Calligra 2.5 released

In the second stable release of the KDE-oriented office suite, Calligra has been updated to version 2.5 with, among other changes, enhancements to the spreadsheet, word processor, database and painting components. Calligra was developed from an internal fork of KOffice in 2010.

Changes in the productivity applications include improved table editing and better border manipulation in the Words word processor. The spreadsheet application Sheets gets a cell editor that easier to use and view and a new cell tool window that brings the common formatting tools together. The diagram application Flow has support for new ODF custom shape stencils and Kexi, the database application, now has a full screen mode and new form elements including a slider, progress bar and command link button.

The artistic applications in the Calligra suite see new features too with Krita, the painting application, getting a new compositions docker, textured painting support, performance improvements and, behind the scenes, an improved canvas handling subsystem which allows the canvas to be rotated and scaled even when another tool is active.

The developers have also added new filters for importing Visio, MS Works and xfig and have improved the MS Office import filters. Across the range of applications, the suite now sees better autosave and user profile management, a new system for connecting shapes in the various Calligra applications, and support for image effects and mirroring.

The developers have also released a QML-based version of Calligra for tablets and smartphones, Calligra Active, which will be the focus of the team's mobile development work in future.

The GPLv2 licensed source code for Calligra 2.5 is available as a downloadable snapshot. Binary versions are being made available for various distributions, for example, Kubuntu has made it available with a backported KDE SC 4.9 in its Backports PPA, while other distributions are updating their repositories.

(djwm)