We are pleased to announce a new stable release of MauiKit Frameworks and Maui Apps 2.1.2!

Stable release

This version of Maui brings new features and bug fixes to Maui’s applications and the frameworks they rely on. The changes introduced in this release will make your experience with Maui Apps much more enjoyable and feature-rich across different devices and form factors.

Read on to find out how Maui’s software has improved and what new features to look out for:

Distribution

If you are interested in using the Maui Apps, there are different ways you can do so:

MauiKit Frameworks and Maui Apps are packaged by different distros, like Arch, and derived distros, such as Manjaro; KDE Neon on unstable repositories, postmarketOS, and Nitrux OS.

Nitrux OS includes the Maui Apps by default and Manjaro with Plasma Mobile. So you can wait a few days for the distributions to update the packages for you.

For using Maui Apps on Android, we provide APK packages. The links to the packages will be listed here and on the Maui official webpage under each app section.

There is an active task to start publishing the apps to the platforms’ respective stores; you can follow up on the progress: https://invent.kde.org/maui/mauikit/-/issues/32.​

AppImage packages are also available for AMD64 and ARM, so you can also grab one of them, also linked in this blog post.

Remember to open a ticket at Invent if you find bugs, issues, or have a feature request.

Downloads

To get the TARs, APKs, and AppImages you can go directly to each app page under mauikit.org/apps or go to download.kde.org/stable/maui.

MauiKit Framework 2.1.2

MauiKit is a group of frameworks used to build Maui applications. It comes with standard widgets crafted to work well on small phone screens and larger desktop computer monitors. But that’s not all: MauiKit also has utilities that help developers build applications more quickly with more complex and ready-made widgets. These include a text editor, an image viewer, or a file explorer.

In this updated version, the graphical components have been polished. New widgets have been added to the MauiKit Core library, making navigation easier on phones, desktop computers, and other devices.

Before continuing, just a quick reminder: you can check the previous Maui Reports leading up to this new stable release at:

Maui Report 18

MauiKit

We improved the code of MauiKit. Solving bugs with better performance optimizations. We added a few new controls; this is what’s new:

Core

• FontsComboBox is a new control for listing and quickly previewing fonts.
  
• Apps use Maui Style by default. MauiKit must be built with the -DBUNDLE_MAUI_STYLE=OFF flag to use the system style. Using Maui Style the apps will have a better and more consistent look; and faster startup times since it is precompiled.
• New StackView control, with smooth transitions.
• Adaptive color schemes and custom accent colors.
• The AnimatedImage control can now play animated AVIF images.
• Fixes to the FlexItem control used in the SettingsSection in settings dialogs.
• MauiModel now allows having multiple filtering terms.
• Fixes to the MauiModel filtering.

FileBrowsing, TextEditor, ImageTools & Accounts

• Minor fixes here and there.

Maui Style

• Styling fixes to the ScrollBar, ContextualMenu, and Popup controls.

Maui Apps 2.1.2

The Maui Project provides a set of applications to cover the essential utilities. The Maui line of apps currently includes a file manager (Index), a music player (Vvave), an image viewer (Pix), a text editor (Nota), an app for note-taking (Buho), a terminal emulator (Station), an app to manage your contacts (Communicator), a document viewer (Shelf), a video player (Clip), a camera app (Booth), and a web browser (Sol).

Index

Highlights:

• Preview support for animated AVIF images.
• New optional Action Toolbar with everyday actions as buttons.
• Menu entries moved to the browser menu.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.
• More information is in the file contextual menu header.
• Now multiple filters can be applied in the search, separated by a comma; for example: “pdf, screen, avif” will show results for any files matching those terms.

Vvave

Highlights:

• The Tracks view now lists the most played tracks and recent playlists on the header for quick access.
• The focus view can now be set as the default view, making Vvave faster to start since the collection views are not being loaded.
• The focus views now ship with a search field for quick queries, which the user can trigger with Ctrl+K.
• The focus view is now using the adaptive color scheme based on the current track artwork.
• Vvave now uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.
• Fixed bug causing the go-to artist/album to fail before the app loaded those views.
• Apps can now apply multiple terms to filter the collection in the search boxes.

Nota

Highlights:

• We moved the slimmer toolbar and the previous options to the Add tool button.
• Now uses the new Mauikit FontsComboBox control to preview the available fonts in the settings dialog quickly.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.

Pix

Highlights:

• Initial work on intelligent tags.
• Fixes to the geolocation tags.
• Faster to launch when invoked with an external image. Now the app can pass modules, and for example, the viewer can be the default view, the tags or folders, etc.
• It can now be used to open folder directories and list all the images.
• Preview animated images on hover at the gallery views.
• Tweaks to the folder’s view, showing header information of the current folder being viewed.
• Users can trigger the keyboard shortcut for selecting all images with Ctrl+A.
• The dark mode is now used by default on the image viewer.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.
• Added a new option go-to folder, which shows all images in the same source folder.
• Users can now apply multiple terms to filter the collection in the search boxes.

Buho

Highlights:

• Now uses the new Mauikit FontsComboBox control to preview the available fonts in the settings dialog quickly.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.

Clip

Highlights:

• Faster startup by going directly into the player view without loading the collection view when invoked externally with an URL.
• Slimmer toolbars.
• Fixes to the optional MPV backend for audio, subtitles, and corrections.
• The dark mode is now used by default on the player viewer.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.

Shelf

Highlights:

• Multi-tab support for opening multiple documents.
• Shelf Poppler plugin fixes document sizes and faster loading. Benefiting, for example, Index’s PDF previews.
• Uses the new MauiKit StackView for smoother transitions between views.
• Multiple terms can now be applied to filter the collection in the search boxes.

Station

Highlights:

• Fix bugs.
• Now uses the new Mauikit FontsComboBox control to quickly preview the available fonts in the settings dialog.

Communicator

Highlights:

• Polished the delegates.

 

To follow the Maui Project’s development or say hi, you can join us on Telegram: https://t.me/mauiproject.

We are present on Twitter and Mastodon:

• https://twitter.com/maui_project.
• https://mastodon.technology/@mauiproject.

Release date	2021	2022	2023
February	1.2.1	2.1.1	2.2.2
May	1.2.2	2.1.2	3.0.0
August	2.0.0	2.2.0	3.1.0
November	2.1.0	2.2.1	3.1.1

A quick reminder of the project’s immediate future goals:

• Fully utilize CMake. [Done]
  • Developers can build apps and the framework with CMake for all targeted platforms.
• More feature-rich applications. [In Progress]
  • Pix image editor and GPS location browsing.
  • VVave’s metadata editor and cloud streaming.
  • Index – feature-rich file management.
  • Better integration with Android. Idle states and background playback.
• Improve data synchronization using NextCloud. [Pending]
  • Only Buho and Vvave have initial support.
  • For 2.1, We will add support for Pix as well. [Pending]
• Improve performance. [In progress]
  • We have split the MauiKit framework into different components.
  • MauiKit::Core controls are faster and more coherent.
  • 5X faster startup times for Maui Apps
• Improve the UI cohesion on all supported platforms. [In Progress]
  • Maui Style has been improved constantly.
• Move beta apps to stable. [In Progress]
  • Shelf and Clip have been moved to stable, missing the Sol, Booth, Strike, and Bonsai.
  • NX SC has been moved to Nitrux org.