Today, we bring you a report on the brand-new release of the Maui Project.
We are excited to announce the latest release of MauiKit version 4.0.0, our comprehensive user interface toolkit specifically designed for convergent interfaces, the complying frameworks, and an in-house developed set of convergent applications.
Built on the solid foundations of Qt Quick Controls, QML, and the power and stability of C++, MauiKit empowers developers to create adaptable and seamless user interfaces across a range of devices, and with this release, we have finally migrated to Qt6 and made available the documentation for the frameworks.
Join us on this journey as we unveil the potential of MauiKit 4 for building convergent interfaces, and finally discover the possibilities offered by the enhanced Maui App stack.
Community
To follow the Maui Project’s development or to just say hi, you can join us on our Telegram group @mauiproject
We are present on X and Mastodon:
Thanks to the KDE contributors who have helped to translate the Maui Apps and Frameworks!
Downloads & Sources
You can get the stable release packages [APKs, AppImage, TARs] directly from the KDE downloads server at https://download.kde.org/stable/maui/
All of the Maui repositories have the newly released branches and tags. You can get the sources right from the Maui group: https://invent.kde.org/maui
Qt6
With this version bump the Maui team has finalized the migration over to Qt6, which implies more stability and better performance coming from Qt upgraded QQC engine; but also means that some features have been removed or did not make the cut and still need more time to be brought back in posterior releases.
MauiKit 4 Frameworks & Apps
Currently, there are over 10 frameworks, with two new ones recently introduced. They all, for the most part, have been fully documented, and although, the KDE doxygen agent has some minor issues when publishing some parts, you can find the documentation online at https://api.kde.org/mauikit/ (and if you find missing parts, confusing bits, or overall sections to improve – you can open a ticket at any of the framework repos and it shall be fixed shortly after)
fav filemanager and music player. minimal modern & convergent @maui_project
— Camilo Higuita (@cmhiguita) May 6, 2024
Maui Apps 4.0 coming out soon. pic.twitter.com/OVLM2HWv6v
Core & Others
MauiKit Core controls also include the Mauikit Style, which along with the core controls has been revised and improved in the migration. New features have been introduced and some minor changes in the API have been made.
A good way to test the new changes made visually is via the MauiDemo application, when building MauiKit from the source, just add the -DBUILD_DEMO=ON flag and then launch it as MauiDemo4
All of the other frameworks have also been fully ported and reviewed, and some features are absent – for example, for ImageTools the image editor is missing for Android due to KQuickImageEditor problems.
Comic book support is missing in MauiKit-Documents, due to a big pending refactoring.
Finally, TextEditor new backend rendering engine migration is yet to be started.
Most of these pending issues will be tackled in the next releases bit by bit.
More details can be found in the previous blog posts:
Maui Release Briefing # 4
Maui Release Briefing #5
Archiver & Git
MauiKit-Archiver is a new framework, and it was created to share components and code between different applications that were duplicating the same code: Index, Arca, and Shelf.
The same goes for MauiKit-Git, which will help unify the code base for implementations made in Index, Bonsai, and Strike, so all of those apps can benefit from a single cohesive and curated code base in the form of a framework.
Archiver is pending to be documented, and Git is pending to be finished for its first stable release.
I have now finished porting all the Maui Apps and MauiKit frameworks to Qt6.
— Camilo Higuita (@cmhiguita) May 1, 2024
Vvave music player mini mode is back.@maui_project @Nitrux_NX pic.twitter.com/Mal3RU87O2
Known Issues
- MauiKit-Documents comic book support is stalled until the next release due to heavy refactoring under Android.
- MauiKit-ImageTools under Android does not include the image editor, since KQuickImageEditor is not working correctly under Android
- Clip is not working under Android due to issues with the libavformat not finding openssl.so when packaging the APK, this is still under review
- MauiKit-Git is still being worked on, and due to this Bonsai is not included on this stable release as it is being ported over to MauiKit-Git
@maui_project looking good. after the port to qt6 the next goal is to put out a stable version of Maui Shell with a tight integration to the app ecosystem and the HIG #mauikit pic.twitter.com/BkR9ecTzMT
— Camilo Higuita (@cmhiguita) May 6, 2024
Maui Shell
Although Maui Shell has been ported over to Qt6 and is working with the latest MauiKit4, a lot of pending issues are still present and being worked on. The next release will be dedicated fully on Maui Shell and all of its subprojects, such as Maui Settings, Maui Core, CaskServer, etc.
That’s it for now. Until the next blog post, that will be a bit closer to the 4.0.1 stable release.
Release schedule
