Development/Tutorials

Development/Tutorials

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Tutorials are the fastest way of finding out what KDE will do for you, and how to do it. Here is a list of currently available tutorials for KDE4. Material for KDE3 and KDE2 is available on the bottom of this page.

Introduction To KDE 4 Programming

Are you interested in writing applications with KDE 4? This tutorial series is aimed at those completely new to KDE programming.

Hello World

A preliminary introduction to the very basics of KDE4 programming

Creating the Main Window

This tutorial shows you the magic of an application's most important thing: The main window.

Using KActions

How to add actions to the menus and toolbars.

Basics

Porting Your Application

Help Porting Applications from Qt3/KDE3 to Qt4/KDE4

Introduction to CMake

How to use the CMake build system used by KDE4.

Common Programming Mistakes

Various common mistakes made while developing Qt and KDE applications and how to avoid them.

Using Qt Designer to build user interfaces

How to create UI files with designer, and how to integrate them into a KDE program.

Using Command-line Options

Processing and accessing command-line arguments the easy way with KDE's command line arguments classes.

Testing And Debugging

Debugging your application

Tips, tools and techniques to apply when debugging your KDE application

Writing Unittests for Qt4 and KDE4 with QTestLib (Original link)

Tutorial by Brad Hards that describes how to write unit tests using the QTestLib framework. It is presented as an example based tutorial, and is still under development.

Semi-automatic ways to detect code errors

Techniques you can use to detect errors in KDE code

Managing Configuration Data With KConfig

Introduction To KConfig

An overview of the KConfig classes and how to use them in your application code

Using KConfig XT

Tutorial on how to efficiently use the KConfig XT framework.

Updating KConfig Files

Tutorial on how to write an update script to keep changes in your application's config file format in sync with the user's already existing config file

Services: Applications and Plugins

Introduction to the Services Framework

An overview of the services framework in KDE and what it provides the application developer. Covers the system configuration cache (SyCoCa), the source data files and what the indexed information can be used for.

Finding Services Using Trader Queries

How to find services, such as plugins or mimetypes, that are indexed in the SyCoCa using Trader Query Syntax

Creating and Loading Plugins Using KService

Learn how to define custom plugin types, find installed plugins (including 3rd party plugins) and load them in an easy and portable fashion using KService.

Localization

Introduction To Unicode

An introduction to what Unicode is as well as how to handle Unicode data in KDE applications.

Writing Applications With Localization In Mind

This tutorial covers what localization is, why it's important and how to ensure your application is ready to be localized. A must read for all application developers.

Avoiding Common Localization Pitfalls

There are several common mistakes that prevent applications from being properly localized. Find out what they are and how to easily avoid them in this tutorial.

Building KDE's Localization Module

Building and installing language support from KDE's localization (l10n) module is a good idea for those working on applications in the main KDE repository. Doing so will allow you to test your application in another language and spot problem areas. Learn how to do just that in this tutorial.

Incorporating i18n Into the Build System

Once your application is ready to be localized, the next step is to ensure that translation files are built automatically and kept up to date. This tutorial covers the necessary CMakeFiles.txt additions as well the process of distributing the resulting message catalogs with your application.

Common i18n Challenges and Solutions

This tutorial covers challenges that you may eventually run into such as translating handbooks and other data that exists outside of the source code, merging and handling obsolete .po files, dealing with freezes, coding in languages other than English and creating independent releases of or moving applications between KDE modules.

Semantic Markup of Messages

To ensure consistent presentation and more meaningful representations of messages in applications, semantic markup can be applied to messages marked for translation using the KUIT system. This tutorial describes how this system works.

Automated i18n Code Checking

The Krazy code checker scans KDE's code and reports common i18n mistakes.

Documentation

API Documentation

This tutorial explains how to document your APIs properly.

Application Automation and Scripting

D-Bus

Introduction to D-Bus

A straight-forward introduction to the core concepts in D-Bus from an application developer's perspective, this tutorial covers what D-Bus is and how it can be used by applications.

Accessing D-Bus Interfaces

A step-by-step guide to calling D-Bus methods and connecting to D-Bus signals using QtDBus.

Intermediate D-Bus

Tips to make use of QtDBus when faced with problematic real-world interfaces.

Creating D-Bus Interfaces

Learn how to expose functionality in your application by creating and using custom D-Bus interfaces. Covers generating the XML descriptions, instantiating interfaces at run time and setting up the build system with CMake.

D-Bus Autostart Services

Turn your application into a D-Bus autostart service with this tutorial. This D-Bus feature, also known as "D-Bus service activation", will ensure that even when your application isn't running that D-Bus calls made to it will work by relying on the D-Bus daemon itself to start your app if and when needed.

Porting from DCOP to D-Bus

Port your applications from DCOP to D-Bus with this handy guide.

Konqueror

Creating Konqueror Service Menus

This tutorial shows you how to create mimetype-specific actions in Konqueror's context menu (aka "servicemenus").

Kross

Introduction to Kross

An introduction to the Kross Scripting Framework.

Scripts as Plugins with Kross

This tutorial provides a step-by-step introduction how to integrate scripts as plugins into a KDE application.

KOffice

Development/Tutorials/KOffice Overview

This document shows an overview of the different KOffice plugin types and tells you what each of their purpose and strengths are. If you are new with KOffice plugins, this is the place to start.

Creating KOffice Flake Plugins

This tutorial shows you how you can build a plugin for KOffice applications to allow you embed content in ODF documents using Flake.

KWord Scripting

This tutorial shows how to script KWord with Python, Ruby or JavaScript using Kross.

KSpread Scripting

This tutorial shows how to script KSpread with Python, Ruby or JavaScript using Kross.

Krita Scripting

This tutorial shows how to script Krita with Python, Ruby or JavaScript using Kross.

SuperKaramba

SuperKaramba Tutorial

This tutorial provides an overview of SuperKaramba, theme files and scripting with Python, Ruby and JavaScript.

Search and Metadata

Strigi

Writing file analyzers

File analyzers extract data from files to display in the file dialogs and file managers. The data gathered this way is also used to search for files. KDE4 allows the use of multiple analyzers per file type. This tutorial describes how you can write new analyzers.

Nepomuk

Nepomuk first steps

Nepomuk is the KDE library which provides easy access to metadata in the Nepomuk-KDE system. Learn how to make your application create and read metadata using the Nepomuk system.

Hardware Awareness (Solid)

Introduction to Solid

An introduction to using the Solid hardware discovery and interaction system in KDE applications.

Accessing Network Information

How to use the Solid system to get information about the network

Multimedia (Phonon)

Phonon

How to start with the multimedia API

Plasma

Getting Started With Plasmoids

Creating your first plasmoid in C++ with SVG background, icon and text

Kate / Kwrite

Getting Started With Plugins

Creating your first plugin

Printing

Hello World

Introduction to the KDE printing system

TODO Print Dialog

Using the KDE print dialog

Get Hot New Stuff

Introduction to Get Hot New Stuff

An introduction to the developer-friendly network update system that allows KDE applications to fetch new application data at runtime in a user friendly manner.

KNewStuff Secure (Original Link)

Tutorial showing how to share resources in a secured way (KDE 3.4 and later). By András Mantia <[email protected]>.

Rapid Application Development

Python

101 Introduction to signals and slots

A simple introduction to Qt's signal and slot architecture.

Ruby

KDE Ruby Korundum tutorial

A ruby version of Antonio Larrosa Jiménez's KDE tutorial by Richard Dale. See the Ruby Developers Corner for Qt tutorials and other info.

Qt4 Ruby Tutorial

Trolltech's fabulous introductory tutorial to Qt, translated to Ruby.

Shell

Shell Scripting with KDE dialogs (Original Link)

Tutorial by Brad Hards that describes how to use KDE dialogs in shell scripts with kdialog. It is presented as an example based tutorial.

Other tutorials

Using the KDE Games Library

KStandardGameAction

Using libkdegames to make your game fit the kdegames standard

Highscores

Implementing a simple highscore table into your game

Theme Selector

Using the libkdegames theme selection dialog

2D Plotting (KPlotWidget)

Using the KDE data-plotting widget

This tutorial introduces KPlotWidget, which is used for 2-D data plotting. It includes information on simple usage of the widget (including adding and modifying data sets, and customizing the plot axes and labels), and advanced customization (including extending the widget through sub-classing).

Spelling and Grammar Checking (Sonnet)

Adding spell-checking or grammar-checking to KDE applications

This tutorial introduces Sonnet and how one may use it to add language correction to your KDE application. Sonnet's auxiliary features shall be described in a separate tutorial.

Pixmap cache (KPixmapCache)

Using the KDE pixmap cache

This tutorial shows how to use KPixmapCache to cache e.g. pixmaps generated from SVGs or some data.

KDE2 and KDE3 Materials

KDE3 Tutorials

These tutorials cover topics related to KDE3.

KDE2 Tutorials

These tutorials cover topics related to KDE2.