.0 version that will be based on KDE 4 and Qt 4. The 1.6 release is intended mainly as a feature release for the two fastest developed components: Krita and Kexi. However, other components are being developed too. Here are the highligts of this preview of KOffice 1.6:
Lots of new features in Krita and Kexi
For more details look in the Principal Improvements below, or the complete changelog.
OpenDocument support in KFormula
The formula editor of KOffice now supports OpenDocument and uses it as its default file format.
Scripting support in KSpread
KSpread, the spreadsheet program, now supports scripting in python and Ruby just like Krita and Kexi.
Principal Improvements
The principal improvements over KOffice 1.5 are:
Kexi (Database application):
*Further enhancements in the database connectivity library.
*Further improvements in Table Designer (schema altering without removing table contents, "Image" data type)
*Data aware combo boxes (drop down lists)
*Data-aware "Image Box" widget in Forms and Table View
Krita (Pixel based graphics editor):
*New filters has been added (random noise, random pick, lens correction, filters from krita-plugins...)
*New tool for drawing bezier curves, magnetic selection, perspective transformation and healing has been added
Kugar (Reporting tool):
*Kugar's templates are now visible in the startup dialog.
KPlato (Project management tool):
*Added PERT calculation for estimated value based on optimistic, expected and pessimistic value.
*The distribution used is dependent on the setting of Risk.
KFormula (Mathematical formula editor)
*OpenDocument and MathML are now native format. And OpenDocument is now the default file format, and most of the standard is now supported
A more complete list of changes is available at the KOffice web site.
http://www.koffice.org