diff --git a/content/news/2019-04-14-6.1.0_release_announcement.md b/content/news/2019-04-14-6.1.0_release_announcement.md index 0d67d1a34..34bb9ffc7 100644 --- a/content/news/2019-04-14-6.1.0_release_announcement.md +++ b/content/news/2019-04-14-6.1.0_release_announcement.md @@ -1,105 +1,105 @@ --- date: "2019-04-14T00:00:00" title: "digiKam 6.1.0 is released" author: "digiKam Team" description: "Dear digiKam fans and users, after 2 months of development, we hare proud to announce the new digiKam 6.1.0." category: "news" --- [![](https://i.imgur.com/IOMJJ5Kh.png "digiKam 6.1.0 with a collection of image export from LR and with famous Metadata Editor")](https://imgur.com/IOMJJ5K) Dear digiKam fans and users, after the first digiKam 6 release published in February 2019, we receive a lots of user feedbacks to consolidate this important stage of this project started 2 years ago. We are proud to announce quickly the new digiKam 6.1.0, with plenty of new features and fixes. ### The New Plugins Interface "DPlugins" With 6.0.0, digiKam project was already left the KIPI plugins support and embed all tools as native solutions without to permit to customize and extend easily the application. digiKam 5.9.0 was the last version supporting KIPI after more than 15 years, and less and less support outside digiKam project. It's time to turn the page now and to reload the story with a new plugins interface more powerful, more adjusted to all digiKam main tools, with an extended support to Showfoto, and without to lost legacy features. Don't be afraid, you will lost nothing and gain more power with this new plugins interface, named "DPlugins" for... "digiKam Plugins" of course. Where the KIPI tools was limited to the Main Album View in digiKam, DPlugins can be used everywhere, as Image Editor, Light Table, Showfoto, and of course the Album View. This include all **Generic** tools to import/export items or edit metadata, but wait a minute... more as all **Image Editor^** re-touch tools (colors editing, Transforms, Decorate, Effects, etc.), and wait a second... more also as all **Batch Queue Manager** tools to process files in a chain. Now you will feel the huge diffference with the older KIPI solution: digiKam become really open and extensible as it must do since a very long time, where KIPI never acheive this task. The plugin lists are already very huge, and we works hard to make the whole features ready to use in only 2 months. Nothing will be lost from users side compared to previous versions: - Generic plugins: 35 tools. [![](https://i.imgur.com/bbha4Qoh.png "digiKam 6.1.0 Generic plugins")](https://imgur.com/bbha4Qo) - Image Editor plugins: 43 tools. [![](https://i.imgur.com/l6pYb0qh.png "digiKam 6.1.0 Image Editor plugins")](https://imgur.com/l6pYb0q) - Batch Queue Manager plugins: 38 tools. [![](https://i.imgur.com/PeaLSnxh.png "digiKam 6.1.0 Batch Queue Manager plugins")](https://imgur.com/PeaLSnx) As you can see in these screen-shoots, the Generic and Image Editor plugins can be enabled or disabled while application sessions. This permit to optimize and customize your digiKam or Showfoto as you want. Batch Queue Manager plugins are not yet configurable in this way, but it's just a question of time. As said previously, DPlugins are shared also between digiKam and Showfoto, the stand alone version of digiKam image editor which do not support the digiKam database. For example, see below on the left side the famous **Metadata Editor plugin** in action from Showfoto application, and on the right side the Showfoto DPlugins configuration tab from setup dialog. [![](https://i.imgur.com/18dwXg6h.png "Showfoto 6.1.0 with Metadata Editor tool and Setup DPlugins panel")](https://imgur.com/18dwXg6) [The DPlugins API](https://cgit.kde.org/digikam.git/tree/core/libs/dplugins) are already available for external contributions, as the future students planed to work with us while this summer. This will permit to extent digiKam without to touch the core implementations and localize the changes only in a dynamic loading tools. DPlugins is a safe approach to increase features without to lost stability. DPlugins is based only on pure Qt API for a better portability and maintainability. In the future, we plan to extend DPlugins to others parts of digiKam, as Image loaders, Camera operations, Database, Face Management, Maintenance, etc. This will take a while and it will done step by step at next 6.x releases. Note that we don't plan to share this plugins interface with other external applications, as its depend too much of digiKam core API. This will require to export all digiKam core implementations as shared libraries, and it's fully out so far of the scope from the project. ### Two New Plugins to Celebrate "DPlugins" While the finalization of DPlugins API and the port of all digiKam tools as plugins, two new features have been introduced for this release: - A plugin to **copy items to a local storage**. This tool is a first step to drop the old tool based on KIO and used to transfert items to remote place. As KIO is not portable and cannot be bundled, we need a pure Qt alternative to help users to transfert items outside the collections. The new plugin written -by Maik Quallman start with a simple operation to process copy/move of files over your computer. Currently, only local file systems are supported, but we plan +by Maik Qualmann start with a simple operation to process copy/move of files over your computer. Currently, only local file systems are supported, but we plan to add FTP and SSH protocols. A future integration to the Batch Queue Manager is also targeted later this summer. [![](https://i.imgur.com/CI75tyKh.png "The Local Storage Export Plugin in Action")](https://imgur.com/CI75tyK) - A plugin to **set image as Linux desktop wallpaper**. This tool proposed as excercice to a possible GoSC 2019 student named Igor Antropov, will help you to setup an photo as desktop wallpaper. Currently, only Plasma is supported, but we plan to extend this tool to other Linux desktop, MacOS, and Windows. We have already prototyped some code in this way, and the tools will be improved step by step at next releases before this summer. [![](https://i.imgur.com/LEy1i6oh.png "The Set as Wallpaper Plugin in Action")](https://imgur.com/LEy1i6o) ### Fixes and Improvements - Embeded Media Player has received few improvements as a new button to adjust sound volume while playing. Also, another button have been added on bottom right to turn on a loop function with the current playlist. [![](https://i.imgur.com/Jh1J9o7.png "The Embeded Video Player in Action")](https://imgur.com/Jh1J9o7) - Font properties for comments in the Slideshow tool can be changed, as the font size and the font family. Also the comment can be now faded in and out with the F4 key while running the slide. [![](https://i.imgur.com/KbuYNaR.png "The Slideshow Tool in Action")](https://imgur.com/KbuYNaR) - The Windows version include now the famous **"Open with"** option already present under Linux, to lauch your prefered application with your items. Some prototype of code for MacOS will be also introduced and tested later in next releases. [![](https://i.imgur.com/fOXeWcb.png "Open With Action Under Windows")](https://imgur.com/fOXeWcb) - The Album Icon-View includes now the capability to short items by the file system **Modification Dates** registered in database. [![](https://i.imgur.com/NXWeosY.png "Sort Album Icon View by Modification Dates")](https://imgur.com/NXWeosY) ### The Final Words Thanks to all users for your support, all contributors, all students, and testers who permit to improve this release. digiKam 6.1.0 source code tarball, Linux 32/64 bits AppImage bundles, MacOS package and Windows 32/64 bits installers can be downloaded from [this repository](http://download.kde.org/stable/digikam/6.1.0/). Rendez-vous in few months for the next 6.2.0 release and a presentation of students who will contribute to the project while GOsC 2019 event. Happy digiKaming...