14 DAY TRIAL // After a long time in development, Calligra, the open-source office suite designed for KDE Plasma desktops, makes a comeback in 2017 with the release of the 3.0 milestone.
While many GNU/Linux users were able to download and install the new Calligra 3.0 office suite from the official channels of the project or the stable software repositories of their favorite GNU/Linux distribution since last week, an official announcement was published earlier this week.
Many have expected Calligra 3.0 to be a major overhaul of the office suite, but the release notes do not reflect that. Instead, it looks like the project is splitting apart as several of the components are no longer available, including the popular Krita digital paining software, Brainstorm mind mapping app, and Author eBook creator.
"We have chosen to cut back on the number of applications. Krita has left us to be independent and although it was emotional it was also done with complete support from both sides," reads the release announcement. "We are [also] saying goodbye to Author, which never differentiated itself from Words."
Other applications that have been removed from Calligra 3.0 are the Flow diagramming and flowcharting application and Stage presentation tool, but they'll make a comeback in future releases of the office suite. On the other hand, Kexi, the visual database applications creator is still part of Calligra, but it now has its own release schedule.
Building the Calligra 3.0 office suite on top of the latest KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt 5 technologies took the developers of this open source project a lot of effort, so that's why we don't see any other new features in this release. You can download Calligra 3.0.0.1 right now from our website.