26 Nov 2022

Maui 2.2.1 Release 2 years ago

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Camilo Higuita
Posted by Camilo Higuita
Release, Report

A new release is now available! – with internationalization – supporting multiple languages, introducing new libraries and apps, a more cohesive look-and-feel, and improvements to the current stack of apps.

Today, we bring you a new special report on the Maui Project’s progress.

Maui 2.2.0 was released about three months ago, and since then, we have added new features, bug fixes, and improvements to the Maui set of apps and frameworks; the Maui Shell components and new apps have been updated and pushed for a new release. The following blog post will cover changes and highlights from the last three months, which pave the road for a Maui Desktop environment for convergence.

Community

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:

Thanks to the KDE contributors who have helped translate the Maui Apps!

Downloads

You can get the stable release packages [APKs, AppImage, TARs] directly from the KDE downloads server at https://download.kde.org/stable/maui/

And if you are feeling a bit curious about the Maui DE, you can download a new Manjaro-based image for **testing** the project’s current state.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/nulogicos/files/latest/download

Note: Please be aware that this is an ISO image from a third-party.

What’s new?

Translations, new apps, more features, bug fixes, and consistency updates, among many other goodies. So let’s start:

There are new additions to the Maui Project, such as MauiKit Calendar, MauiKit Documents, and Arca, and new apps getting ready for their first stable releases, such as Fiery browser, Strike IDE, Booth camera app, Agenda calendar, and some others.

These development months have been busy shaping the core stack of apps and libraries for Maui DE, updating all the libraries used by Maui apps; MauiKit Frameworks hits a new stable version, 2.2.1: with translations and more convergent-ready components.

The Maui Apps now look even better, with merged ToolBars into the TabBars, cleaner menus, and translucency effects; you can check out the previous progress report leading to this new release to find out about even more new stuff packed into this new release:

Maui Report 19

The release schedule was updated to better keep in sync with the development workflow of the project. To check the new release plans, you can go to the end of this blog post.

MauiKit Frameworks 2.2

Maui Demo

We rewrote the demo app, and after some initial work, it will list all the available controls in MauiKit Core with short detailed HIG text and code snippets. This app is still a work in progress and will continue to be developed in the upcoming weeks.

Imagen

Style

The style received paper-cut fixes to more controls to keep the consistency among all the expected states, such as hovered, checked, pressed, etc., for the TextField, Switches, Sliders, CheckBoxes, ComboBox, etc.

  • The ToolBar control gained a default row layout for quickly placing items on it.
  • New style for the Tumbler control with mouse-wheel support.

Controls – [2.2.1]

  • We refined the AbouDialog control with a more popping style and more credit information from authors, translators, libraries, links, etc.
  • The ApplicationWindow now has a sane minimum width and height to avoid setting the size to an unusable state.
  • MauiApp now connects to CaskServer to request drop shadows when using CSD under Maui Shell.
  • A cleaner ContextualMenu placement on Mobile mode, and remove hard border lines.
  • The ComboBox has been refactored and now follows the ContextualMenu placement and style.
  • By default, the GridBrowserDelegate is now flat on desktop mode for a cleaner look and feel.
  • The ToolBar and TabBar are slimmer and adjust to the height of their content.
  • The line separators are now more subtle.
  • Apps no longer display window controls in full-screen mode if the user enabled CSD.
  • GalleryRoll and the CollageItem controls now have a consistent font size and style.
  • When building MauiKit, it now generates the .aar package for its Java functionality to integrate into Android.
  • Fixes the KI18n usage for translations.
  • Fix to issue showing duplicated entries on the hidden menu in the SelectionBar control.
  • Support added for images in the QRC for ImageColors.

FileBrowser, TextEditor, ImageTools, and Accounts – [2.2.1]

The frameworks received the necessary fixes for supporting translations via KI18n and the KDE’s infrastructure.

  • The TextEditor component gained an optional spell checker thanks to KF5 Sonnet.
  • ImageTools gained support for editing, adding, and removing EXIF metadata.
  • FileBrowser now supports .po file type for the text mime-types.
  • The search functionality in the FileBrowser component now shows the progress of file operations.

Documents & Calendar – [1.0.0]

Two new frameworks join the MauiKit group: Documents for viewing PDF, comic books, and EPubs files; and Calendar for calendar support with multiple time and date-related controls.

Maui Apps

During this cycle, we focus on making the current apps more stable by correcting errors from reported bugs, making the current features more accessible, and shaping the apps to match their desktop alternatives. We have updated the files for Appstream to the latest releases.

Index – [2.2.1]

The Index file browser for desktops, tablets, and phones. Using the KIO library supports browsing networks, devices, and disks. A list and grid view are available, with support for making a composite selection of files from the selection bar, an optional embedded terminal, split views, and multiple tabs; Index allows quick previewing of a bunch of file types within the app and much more.

From the last report, these are some of the new updates included:

  • Translations​​​​​​​​​
  • The quick places section in the sidebar is not flat.

VVave – [2.2.1]

The VVave (read as Wave, by the way) is a music player and a music collection manager with different views to browse your collection. With it, you can edit the music metadata, create “playlists” using MauiKit tags and even stream music from your NextCloud server instance. Vvave has a stylish focus mode and takes care of downloading your music artwork.

Some updates include:

  • Fix the main playlist artwork header padding.
  • Translations.

Pix – [2.2.1]

Pix is an image viewer, image editor, and image collection manager. With it, you can make quick edits to your images, like rotating and cropping and modifying the metadata information; create collections to organize your images; and browse them by folders in a stylish fashion.

  • More extensive previews in the folders and tags views.
  • Simplify the viewer’s view.
  • Translations.

Buho – [2.2.1]

Buho is a simple note-taking app with support for syncing with NextCloud server instances.

  • Translations.

Nota – [2.2.1]

Nota is a simple text editor with support for split views, multiple tabs, listing recent files, syntax highlighting support for multiple languages, an optional embedded terminal, and much more.

  • Translations.

Station – [2.2.1]

The Station terminal emulator now supports split views, multiple tabs, touch gestures, and custom command shortcuts.

  • Translucency testing feature.
  • Fix typos.
  • Single instance server – can now be invoked with the initial working directory.
  • Refactored the custom shortcuts command dialog.
  • Cleaner tab bar.
  • Translations.

Communicator – [2.2.1]

Communicator is a contacts manager app.

  • Translations.

Shelf – [2.2.1]

The Shelf document viewer supports PDFs, Comic book archives, and soon EPUB eBooks.

  • Now uses the MauiKit Documents library to display PDF and comic book archives.
  • Comic book archives are now working for the Android version.
  • Translations.

Clip – [2.2.1]

The Clip video player and video collection manager.

  • Translations.
  • Fix the installation command.

Fiery – [1.0.1]

Fiery is the web browser.

  • Translations.

Booth – [1.0.1]

Booth is a camera app with support for scanning QR codes and the expected functionality of a camera app with a bunch of settings.

  • Users can toggle off QR scanning.
  • Translations.

Strike – [1.0.1]

The Strike IDE is an upcoming C++ and CMake-based application to build projects.

  • Translations.
  • We’ve fixed the build-bar implementation.

Bonsai – [1.0.1]

Bonsai is a Git version control manager with initial support for browsing your local repositories, and in the works to become much more feature rich.

  • Translations.

Agenda – [0.1.0]

Agenda is a calendar app.

  • Translations.
  • Create events and display them in the views – thanks to Akonadi.
  • Now uses the MauiKit-Calendar library.

 

Arca – [0.1.0]

  • Initial working version with support for opening archives.
  • Preview archive files within the app.
  • Insert new files into the archive.

Maui Settings – [1.0.1] & MauiMan – [1.0.1]

The translucency feature is now hooked to the MauiMan property enableEffects and exposed on the Maui Settings app.

Maui Shell & Cask Server & Maui Core – [0.5.6]

The CaskServer gained support for handling drop shadow requests per app; the blurred background is also in the works.

Cask is now hooked to CaskServer’s new options for drawing the requested drop shadows.

The Cask calendar card is now using the new MauiKit Calendar lib.

Cask chrome now correctly sets the border radius.

Imagen

 

Here is 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]We continuously improve Maui Style.
  • Move beta apps to stable. [In Progress]Shelf and Clip have been moved to stable, missing Sol (now Fiery), Booth, Strike, and Bonsai.
  • NX SC is available at github.com/nitrux/nx-software-center.

New release schedule

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