Development/Tutorials

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.

Getting started

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.

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.

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.

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, deeling with freezes, coding in languages other than English and creating independent releases of or moving applications between KDE modules.

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

Kross Tutorial

This tutorial explains how to integrate the Kross scripting framework into an application.

KOffice

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.

Search and Metadata

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.

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

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) (German version)

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

KPlotWidget

Using and extending the KDE EDU Plot widget (docbook archive)

This tutorial introduces Jason Harris' KPlotWidget that is part of the KDE-Edu package. Contains information about defining your own widget in Qt / KDevelop designer and about subclassing widgets and overriding member functions to extend functionality.

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.

KDE2 and KDE3 Materials

KDE3 Tutorials

These tutorials cover topics related to KDE3.

KDE2 Tutorials

These tutorials cover topics related to KDE2.