mirror-kde-plasma-desktop/design/CHANGELOG-4.3

Significant changes in libplasma 3.1 / KDE 4.3
==============================================
libplasma
---------
* Features
    * NEW: RunnerSyntax, class for describing query syntax
    * AbstractRunners can now register their syntax for online documentation purposes
    * Animator: no longer crashes when an animation is started/stopped on a widget already being animated during animation
    * RunnerContext
        * Introduced the isValid() method so runners can abort matches early
    * Plasma::Dialogs now animate show/hide if composited window management is available
    * Security
        * Categories of applets can be excluded from the appletbrowser
        * co-operative security
    * Shortcuts
        * Defaults changed
        * NEW: Config dialog
    * Theme
        * Themes can now define options in the [Settings] group of the metadata.desktop file:
            * UseNativeWidgetStyle=true and Plasma will default to native (QStyle) painting for all widgets
            * FallbackTheme=<name> to define which fallback theme to define which theme to use as the first fallback for missing elements
        * Backgrounds can now have variable backgrounds
        * Ability to list all known themes
    * Extenders
        * NEW: ExtenderGroup, class for grouping ExtenderItems.
        * hasItem function in Extender to provide an easy way for applets to avoid duplication of ExtenderItems.
        * Improved drag-and-drop
    * Svg
        * Ability to set Theme object to use
        * Ability to turn off disk caching is not needed/desired
    * Wallpaper:
        * Cache for completed wallpaper renderings
        * Threaded rendering of image files to specified size, scaling method and coloring
        * Improved settings save/restore/management, including a configNeedsSaving signal
        * DataEngine access modelled after the same facility in Applet
    * Widgets
        * NEW: SpinBox
        * NEW: VideoWidget
        * NEW: ScrollWidget. A widget that puts scrollbars when it contains a widget bigger than him.
        * NEW: TextBrowser
        * TabBar styling and interaction improvements (animations, click-n-flick, ..)
        * WebView can scroll its contents by simply dragging a point in the page with the mouse


Other Libraries
---------------
* NEW: KNotificationItem library added to kdelibs/experimental/ which provides access to the new system tray protocol (complete with legacy fallback support)
* NEW: ScreenPreviewWidget to libkworkspace that works with Plasma::Wallpaper or pixmaps that provides a nicely themed and appropriately sized "monitor" to show screen previews in
* NEW: RememberTheMilk library added to kdeplasma-addons/libs
* NEW: Conversion librarya dd to kdeplasma-addons/libs
    * Add fuel efficiency
    * Add time
    * Add power
    * Add currency
    * Add energy
    * Add pressure
    * More SI Units
    * Add beaufort scale to velocity
    * Add delisle, newton, rankine, reaumur & romer to temperature
* libplasmaclock
    * Text to speech service (KTTSD) to read aloud the time
    * Holidays shown in pop-up calendar
* libtaskmanager: significant stability fixes, particularly crashes in closeGroup or add(Task) caused by changes in the grouping strategy

Developer Documentation
-----------------------
* Simple JavaScript API documentation
* System tray design

Desktop Theme
-------------
* Features
    * FrameSvg
       * NEW: overlays for a filigrane effect, can be either random positioned, fixed, scaled or tiled
    * configuration-icons
       * NEW: collapse/restore icons for use in ExtenderGroup
    * Desktop and panel toolboxes are now svg themed

* Themes must now set the X-KDE-PluginInfo-Name entry in the metadata.desktop correctly, namely to the name of the directory containing the theme (e.g. default or Clean-Blend). While this was always the case, it was never relied on by libplasma. As of 4.3 there is now code that does rely on this being properly set.

Plasma Desktop Shell
--------------------
* Features
    * Renamed binary from plasma to plasma-desktop; config files also changed as a result
    * Desktop Toolbox: it's smaller and shows the activity name if any is set
    * ZUI: the global actions such as add activity and lock desktop are on a global toolbox when the desktop is zoomed out.
    * Configuration gui to activate a different activity for each desktop and to decouple the dashboard contents with desktop contents
    * Panels
        * access to spacers to control how widgets arrange themselves
        * 'Windows go below' mode


Other Shells
------------
* plasmoidviewer
    * supports loading uninstalled packages by passing the path to the package
    * can define the wallpaper to load
    * can use a theme different from the one used in the workspace
    * improved containment usage, so loaded plasmoids behave more like they do in plasma-desktop
    * --theme switch to allow viewing plasmoids with different stylings

Tools
-----
* NEW: plasmawallpaperviewer: view and configure wallpapers in a window, perfect for testing new wallpaper plugin features
* plasmaengineexplorer provides a --list command line switch

Plugins/Addons
--------------
* Features
    * Plasmoids and Containments
        * NEW: Bubble Monitor: track system status via a lava lamp style visualization
        * NEW: Magnifique: View and magnify sections of the Plasma canvas
        * NEW: Media player: Play video and audio files by dragging them on the desktop
        * NEW: openDesktop Plasmoid: Basic interaction with openDesktop contacts
        * NEW: RememberTheMilk: interface for the online time management service of the same name
        * NEW: System Load Viewer: simple yet effective retro-style system load and memory usage display
        * NEW: Unit converter
        * NEW: Weather: 5 day forecasts and more in a visually stunning outfit
        * Bouncing Ball:
            * Theme support, including a new soccer ball
        * Comics
            * Added optional Nepomuk support when manually saving a comic strip.
            * Added per comic setting to store the current position.
        * File Watcher
            * Added support for filtering (both regular expressions and exact matches are supported).
        * Microblogging (was KDE Twitter)
            * Added support for other Twitter API based services like identi.ca (that is based on laconi.ca)
        * Pager
            * User can choose to do nothing, toggle the desktop or the dashboard when he click on the current desktop.
        * Notes
            * Highlight current line
            * Change font size with Control + Scrollwheel
        * Folder View
           * Added keyboard navigation to iconview. User can navigate using direction keys and launch using Enter/Return.
        * Pastebin
            * New look and feel
            * Pasting through context menu
            * Using knotification to tell the user that the data has been saved online
            * History of pastebin URLs
        * System tray
            * New D-Bus based system tray protocol
            * Ability to show/hide icons based on category
            * Jobs show file/dir progress and ETA
            * Jobs are grouped together: one group for running jobs and one for completed jobs.
            * Completed jobs have a different appearance and allow the user to open the destination file/directory.
            * Notifications now show custom images like kopete's contact images.
            * Multiple trays in the same Plasma application supported.
            * Can configure whether or not notifications/jobs should autohide shortly after appearing.
        * Taskbar
            * New popup menu for grouped tasks with animation and tooltips for each item
            * Tooltips of grouped tasks can show tooltips of multiple windows
            * Hovering of tasks (grouped or not) will request the window manager (at its discretion) to highlight those windows
        * Web browser
            * Real page zoom instead of just font scaling
            * Can scroll the page by dragging the contents themselves
        * LCD Weather Station
            * New config dialog
            * Use geolocation dataengine for initial city if available.
            * Use Condition Icon for current weather and fallback to pressure if not available.
            * Show pressure tendency arrows. BUG:184457
        * System monitor
            * Handle new/removed network interfaces in network monitor
            * NEW: Memory monitor. BUG:182704
            * temperature plotter uses now same range as analog meter
            * Temperature widget now defaults to plotter in panel
            * Show tooltips when in panel. BUG:180102
            * Advanced config page added
            * Plotter labels added
        * Timer
            * A timer can have a title
            * Count down is restored after a plasma shutdown/restart
            * User can hide seconds.
        * Lancelot
            * theming: Scrollbars follow Plasma style
            * actions for system buttons are configurable
            * highlighted path in application browser
            * clear documents history
            * places are loaded from Dolphin
            * applications in menu are sorted
        * Quicklaunch
            * Icons can be re-ordered with drag-and-drop, show tooltips and icon size is configurable,
              retained even with resizing

    * DataEngines
        * NEW: Akonadi engine: emails, contacts and microblogs from Akonadi
        * NEW: Calendar: holiday and event information
        * NEW: Geolocation: publishes location information based on GPS input or IP address; sports plugins
        * NEW: Keystate: keyboard modifier and mouse button state information
        * NEW: Metadata: access to Nepomuk data on files
        * NEW: OCS engine: interface for scripted applets to Open Collaboration Services
        * NEW: PotD: Grabs the "picture of the day" from various online sources
        * NEW: RememberTheMilk: support for the online time management service
        * Time engine can also report sun positioning, sunrise, sunset and moon phase information

    * Wallpapers
        * NEW: Virus: artificial life simulation, watch it colonize and eat your wallpaper!
        * NEW: Weather: selects wallpapers based on weather station information
        * NEW: Mandelbrot: draws fractals on the desktop; click and drag or zoom in/out to explore the Mandelbrot set
        * NEW: Marble: interactive desktop globe as your desktop background; powered by KDE's Marble

    * Runners
         * Converter
             * If not exact unit found offer possible matches.

    * ScriptEngines
        * Simple JavaScript API
            * Support for Url objects
            * Added new Plasma::Widget entries
            * Completed LinearLayout API
            * file() method to get paths from the Plasmoid's package

* Bugfixes
     * Plasmoids and Containments
        * Show Desktop
            * Fix keyboard shortcuts BUG:180661
        * News
            * Better alternate background color for generated css. BUG: 185527
            * correctly use feed urls with parameters BUG:178936
        * LCD Weather Station
            * Replace "N/A" with "-" (Looks better in lcd letters). BUG:186610
            * Make credit clickable. BUG:183984
            * Fix wind speed and unit on some data sources.
        * System monitor
            * Allow smaller minimum size. BUG:186501
            * Limit initial temperature count to 5. BUG:178314
            * Lock buttons when desktop is locked. BUG:178469
            * Fix config. BUG:181378
            * don't crash when removing an applet by it's own context menu BUG:178860
            * Display an IconWidget when there are no available sources. BUG: 178192
            * activate layout to calculate fixed size ratio correctly on applet start. BUG: 176268
    * Walpapers
        * Slideshow mode of Image plugin takes ~97% less time to build the wallpaper list and allocates a fraction of the memory in the process. BUG: 190632

KRunner
-------
* Features
    * Display all known syntax in the results area when Help button pressed
    * Vertical display of results with new selection style and animation
    * Configure parameters on matches by clicking on the configuration wrench, for matches that support options

* Bugfixes
    * Race conditions affecting proper selection of default item fixed (often known as the "I pressed <Enter> and nothing happened!" bug)


Platforms
---------