We’re pleased to announce the last Calligra 2.9 beta release for you to test. We are as good at fixing issues as your reports are so please keep up the good work.
Support Calligra!
The next release expected on February 26th will be the final 2.9.0! Please ask your favourite Linux vendor about the plans for packages.
New Features and Improvements in This Release
General
Fix a crash when applying changes with the style manager.
The drop caps themselves should not be subjected to line spacing rules, only the actual lines of text should be. Crash fixed. (bug 342185)
The layout of spell checking markup should be invalidated whenever we have layouted a block.
Remove inline objects from manager when Delete command is executed. (bug 303492)
Make text flowing around shapes with shadow. (bug 335784)
EMF: Legend of the chart in a PPT document is displaying ugly. (bug 271016)
Make sure the result of finding text can’t be extended when writing after the text. (bug 292410)
Assign standard shortcuts for text alignment Ctrl+L, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+R. We had to reassign the shortcut for find and replace too, so now: Ctrl+H (also standard in word processing apps). Also set Ctrl+shift+F for distraction free mode. (bug 303739)
Fix some crashes in change tracking. (bug 334150)
SVM: Underline effect and italics were not retained. (bug 275322)
SVG file was wrongly placed. (bug 322377)
Fix undo/redo for text ranges. (bug 342869)
Make sure we don’t delete anchors if we are just deleting adjacent characters. (bug 342867)
File dialogs: Fix all-supported formats on GNOME.
File dialogs: Restore the All Formats option.
Fix for new tags not loading after application restart. (bug 342541)
Kexi – Visual Database Applications Builder
Tabular views received many more improvements.
General:
Fix (reverse) logic in 3 ‘dont ask’ settings: dontAskBeforeDeleteRow is now called AskBeforeDeleteRow, dontShowWarningsRelatedToPluginsLoading is now called ShowWarningsRelatedToPluginsLoading, dontAskBeforeDeleteConnection is now called AskBeforeDeleteConnection (Thanks to Robert Leleu).
Delete no longer working or needed –skip-startup-dialog command line option. (bug 338247)
Support recent naming changes in the “Breeze” icon theme.
Support “Breeze Dark” theme too.
Tables:
Always display indicator for autonumber in the insert row. Before it was displayed only in the current row. Now it’s consistent with how default values are displayed.
Designer: check duplicates and empty design before proposing PK. This makes the process of creating designed table more logical from the user’s perspective.
Designer: make the last column (Comments) stretched. (minor defect #7)
Do not paint headers outside of the table view, over the area of scrollbars. (minor defect #3)
Fix behaviour on column width change: ensure column is visible after interactive adjusting width of this column to the contents by double mouse click. However, don’t move cell cursor there.
Clicking “Go to new record” in tableview moves to first reasonable column. That means first column that has no autoincrement flag set. Before it was the active column. (usability fix)
Queries:
Set Ctrl+F5 shortcut for “Check Query” of the SQL query designer. (bug 338834)
Forms:
Update geometry value in property editor when resize handles are moved (in real time).
Do not display inline editor when re-doing “Insert widget” commands (usability fix).
Don’t treat undoing changes to color properties as new commands so now undo/redo works as expected.
Fix crash during elements deletion in forms. (bug 339251)
Fix combo box selection after changing the data source. (bug 278299)
Fix updating area of horizontal scrollbar when it gets hidden and gtk+ widget style is used.
Krita – Digital Painting for Artists
New splash screen by Tyson Tan!
Fix noisy complaints from libpng about nothing
Hide the next/previous blending mode, snap-to-grid and reload-file actions because they don’t work
Fix the shortcuts for setting brush opacity
Fix inverted softness (bug 342747)
Fix ghost pixels on group layers with no children (bug 331554)
Fix opacity setting for pattern fill layers
G’Mic: Add progress reporting for small previews
G’Mic: Cancel now stops execution of slow filters
G’Mic: Don’t crash when closing the G’Mic dialog after doing nothing
G’Mic; fix url for updates
Fix issues with Genius Tablets (bug 342641)
Fix painting on selection masks
Make the palettes docker follow the general background color setting
Add a temporary dialog to fix issues when the desktop resolution and the wintab resolution don’t match up
Fix crash when using the color transfer filter (bug 342287)
Fix KToolLine to handle end and cancel requests (bug 336959)
Fix a bunch of menu options to only be active at the right moment
Add unit of measurement to offset image dialog
Fix initialization of the crop tool (bug 342842)
Improve default values for the crop tool (bug 242844)
Fix crash in shaped gradient with shaped smaller than 3px wide (bug 342942)
Show open/save buttons in the ruler assistant tool on Windows (bug 342348)
Add auto-leveling to the adjust/levels filter (Aleksander Demko’s first patch!)
Don’t push the Copy action on the undo stack (bug 343328)
Remember the constrain proportions settings in the canvas size dialog (bug 343282)
Fix spacing of rotating brushes (bug 329026)
Fix crash when selecting the texture option for the pixel brush engine (bug 342749)
Make the “on hover” layer thumbnail configurable (bug 342168)
Fix an issue where you’d have to press cancel multiple times to close Krita (bug 343070)
Notify the user when copying an empty selection (bug 343092)
Expand the color picker tool to be able to use a radius up to 900 pixels (bug 337406)
Don’t crash if Krita’s settings has an active preset that no longer exists (bug 340229)
Don’t crash when closing Krita while the reference image docker is still loading thumbnails (bug 342896)
Switch to an appropriate tool when switching between pixel and vector layers (bug 335092)
Support indirect painting mode for masks (bug 318882)
Don’t crash when merging selected layers (bug 343540)
Bring back the undo docker’s preview thumbnails (bug 277884)
Don’t crash when undoing points in polyline stroke or selection (bug 342921)
Make shift-z undo points in all poly tools (bug 342921)
Make the shortcut for undoing poly tool points configurable (bug 342919)
Disable the arrow keys for panning the canvas by default (bug 342023)
Update the minimum zoom level after scaling the image (bug 342709)
Rearrange the settings menu to be more logical (bug 342068)
Only lock the tools if the layer is invisible, but allow moving and deleting of invisible layers (bug 337912)
Fix issues when working with the color selectors in HDR mode (bug 343531)
Don’t save the crop tool’s force ratio setting (bug 343287)
Fix cyclic updates of the currently selected color (bug 343531)
G’Mic: Don’t crash when enabling the small preview in interactive colorize (bug 343616)
Fix a crash on loading an image (bug 340752)
G’Mic: increase the stack size to ridiculous proportions on Windows so the parser doesn’t crash
G’Mic: start supporting interactive colorize on Windows (still not done, needs adding support for pthreads)
Follow the settings for visibillity of the scrollbars (bug 342217)
Fix shaped gradients for selections with holes (bug 343187)
Fix floodfill for 16 bits integer/channel RGB images (bug 343365)
Fix the zoom level of the scratchpad
Fix a big slowdown in the layer properties dialog with big layers and big images (bug 343685)
Fix file layer position resetting
Add the recent documents to the list in the new images dialog (bug 340949)
Fix support for Wacom Airbrush devices. Patch by Arturg. (bug 343545)
Make the text brush load and display values from the current brush
Fix the text brush when rotation is set to drawing angle (bug 330185)
Fix recognizing the bamboo stylus (bug 343545)
Don’t deadlock when loading a fill layer (bug 343734)
Don’t assert when checking the texture option (bug 343837)
Make it possible again to select an image in the color transfer filter on Windows (bug 343706)
G’Mic: fix a crash when browsing through the filters
Update the layer thumbnails in the layerbox after every stroke, instead of when hovering over the layerbox (bug 343699)
Calligra Sheets – The Spreadsheet
Usability: when double-clicking outside of any shape, switch to the cell tool.
Fix drag and drop of cell values and selections.
When selecting a range, display its dimensions in the status bar.
When saving cell values, take formatting into account when determining value type. This fixes some load/save issues.
Calligra Words – The Word Processor
Page layout of footer that is larger than the two times bottom page margin should not disappear from the first page. (bug 275288)
Page number variable was updated way too often into inconsistent values. Now it is less frequentl changed. (bug 260084)
Fix loading text shapes with flowing text in weird order. We basically didn’t expect such a weird order, but now we do a two step loading, first recording the order, and only then actually placing the text flow in that order. (bug 327565)
Fix layout bug that basically put all page anchored shapes referring to page content’s rect on the first page even if the shape was supposed to be on any other page.
Make it possible to insert a textshape again (without a crash)
Fix crash when ungrouping group. There is still some strange behaviour. (bug 260088)
Disallow shape properties action for auto-generated frames.
Show the display name of the current page style in the status bar. (bug 293549)
Make sure annotations are show when loading a new file with annotations. Make sure we also apply the runaround properties to the shape on first redo. (bug 329301)
Bibliography and table of contents are not stored in text frame, so don’t move out of it. (bug 286667)
Try It Out
The source code is available for download: calligra-2.8.92.tar.xz.
Calligra binaries are available for download for many operating systems.
What’s Next and How to Help?
We’re approaching the era of 2.9 to be released in February 2015. It will be followed by Calligra 3.0 based on new technologies later in 2015.
You can meet us to share your thoughts or offer your support on general Calligra forums or dedicated Kexi or Krita forums. Many improvements are only possible thanks to the fact that we’re working together within the awesome community.
(Some Calligra apps need new maintainers, you can become one, it’s fun!)
How and Why to Support Calligra?
Calligra apps may be totally free, but their development is costly. Power, hardware, office space, internet access, traveling for meetings – everything costs. Direct donation is the easiest and fastest way to efficiently support your favourite applications. Everyone, regardless of any degree of involvement can do so. You can choose to:
Support entire Calligra indirectly by donating to KDE, the parent organization and community of Calligra: http://www.kde.org/community/donations,
Support Krita directly by donating to the Krita Foundation, to support Krita development in general or development of a specific feature: https://krita.org/support-us/donations,
Support Kexi directly by donating to its current BountySource fundraiser, supporting development of a specific feature, or the team in general: https://www.bountysource.com/teams/kexi.
About Calligra
Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite developed by the KDE community. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digital painting. See more information at the website http://www.calligra.org.