The KDE community is marking three decades of building free desktop software with the release of KDE Gear 26.04, a bundled update that touches dozens of applications across the project's sprawling ecosystem. Some of these apps are nearly as old as KDE itself. KOrganizer has been around for 23 years, Kdenlive for 24, and Okular for 21, yet all three continue to ship meaningful improvements in this cycle.
The standout updates land in Kdenlive, KDE's video editor, which now offers animated previews for composition transitions so editors can see exactly what an effect does before committing to it. External monitor mirroring lets users push the preview to a second display at full screen, a workflow staple in professional editing environments. Smaller but welcome additions include batch speed adjustment for multiple clips, automatic audio thumbnail generation for sequences, and a timeline context menu that imports clips directly to a clicked position.
Dolphin, the file manager, gains a feature that power users will appreciate immediately: the ability to assign custom keyboard shortcuts to virtually any option in any menu, plugin, or extension. Frequently toggling between sort-by-name and sort-by-date? Bind it and move on. Meanwhile, Merkuro Calendar ships a redesigned schedule view and event editor with a cleaner layout, and KOrganizer gets a visual refresh inside the Kontact suite. Itinerary, KDE's trip planning tool, improves its dialogs and adds new transit data for Switzerland.
On the newer end of the spectrum, NeoChat, KDE's Matrix client, picks up a rich text editor and thread support, two features that bring it closer to parity with more established Matrix clients. AudioTube debuts a brand new welcome page, and KClock now displays running timers as an overlay on mobile lock screens. The full source code is available for download, and distribution packages should follow shortly.
