KOffice 2.2 Beta 1
By Inge Wallin
The KOffice team is happy to announce the first beta of the upcoming 2.2 release of KOffice. This release brings back Kexi, the data management application similar to MS Access. The new beta also offers many new features and improvements, bug fixes, and improved support for Microsoft file formats.
Kexi 2.2 - Form Designer
The 2.2beta1 release of KOffice gives you a preview of what will be new and improved when the final 2.2 version is released in May. As you can see in the list of changes, there are many new features and an old application from KOffice 1 has made a reappearance: Kexi, the data manager in the style of MS Access. Another completely new feature is import filters for the MS OOXML formats, introduced in MS Office 2007.
Readiness for End Users and External Developers
The KOffice team had hoped to have time to make the user interface and available feature set ready for end users as well as make the underlying engine ready for external extension developers in time for 2.2. Unfortunately time and limited developer resources didn’t permit to reach both of these goals. The libraries have been reorganized and improved, but the user interface does still not reach the level of quality that the team wants to achieve.
Notable exceptions to this are Krita, that has seen much work on the user interface and Karbon that was already usable before.
Sponsored Development and OpenDocument Community Work
Release 2.2 will be the first release where external companies and organizations made significant contributions in development. Nokia has sponsored much work on the general improvements and the converters for importing MS file formats for their Maemo office viewers. NLnet has sponsored the work on RDF metadata and change tracking. KO GmbH as well as NLnet have sent participants to the ODF plugfest and OpenOffice.org conference in Orvieto, Italy.
Sources and Binary Packages
The source code to KOffice 2.2 beta 1 can be downloaded from download.kde.org. Binary packages of KOffice 2.2beta1 will be available and announced separately as soon as the respective distribution provides them.
March 20th, 2010 at 20:47
Great work guys! KOffice is just getting started and I can’t wait to see what will happen in the future. All of us appreciate your hard work, too. Maybe you guys should hold a fundraiser like Krita did. I mean, look at the response they got! Thanks again!
March 22nd, 2010 at 02:11
[...] oficial en KDE News | Anuncio en KOffice.org | Lista de cambios completa | Información de KOffice en [...]
March 22nd, 2010 at 09:00
hey, these are great news! I love KOffice and would like to help testing this beta. All I need is a Debian package.
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:39
Hi folks !
That’s a good news, I translated the announce for french people.
March 22nd, 2010 at 13:53
[...] el anuncio oficial nos encontramos con un mejor soporte para los formatos de fichero de Microsoft -algo que queramos o [...]
March 22nd, 2010 at 14:25
> and improved support for Microsoft file formats
That is a surprise, I thought KOffice wasn’t going to support the “Office OpenXML” joke?
Over all, very exciting news. I’m using the Krita b2 release (I think?) on Debian Sid and it is nice. Congrats on the pending release and thank you for all of the hard work!
March 22nd, 2010 at 14:30
That Redmont window decoration was really necessary?
March 22nd, 2010 at 16:47
When do you think KOffice will be ready for production use? (I mean, daily basis use)
March 22nd, 2010 at 18:39
[...] Ulteriori informazioni a riguardo sono disponibili attraverso il comunicato ufficiale. [...]
March 22nd, 2010 at 21:18
Thank you for your great job!
March 23rd, 2010 at 00:48
[...] KOffice 2.2 Beta 1 The KOffice team is happy to announce the first beta of the upcoming 2.2 release of KOffice. This release brings back Kexi, the data management application similar to MS Access. The new beta also offers many new features and improvements, bug fixes, and improved support for Microsoft file formats. [...]
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:21
Thanks everybody for the praise.
@lefty.crupps: The ooxml formats are only import filters, we have no way of writing to them. These filters is one of the things that is the result of sponsored development. See more here: http://www.koffice.org/news/nokia-announces-ms-office-2007-import-filters-for-koffice/ and here: http://dot.kde.org/2009/10/13/nokia-sponsors-koffice-development-mobile-devices .
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:30
[...] el anuncio oficial nos encontramos con un mejor soporte para los formatos de fichero de Microsoft -algo que queramos o [...]
March 24th, 2010 at 01:18
Would be nice if you had an Ubuntu PPA (I couldn’t find one doing a PPA search) so that Ubuntu and derivative distribution users (particularly Kubuntu ones) can easily install and test the latest KOffice builds. Many will be no doubt squeamish to build from source.
March 24th, 2010 at 13:12
On the sponsored development front, does this bring a version for Maemo with editing capabilities a step closer?
March 25th, 2010 at 12:46
[...] Conference di Orvieto e all’ODF plugfest. Le note di rilascio ufficiali sono disponibili su questa pagina mentre su quest’altra il changelog. Qui il download dei [...]
April 2nd, 2010 at 01:56
Koffice is certainly making good progress, but as yet, I cannot use it for any meaningful work, due to the absence of a fully-integrated personal information manager (PIM), whether it’s callled Kontact or KDE-PIM, etc (I’ve submitted a thread on the Koffice forum on this issue).
As an engineer, Kivio would also be welcomed if and when it’s ready, but a PIM is essential for me going forward.