Development/Tutorials/KDE3

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 KDE3 development.

Tip

If you are working with a newer version of KDE, such as KDE4, these tutorials are probably of limited use to you. For tutorials covering current KDE development topics, visit the main tutorials page

Getting Started

Qt Designer and KDevelop 3.0 for Beginners (Original Link): Qt is the toolkit used by the KDE project for developing graphical applications. Currently, translations are available through the original link. This paper, written by Anne-Marie Mahfouf, shows a beginner how to create a simple application using Qt Designer 3 and KDevelop 3. This tutorial is based on an application written by Jono Bacon and has been reviewed by Daniel Molkentin (for the KDevelop 2 version) and Thomas Nagy. Translations to German, Russian, French, Italian, and Romanian available at the original site. Brought to you by KDE-Women.

KDE 3.0 Tutorial: An excellent tutorial by KDE developer Antonio Larrosa Jiménez leading you from nothing to a fairly full featured web browser. Highly recommended for KDE 3.0 developers.

Programming Tutorial for KDE 3

Components and Plugins

KDE User Interface Tutorial (XML GUI): Tutorial by KDE developer Kurt Granroth showing how to convert an existing KDE application to use the new XML based user interface builder.

Creating KParts Component: Tutorial on IBM DeveloperWorks, by David Faure shows developers how to create KParts components, under KDE 2 and KDE 3.

Developing a Plugin Structure for a KDE Applications: This tutorial will take you through all the steps needed to write a plugin structure, plus plugins for your KDE application.

Providing file meta-data support with KFile plugins: Tutorial by Brad Hards that describes how to write a meta-data plugin for your favourite file format. It is presented as an example based tutorial.

Embedded Components Tutorial: Tutorial by KDE developer Kurt Granroth showing how to convert an existing KDE application into a component suitable for embedding in Konqueror.

How to write Kontact plugins: Kontact plugins

File Access with KIO

KIO Tutorial (German version): Tutorial by KDE developers Carsten Pfeiffer and Stephan Kulow for the c't Magazine, giving an introduction into the KDE IO Architecture and an example KIO Slave.

Using IOSlaves: IOSlaves are the subprocesses KDE uses to fetch remote files without blocking the user interface. This document discusses how they work and how to use them.; (Somewhat dated, but might still be useful).

Components and Plugins

Kicker

Extending the KDE Panel: This tutorial teaches you how to implement a simple panel applet using the panel applet API. It is a suitable task for an introduction to KDE programming.

KWin

KWin decoration styles: Tutorial on creating decoration plugins for the KWin window manager (KDE 3.2 and later).

Scripting and Application Automation

Creating a DCOP Interface: This tutorial shows you how to create a DCOP interface to a KDE application.

Connect KDE applications using DCOP: IBM DeveloperWorks tutorial, shows how to use kdcop and dcop with several examples such as instantly messaging a contact in kopete when he comes online, and also how to create a simple DCOP-aware application.