KDE Frameworks is an open source and free software project distributed as part of the KDE desktop environment and designed to provide developers with a collection of tools and libraries for developing powerful applications for the KDE Plasma graphical environment, built using the Qt5 framework.
Includes the code base of almost all KDE apps
The software includes the code base of almost all KDE applications, with well-defined abilities and dependencies, providing high-level functionality like menus and toolbars, file access and spell checking. The great thing about it is that all the tools and libraries are available as separate downloads.
Introducing the Qt Addons
The libraries comprised in this the KDE Frameworks project are distributed as independent and cross-platform modules, called Qt Addons. They’re available to Qt and KDE developers alike, as well as to all who want to accelerate, simplify and reduce the cost of Qt development on any platform.
Building KDE Frameworks
KDE Framework has been successfully tested on a wide range of GNU/Linux distributions, including Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Fedora and openSUSE. To build it, you will need to install the Qt5 framework, as well as various other essential libraries and tools that are listed on the project’s homepage at https://community.kde.org/Frameworks/Building.
Under the hood
Most of the tools and libraries included in the KDE Frameworks project are written in the C++ programming language. You will need to have a recent GCC compiler, Git and the latest kdesrc-build package. Detailed installation instructions can be found by accessing the above link. It should also work on other GNU/Linux operating systems if all the dependencies are installed.
