Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE created from KOffice in 2010.[6] It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digital painting.
Calligra uses the OpenDocument format as its default file format for most applications and can import other formats, such as Microsoft Office formats.[7] Calligra relies on KDE technology and is often used in combination with KDE Plasma Workspaces.
Supported systems
Calligra Active displaying a presentation
Calligra Suite heavily relies on Qt and therefore can be ported to any platform compatible to Qt with relative ease.
Desktops
Calligra’s main platform are desktop PCs running Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, and Windows,[8] of which Linux is the best supported system.[9] A version of Calligra’s predecessor KOffice was ported to Haiku.[10]
On desktop systems the whole range of features is available.
Smartphones
Calligra Mobile is a version for smartphone-like formfactors. Its main purpose is to serve as document viewer for devices running Maemo or its successor MeeGo but simple editing features are also available.[11] This version only includes Words, Sheets and Stage.
Development was initiated in summer 2009 and first shown during Akademy / Desktop Summit 2009 by KO GmbH as a simple port of KOffice to Maemo. Later Nokia hired KO to assist them with a full-fledged mobile version, including a touchscreen-friendly user interface which was presented by Nokia during Maemo Conference in October 2009.[12] The first alpha version was made available in January 2010.[13] Along with the launch of the Nokia N9 smartphone, Nokia released its own Poppler and Calligra-based office document viewer under GPL.[14][15]
Tablets
Calligra Active was launched after the Plasma Active initiative to provide a document viewer similar to Calligra Mobile but for tablet computers.[16] As with Mobile, only Words, Sheets and Stage are included.
On 12 January 2012 an experimental version of Calligra for Android was announced – originally based on Calligra Mobile[3] the base for the port was changed to Calligra Active for performance reasons.[17]
History
| Major Releases |
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| Version | Key feature | Date |
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| 2.4[18] | First release | 02012-04-11April 11, 2012 |
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| 2.5[19] | Tablet version | 02012-08-13August 13, 2012 |
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| 2.6[20] | Calligra Author | 02013-02-05February 5, 2013 |
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Calligra was created as a result of a split in the KOffice community in 2010, after disagreements between the core developers.[21][22] Following arbitration with the community members, several applications were renamed by both communities.[23] Most developers, and all but one maintainers of particular applications, joined the Calligra project. Three applications, Kexi, Krita and KPlato and the user interfaces for mobile devices have been completely moved out of KOffice and are only available within Calligra. A new application called Braindump has been added to Calligra after the split and KWord was replaced by the new word processor Calligra Words.[24]
KOffice 2.3, released 02010-12-31December 31, 2010, along with subsequent bugfix releases (2.3.1–2.3.3) was still a collaborative effort of both the KOffice and Calligra development teams. According to its developers, this version is stable enough for real use, and Karbon14, Krita and KSpread are recommended for production work.[25]
On 02011-05-18May 18, 2011 the Calligra team began releasing monthly snapshots while preparing for the release of Calligra 2.4.
The first version of the Calligra Suite for Windows was released on 02011-12-21December 21, 2011. The package is labeled as “highly experimental” and “not yet suitable for daily use”.[26]
The Calligra team originally scheduled to release the final 2.4 version in January 2012[27] but problems in the undo/redo feature of Words and Stage required a partial rewrite and caused a delay.[28] Calligra 2.4 was released on 02012-04-11April 11, 2012.[18] From the 2.4 release onward, the Calligra developers aim for a four months release cycle.[29]
Components
Reception
Initial reception shortly after the 2.4 release was positive. Linux Pro Magazine Online’s Bruce Byfield wrote "Calligra needed an impressive first release. Perhaps surprisingly, and to the development team’s credit, it has managed one in 2.4", but also noted that "Words in particular is still lacking features". He concluded that Calligra is "worth keeping an eye on".[35]
The German sister publication LinuxUser 10/2012 reviewed Calligra 2.5 on September 12, 2012 (2012-09-12). Its reception was mostly positive. Negative criticism centered around Word’s stability: "During our review no Calligra module was completely free of crashes, however Words' crashes reached an amount that we cannot recommend it for general use." The reviewer Thomas Drilling on the other hand praised Calligra’s usability, writing: "The consistent work flow, often stunningly intuitive workarounds, and clear menu structure are well received." He then concluded: "The individual modules' quality varies: While Words shows weakness, image editor Krita, spreadsheet application Sheets, and presentation program Stage completely won us over. Flowcharting application Flow allures with its wide range of stencils which makes drawing flow charts come easy."[36]
Technical details
Calligra is designed to work with the KDE Platform, using the Qt and KDE libraries. However it is released independently of the KDE Software Compilation. All its components are released under free software licenses and use OpenDocument as their native file format when applicable.
The developers of Calligra plan to share as much infrastructure as possible between applications to reduce bugs and improve the user experience.[37] This is done by common technologies like Flake and Pigment. Flake provides a way to handle shapes, which can contain text, images, formulas (via KFormula), charts (via KChart) or other objects, in a consistent way across all applications. The Calligra team also wants to create an OpenDocument library for use in other KDE applications that will allow developers to easily add support for reading and outputting OpenDocument files to their applications.[38] Automating tasks and extending the suite with custom functionality can be done with D-Bus or with scripting languages like Python, Ruby, and JavaScript through the Kross scripting framework.
References
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Commons
