KDE Libraries

KDE Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks build on the Qt framework, providing everything from simple utility classes (such as those in KCoreAddons) to integrated solutions for common requirements of desktop applications (such as KNewStuff, for fetching downloadable add-on content in an application, or the powerful KIO multi-protocol file access framework).

The KDE Frameworks can be used in CMake-based and QMake-based projects, and most of them are portable to at least Windows, Mac and Linux. The documentation of each framework has code snippets that show how to include the framework in a QMake or CMake project.

The frameworks are divided into four tiers, based on the kind of dependencies that they have. For instance, Tier 1 frameworks depend on Qt and possibly some third-party libraries, but not on other frameworks. This makes them easy to integrate into existing applications.

Tier 0

  • ECM

    Extra CMake modules

Tier 1

Tier 1 frameworks depend only on Qt (and possibly a small number of other third-party libraries), so can easily be used by any Qt-based project.

Tier 2

Tier 2 frameworks additionally depend on tier 1 frameworks, but still have easily manageable dependencies.

  • KAuth

    Abstraction to system policy and authentication features

  • KColorScheme

    Classes to interact with KColorScheme

  • KCompletion

    Text completion helpers and widgets

  • KContacts

    Support for vCard contacts

  • KCrash

    Support for application crash analysis and bug report from apps

  • KDeclarative

    Provides integration of QML and KDE Frameworks

  • KFileMetaData

    A file metadata and text extraction library

  • KNotifications

    Abstraction for system notifications

  • KPackage

    Library to load and install packages of non binary files as they were a plugin

  • KPty

    Pty abstraction

  • KService

    Library for querying installed applications and their associated file types

  • KStatusNotifierItem

    Implementation of Status Notifier Items

  • KUnitConversion

    Support for unit conversion

  • Syndication

    An RSS/Atom parser library

Tier 3

Tier 3 frameworks are generally more powerful, comprehensive packages, and consequently have more complex dependencies.

  • Baloo

    Baloo is a file indexing and searching framework

  • KBookmarks

    Support for bookmarks and the XBEL format

  • KCMUtils

    Utilities for working with KCModules

  • KConfigWidgets

    Widgets for configuration dialogs

  • KDAV

    An DAV protocol implementation with KJobs

  • KDESu

    Integration with su for elevated privileges

  • KIconThemes

    Support for icon themes

  • KIO

    Resource and network access abstraction

  • KJobWidgets

    Widgets for tracking KJob instances

  • KNewStuff

    Support for downloading application assets from the network

  • KNotifyConfig

    Configuration system for KNotify

  • KParts

    Document centric plugin system

  • KPeople

    Provides access to all contacts and the people who hold them

  • KRunner

    Parallelized query system

  • KSvg

    A library for rendering SVG-based themes with stylesheet re-coloring and on-disk caching

  • KTextEditor

    Advanced embeddable text editor

  • KTextWidgets

    Advanced text editing widgets

  • KWallet

    Secure and unified container for user passwords

  • KXMLGui

    User configurable main windows

  • Purpose

    Offers available actions for a specific purpose.

Tier 4

Tier 4 frameworks can be mostly ignored by application programmers; this tier consists of plugins acting behind the scenes to provide additional functionality or platform integration to existing frameworks (including Qt).

TODO: There are frameworks that don't have API: kded, qqc2-desktop-style, breeze-icons, kimageformats, kdoctools. We probably want to at least mention those?

Other Libraries

These libraries are also offered by the KDE Community but don't neccesarily provide the same quality standards and compatibility promises as the KDE Frameworks.

TODO add them

Plasma

PIM

  • KIMAP

    IMAP handling library

  • KSMTP

    SMTP handling library

Other

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