API Documentation

The KDE Frameworks build on the Qt framework, providing everything from simple utility classes (such as those in KCoreAddons) to integrated solutions for common requirements of desktop applications (such as KNewStuff, for fetching downloadable add-on content in an application, or the powerful KIO multi-protocol file access framework).

The KDE Frameworks can be used in CMake-based and QMake-based projects, and most of them are portable to at least Windows, Mac and Linux. The documentation of each framework has code snippets that show how to include the framework in a QMake or CMake project.

The frameworks are divided into four tiers, based on the kind of dependencies that they have. For instance, Tier 1 frameworks depend on Qt and possibly some third-party libraries, but not on other frameworks. This makes them easy to integrate into existing applications.

List of the libraries

Tier 1

Tier 1 frameworks depend only on Qt (and possibly a small number of other third-party libraries), so can easily be used by any Qt-based project.

Framework	Maintainer	Type
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Attica [QCH file] Open Collaboration Services API	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) BluezQt [QCH file] Qt wrapper for BlueZ 5 DBus API	David Rosca	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) BreezeIcons [QCH file] Breeze icon theme	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) ECM [QCH file] Extra CMake modules	Stephen Kelly	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KApiDox [QCH file] Scripts and data for building API documentation (dox) in a standard format and style	Olivier Churlaud	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KArchive [QCH file] File compression	David Faure	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KCodecs [QCH file] Text encoding	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KConfig [QCH file] Configuration system	Matthew Dawson	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KCoreAddons [QCH file] Addons to QtCore	Michael Pyne	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDBusAddons [QCH file] Addons to QtDBus	David Faure	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDNSSD [QCH file] Abstraction to system DNSSD features	Matthew Dawson	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KGuiAddons [QCH file] Addons to QtGui	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KHolidays [QCH file] Holiday calculation library	Allen Winter	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KI18n [QCH file] Advanced internationalization framework	Chusslove Illich	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KIdleTime [QCH file] Monitoring user activity	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Kirigami2 [QCH file] QtQuick plugins to build user interfaces based on the KDE human interface guidelines	Marco Martin	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KItemModels [QCH file] Models for Qt Model/View system	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KItemViews [QCH file] Widget addons for Qt Model/View	David Edmundson	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KPlotting [QCH file] Lightweight plotting framework	Christoph Feck	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KSyntaxHighlighting [QCH file] Syntax Highlighting	Volker Krause	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KUserFeedback [QCH file] User feedback framework	Volker Krause	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KWayland [QCH file] Qt-style API to interact with the wayland-client and wayland-server API	Martin Flöser	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KWidgetsAddons [QCH file] Addons to QtWidgets	Christoph Feck	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KWindowSystem [QCH file] Access to the windowing system	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) ModemManagerQt [QCH file] Qt wrapper for ModemManager API	Jan Grulich, Lamarque Souza, Lukáš Tinkl	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) NetworkManagerQt [QCH file] Qt wrapper for NetworkManager API	Jan Grulich, Lamarque Souza, Lukáš Tinkl	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Oxygen-icons [QCH file] Oxygen icon theme	Andreas Kainz	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Prison [QCH file] Barcode abstraction layer providing uniform access to generation of barcodes	The KDE Community	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Qqc2-desktop-style [QCH file] QtQuickControls 2 style that integrates with the desktop	Marco Martin	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Solid [QCH file] Hardware integration and detection	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Sonnet [QCH file] Support for spellchecking	Martin Tobias Holmedahl Sandsmark	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) ThreadWeaver [QCH file] High-level multithreading framework	Mirko Boehm	functional

Tier 2

Tier 2 frameworks additionally depend on tier 1 frameworks, but still have easily manageable dependencies.

Framework	Maintainer	Type
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KActivities [QCH file] Runtime and library to organize the user work in separate activities	Ivan Čukić	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KAuth [QCH file] Abstraction to system policy and authentication features	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KCompletion [QCH file] Text completion helpers and widgets	David Gil Oliva	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KCrash [QCH file] Support for application crash analysis and bug report from apps	David Faure	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDocTools [QCH file] Documentation generation from docbook	Luigi Toscano	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KFileMetaData [QCH file] A file metadata and text extraction library	Stefan Brüns	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KImageFormats [QCH file] Image format plugins for Qt	Alex Merry	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KJobWidgets [QCH file] Widgets for tracking KJob instances	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KNotifications [QCH file] Abstraction for system notifications	Martin Klapetek	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KPackage [QCH file] Library to load and install packages of non binary files as they were a plugin	Marco Martin	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KPty [QCH file] Pty abstraction	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KUnitConversion [QCH file] Support for unit conversion	John Layt	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Syndication [QCH file] An RSS/Atom parser library	Frank Osterfeld	functional

Tier 3

Tier 3 frameworks are generally more powerful, comprehensive packages, and consequently have more complex dependencies.

Framework	Maintainer	Type
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Baloo [QCH file] Baloo is a file indexing and searching framework	The KDE Community	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KActivitiesStats [QCH file] A library for accessing the usage data collected by the activities system.	Ivan Čukić	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KBookmarks [QCH file] Support for bookmarks and the XBEL format	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KCMUtils [QCH file] Utilities for working with KCModules	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KConfigWidgets [QCH file] Widgets for configuration dialogs	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDeclarative [QCH file] Provides integration of QML and KDE Frameworks	Marco Martin	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDED [QCH file] Extensible deamon for providing system level services	David Faure	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDesignerPlugin [QCH file] Integration of Frameworks widgets in Qt Designer/Creator	Alex Merry	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDESu [QCH file] Integration with su for elevated privileges	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDEWebKit [QCH file] KDE Integration for QtWebKit	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KEmoticons [QCH file] Support for emoticons and emoticons themes	The KDE Community	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KGlobalAccel [QCH file] Add support for global workspace shortcuts	The KDE Community	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KIconThemes [QCH file] Support for icon themes	Christoph Feck	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KInit [QCH file] Process launcher to speed up launching KDE applications	David Faure	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KIO [QCH file] Resource and network access abstraction	David Faure	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KNewStuff [QCH file] Support for downloading application assets from the network	Jeremy Whiting	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KNotifyConfig [QCH file] Configuration system for KNotify	David Edmundson	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KParts [QCH file] Document centric plugin system	David Faure	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KPeople [QCH file] Provides access to all contacts and the people who hold them	Aleix Pol Gonzalez	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KRunner [QCH file] Parallelized query system	Kai Uwe Broulik	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KService [QCH file] Advanced plugin and service introspection	David Faure	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KTextEditor [QCH file] Advanced embeddable text editor	Christoph Cullmann	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KTextWidgets [QCH file] Advanced text editing widgets	Laurent Montel	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KWallet [QCH file] Secure and unified container for user passwords	Valentin Rusu	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KXmlGui [QCH file] User configurable main windows	David Faure	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KXmlRpcClient [QCH file] Interaction with XMLRPC services	Daniel Vrátil	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Plasma [QCH file] Plugin based UI runtime used to write primary user interfaces	Marco Martin	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Purpose [QCH file] Offers available actions for a specific purpose	Aleix Pol Gonzalez	integration

Tier 4

Tier 4 frameworks can be mostly ignored by application programmers; this tier consists of plugins acting behind the scenes to provide additional functionality or platform integration to existing frameworks (including Qt).

Framework	Maintainer	Type
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) FrameworkIntegration [QCH file] Workspace and cross-framework integration plugins	Àlex Fiestas	integration

Porting Aids

Porting Aids frameworks provide code and utilities to ease the transition from kdelibs 4 to KDE Frameworks 5. Code should aim to port away from this framework, new projects should avoid using these libraries.

Framework	Maintainer	Type
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KDELibs4Support [QCH file] Porting aid from KDELibs4	The KDE Community	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KHtml [QCH file] KHTML APIs	Martin Tobias Holmedahl Sandsmark	solution
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KJS [QCH file] Support for JS scripting in applications	Bernd Buschinski	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KJsEmbed [QCH file] Embedded JS	Bernd Buschinski	functional
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) KMediaPlayer [QCH file] Plugin interface for media player features	Alex Merry	integration
Android FreeBSD Linux MacOSX Windows iOS (maintainer needed) macOS (maintainer needed) Kross [QCH file] Multi-language application scripting	The KDE Community	solution

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