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The project maintainers release Kraft version for productive use.

Kraft Release 1.1 - release name Lyonel

Sep 16, 2023

Today we are releasing Kraft Version 1.1 with significant improvements for users and the Kraft's integration with latest software such as cmake.

It received updated dutch translations in UI and also for the manual. The application icon was fixed, and some cmake related fixes were done that make Kraft working with different versions of Akonadi that are available on different distributions.

For users, two significant improvements are included: The header- and footer texts of the documents now support macros that support automatic computing of values such as dates that depend on the document date. With that, it is for example easy to have a date printed out like two weeks after the document date, which is useful as payment milestone. There are even more macros, stay tuned for a separate post about this feature or check the manual.

The second new feature is a new button that allows to insert templates for the header- or footer text at the cursor position. Before it was only possible to replace the entire text with a template. This will give users way more flexibility how to structure template texts.

In parallel to these improvements, work is also going on in a branch for Kraft 2.0 which will enable more collaborative functions for Kraft.

Kraft Release 1.0 - release name Lyonel

Dec 17, 2022

After roughly twenty years of development, we're now releasing Kraft version 1.0. In the last two decades, all version numbers had a leading zero.

This is a great release that comes with the following improvements:

  • The AppImage is improved significantly and is the recommended way to run Kraft since version 1.0
  • Have two new merge modes for the watermark tool
  • PDF watermark tool can also append PDF files now
  • Add numbercycle day counter variable (#138)
  • User manual improvements, lots of new localized screenshots (Thx Ronald)
  • Ability to add EPC QR code to invoices (Giro Code)
  • Use custom icons for all icons in Kraft (#175)
  • Test improvements and new tests added
  • Demand and Alternative: Do not overwrite custom prefix
  • Default Demand and Alternative text configurable in prefix dialog
  • Add more variables to weasyprint (#166)
  • Maintain users bank account to be included in documents
  • Add some metadata to the html representation (weasyprint)
  • Experimental: html tags in pre- and post tags and items & catalogs
  • Add more contrib documents from Achim (BNC)
  • Database refresh only in readonly mode
  • Huge improvements to the AppImage build (#191)
  • Fix: Numbercycle dialog with day counter (#138)
  • Fix: Strikeout for deleted items working again
  • Fix: Delete column in sqlite migrations (#162)
  • Fix: Add -p switch to call of weasyprint (html presentational hints)
  • Fix: Set reconnect option for MySQL (#183)

Please update to version 1.0 to run the latest and greatest Kraft.

Kraft Release 0.98 - release name Lyonel

May 22, 2022

I am happy to announce a new Kraft version 0.98.

This is a version packed with bugfixes and also new features. The most important fixes were in the area of the catalog handling: Based on bug reports from the community the catalog window was completely reworked. Drag and drop of items in the catalog, the sorting and reordering of items are now working properly and as planned.

It turned out that there was a bug before that made new items disappear after they were entered. In fact, they were not really gone, but just invisible, because they did not have a proper catalog chapter set. That is now fixed, and all the invisible items now appear back in the root of the catalog. You might find some missed ones there, and can sort them properly into the chapters. Sorry for that extra work.

Another big addition is the support of XRechnung. XRechnung is an E-invoicing format more and more mandatory in the governmental area in Germany. We are very proud that Kraft is the first open source office tool that supports that standard in a user friendly way. All Invoices can now also exported in the XRechnung-XML format.

Beside these two big improvements, there are lots of others:

  • Version 0.98 comes with updated and complete translations to Dutch, as well as the manual translated to Dutch. Kudos to Ronald Stroethoff for this contributions!
  • Improved User Manual
  • Many other small but important bugfixes to raise stability and ease of use

We wish a lot of fun with this new improved version of Kraft!

See details on the Changelog.

Kraft Release 0.97 - release name Gunny

Aug. 15, 2021

I am happy to announce a new Kraft version 0.97.

This is a bugfix release with a few fixes and new features.

As a new feature, Kraft now provides a read only mode that allows viewing and printing of documents, but no editing. That makes collaborative use cases possible.

See details on the Changelog.

Kraft Release 0.96 - release name Gunny

Feb. 27, 2021

The new Kraft release has the version 0.96.

This is a bugfix release with a few fixes and new features.

See details on the Changelog.

Kraft Release 0.95 - release name Gunny

Aug. 28, 2020

The Kraft community is happy to announce the new release 0.95.

With version 0.95 we do a big step forward in the way of generating documents: Until now (more than fifteen years!) Kraft uses the ReportLab python library to create high quality PDF documents.

While this has served us well, it has always been cumbersome to adopt the template for users needs. ReportLab uses a XML format as the template which has a bit of a steep learning curve and is not really easy with syntax.

This changes now: From version 0.95, Kraft supports the cool project WeasyPrint.

The principle remains the same: There is a text based template which defines the look of the output document. That gets filled with the document data and gets converted to a PDF document. But unlike ReportLab, Weasyprint is HTML based. Many people know a bit of HTML and thus will have a way easier time to adopt the template to individual needs.

Apart from the ease of use, it is much more simple to do modern report design with WeasyPrint, as it supports the wide range of CSS styling.

That is a great improvement, as adopting Krafts output to personal needs is much more intuitive now. For now, Kraft supports both rendering engines, but ReportLab based reports are deprecated now and support will end in future releases.

Along with integration of Weasyprint the text templating library Grantlee was added, as it is the standard in the KDE/Qt world, well maintained and widely available. The ctemplate library which was used for that so far will also be deprecated.

The other great improvement in this release is that Kraft now has a user manual embedded which will give new users a guiding help. It will open in the browser once the user clicks on the menu entry in the help menu, also without internet connection. It was started by a community member and it will grow and improve over time.

As usual this new version also ships an amount of bug fixes and small improvements which can be found in the Changelog.

We wish all users big fun with this remarkable new version of Kraft - and thank everybody who contributed.

Kraft Release 0.90 - release name Greta

Dec. 14, 2019

In time for quiet Christmas days the new version Kraft 0.90 was released today (Changelog). It made a significant leap and brings some interesting features to the Kraft community.

Let's take a look on some of the functions.

Krafts so called Followup Documents were completely refactored and improved. The correct header- and footer texts are now inserted according to the new document type. Moreover, Kraft now can manage partial invoices. In the final document, it subtracts the sum of partial invoices from before automatically. For that the user can choose in a reworked UI if and from which predecessor document the items should be inserted in the final doc.

The UI of Kraft was cleaned up a bit. The menu and symbol bar was reworked and the About-Kraft dialog was integrated into the System View of the app, to make usage even more intuitive.

Also under the hood, a lot of improvements happened. Kraft has it's first unit tests now. A XML based system was introduced to manage the variety of document types and it's attributes and last but not least dependencies were more cleared to make porting to other platforms like MacOSX easier.

Last but not least, two community features should be mentioned: In the release Kraft got a new document type called Offer without prices which was initiated by a community member who needs that. Also, Kraft is available in Dutch now, contributed by a community member. A great thank you very much to all who contributed to Kraft!

Kraft Release 0.82 - release name Rio

Oct 17, 2018

Today the stable version Kraft 0.82 was released (Changelog). It is a bugfix release for the 0.80 release. In addition to a lot of bug fixes, it also brings a few new features.

These changes were done:

  • Fix send document by email
  • Allow emailing through xdg-email and not only through thunderbird. To enable, set mailUA=xdg in the config file in the system section.
  • Fixed wrong usage of i18n command which caused a lot of error messages on the console. (#37)
  • Time calculation: Add a time unit to the form, allow to calculate times in hours, minutes and seconds (#43)
  • Refactored the calculation dialog, fixed using margin. (#42)
  • Properly ask to waste changes if user hits cancel in Calc dialog.
  • Fix some glitches in the setup code path, ie. db update.
  • Relaxed the document layout a bit by choosing a smaller font and adjusting the table column settings a bit.
  • More minor bug fixes and improvements

Thanks to all who contributed to Kraft! It is recommended to update to Kraft v0.82.

Kraft Release 0.81 - release name Rio

June 16, 2018

Today the stable version Kraft 0.81 was released (Changelog). It is a bugfix release for the 0.80 release, which is proofing it as stable since a couple of month already.

In particular, the following fixes were done:

  • Build with Qt 5.11
  • CMake: Installation directories fixed.
  • Use QProcess rather than calling system().
  • AppStream XML data fixed.
  • Do not show individual tax on the document if there is only one tax rate used.

Thanks to all who contributed to Kraft! It is recommended to update to Kraft v0.81.

Kraft Release 0.80 - release name Rio

Apr 1st, 2018

I am happy to announce the release of the stable Kraft version 0.80 (Changelog).

After more than a dozen years of life time, Kraft is now reaching a new level: It is now completely ported to Qt5 / KDE Frameworks 5 and with that, it is compatible with all modern Linux distributions again.

KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt5 are the best base for modern desktop software and Kraft integrates seamlessly into all Linux desktops. With KDE, Kraft makes use of the great PIM Addressbook infrastructure of KAddressbook and Akonadi.

Along with the port that lasted unexpectedly over 12 months, Kraft v. 0.80 got a whole bunch of improvements, such as:

Dramatic reduction of dependencies

Kraft makes broad use of the core Qt5 libraries. The required KDE dependencies were reduced to a bare minimum. Akonadi libraries, which enable KDE PIM integration are now optional. The former dependency on heavyweight web browser components were completely removed and replaced by the far more simple richtext component of Qt.

All these changes make it not only easier and more transparent to build Kraft but allow a port to other platforms than Linux more easily in the future.

Addressbook Integration

As Akonadi is optional now, Kraft can be built without it. Even if it was built with, but Akonadi for whatever reason is disfunctional, Kraft still runs smoothly, and only lacks the convenience of address book integration.

The Address book access was also nicely abstracted so that other Addressbook backends can be easily implemented.

GUI Improvements

Even though the functionality and GUI of Kraft was not changed dramatically compared to the last stable KDE 4 version, there were a few interesting changes in the user interface.

  • A new, bigger side bar simplifies navigation.
  • In the timeline view, a click on years and month in the treeview show summaries of the selected time span, ie. the number of documents with financial summaries per month or year.
  • A filter allows to limit the view on the current week or month.

Under the Hood

A countless number of bugfixes and small improvements went in. Also updates to the newer C++ concepts where applicable make the rather mature code base more modern and better maintainable.

The Reportlab based document creation script was updated and merged with a later version.

Installation

Installing Kraft on Linux is still a bit complicated for unexperienced users, and distributions haven't made a good job in the past to provide the latest version of Kraft.

To make it easier to test, there is an AppImage of Kraft 0.80 available that should be runable on most modern distributions by just downloading a single file that can be started right away after having added the executable permissions.

For permanent installations please refer to the Download page.

Kraft Release 0.59 - release name Jupp

sep 26th, 2014

This is the announcement of Kraft version 0.59 which was released today (Changelog).

It is another bugfix release for the 0.5x line of Kraft which still depends on KDE 4 libraries. It fixes some bugs in the calculation of the overall sums of documents with moved and deleted items, which are severe under certain circumstances.

Furthermore, the setup wizard got visible fixes in the database migration and also document copying was enhanced to take more from the original document. Also, if the doctype of an existing document is changed, Kraft now asks the user if the document ID should be changed as well.

More on the system level, some memory leaks were fixed. Also some template variables were changed from German to English for consistency.

Special thanks go to Andreas Wuest who helped with feedback and patches to push Kraft on.

It is recommended to update from previous versions.

Please consider to contribute to the Kraft project by submitting your thoughts, feedback and bug reports.

Kraft Release 0.58 - release name Jupp

Apr 5th, 2014

Herewith I like to announce Kraft version 0.58 which was released today (Changelog).

It is another bugfix release for the 0.5x line of Kraft. It fixes a severe bug in calculation of the VAT in printed documents. Apart from that, the character slash ('/') now can be used in numbercycle templates which did not work before.

In addition to that, I cleared the build process a bit and removed the libkraftcat from the build. The files are now all directly compiled into Kraft. The lib was never publically announced nor stable, or used at all, so there was no reason to keep it. Packaging is easier and more distribution conform now.

It is recommended to update from previous versions.

Please consider to contribute to the Kraft project by submitting your thoughts, feedback and bug reports.

Kraft Release 0.57 - release name Jupp

nov 7th, 2014

I am happy to announce Kraft version 0.57 which was released today. (Changelog)

This is the last bugfixing release for the 0.5x series. This releases fixes serious bugs of previous versions.

The send-by-email function now queries the receipient (prefered email) off the documents contact data, and also works properly again with the thunderbird mail client. Special item types in a document (on-demand or alternative items) can now be removed again from an item. Also the Ok/Cancel handling of the document editor window was fixed. If the document type of an existing document is changed, the doc ID is now reset from the document type specific number cycle. Apart from that, a couple of memory management hickups were repaired which lead even to crashes here and there.

It is recommended to update from previous versions.

Please consider to contribute to the Kraft project by submitting your thoughts, feedback and bug reports.

Kraft Release 0.55 - release name Jupp

may 29th, 2014

I herewith announce Kraft version 0.55

Kraft 0.55 fixes two problems that were reported after the release of 0.54:

  • A compile fix to make Kraft build against the latest version of the ctemplate library.
  • A severe problem of Kraft in PDF document generation which made printing impossible.

Update is recommended.

Kraft Release 0.54 - release name Jupp

may 11th, 2014

I am very happy to announce Kraft version 0.54 today (Changelog)

This version comes with an impressive list of new features and bug fixes. First and foremost, Kraft now supports another document type, which is the note of delivery. These kind of documents do not have prices on it, but just a list of articles which are going to be delivered. Kraft now comes with predefined document templates which allow to create these kind of documents out of the box.

Apart from that, Kraft got a more robust way of querying the KDE address books through Akonadi. Before version 0.54, Akonadi had to have the nepomuk indexing activated to have a successful connection between Kraft and the address books. This has been changed and now, with newer KDE versions, Kraft uses an easier, faster and most important, more reliable way to retrieve addresses.

Also new in this release is a utility called findcontact. It allows to query address data on the command line based on the UID. This utility makes it easier to build integration solutions based on Kraft documents.

A ton of bugfixes also went into this nice release, so that everybody should update and have more success with Kraft!

Kraft Release 0.53

oct 11th, 2013

This is Kraft release 0.53. It fixes another problem a user reported against 0.52: Sub chapters of catalogs could not be dragged and dropped to top level, this is working now. Please update.

Kraft Release 0.52

oct 8th, 2013

Here is the next release of Kraft, version 0.52. It fixes the problem that the previous tarball 0.51 did not contain the source revision that it should have and was not properly working. Version 0.52 fixes that. Please update.

Kraft Release 0.51

sep 22th, 2013

I am happy to release Kraft 0.51 today. This is a bugfix release which brings a handful of useful bugfixes which were reported by Kraft users since the last release.

In the catalogue view, now drag and drop is working to rearrange templates. Removing of sub chapters is also working now. A bug in the unit handling was fixed that picked wrong units in some cases. The path to document templates is not utf8 save.

As a new feature the own identity now can be picked from Krafts settings dialog.

Thanks for your interest and contribution to Kraft. Please help us with your feedback.

Kraft Release 0.50

dec 18th, 2012

I am happy to announce the release of version 0.50 of Kraft, the KDE software for easy business document management.

The most important change is that now multiple tax rates are supported within one document. That means that within e.g. one invoice items without tax, with reduced or full tax rate are supported. The sum calculation takes that in consideration properly. That makes Kraft an even more multi purpose software.

Apart from that, a lot of bug fixes and improvements happened such as:

  • Addressees can be added to a document even if the document already exists, not only if the doc is created.
  • Documents display a page number on page two to end.
  • On insertion of a new item to a document, the new item is focussed automatically.
  • Manually added items can be added to the catalogue on entering again.
  • The document type configuration dialog was reworked.
  • The amount of processed SQL commands on setup is correct.
  • Document saving is more performant.
  • Improved error handling if Akonadi or the report generation fails. That eases debugging.
  • Import of CSV-lists into the document was fixed.
  • MySQL database setup is fixed.

This release is a nice progress for Kraft and I hope you have fun and success with the new release.

Thanks all who contributed to Kraft! I am looking forward to getting your feedback!

Kraft Release 0.45

nov 8th, 2011

A severe bug in 0.44 regarding the display of decimal places in the PDF document causes the generation of wrong documents. This is the reason for the release of version 0.45 today which only fixes this bug.

Please skip 0.44 and directly go for version 0.45.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

Kraft Release 0.44

nov 3rd, 2011

We are happy to announce version 0.44 of Kraft, the KDE software to manage business documents in the small enterprise.

This version brings a fully Akonadi based address book integration with many bug fixes and improvements in usage: Multiple address books are handled correctly now and can be chosen from within Kraft. The whole address selection widget was improved with search fields, a detail view of the selected addresses and direct access buttons to edit and add contacts. Furthermore the loading speed was improved tremendously.

The text template widget from which the user picks template texts for header- and footer texts were also completely reworked. A lot of bugs were fixed, the guy was made more obvious and context sensitive help texts guide the user in his actions.

The third big news is that Kraft now supports localized document templates by default. Kraft is installed now with a german and english template for offers and invoices. Other localizations are welcome.

As usual a lot of other bugfixes and minor improvements went into this release. It is recommended for production environments. Please give feedback!

Kraft Release 0.43

may 25th, 2011

Today, the Kraft team announces version 0.43 of Kraft, the KDE software to manage business documents in the small enterprise.

This is a quick follow up release to verion 0.41 which was released in april 2011. It adds further improvements to Kraft's lists of documents and comes with a more optimized underlying model. The most visible change is that the search field for the document digest lists is back again.

We wish a lot of fun with Kraft. Please give feedback, read details about that on the Contact Page.

Kraft Release 0.41

april 18th, 2011

The Kraft team is happy to announce version 0.41 of Kraft, the KDE software to manage business documents in the small enterprise.

This version contains large changes on the item template catalog handling. Catalogs can now have an arbitrary depth of sub chapters. The sequence of templates within the sub chapters is user editable. Templates can be moved around within the cataloges using drag and drop. Sub chapters can be transfered to documents with one click now. Furthermore, deletion of templates was added.

Kraft 0.41 has a newly designed and improved document digest list view. The widgets showing the latest- all and timebased list of documents are now

completely based on the model/view implementation of Qt which results in a large speed improvement. The document details of a selected list entry are displayed in a more userfriendly view.

The new digest view in Kraft 0.41

PDFs of the documents are created utilizing the ReportLab RML library. The script that converts RML to PDF was completely reworked so that it now depends on python only which simplifies dependencies and the port to other platforms.

Furthermore a lot of bug fixes went into Kraft, especially in the area of the KDE addressbook integration, text template handling and more.

We wish a lot of fun working with Kraft. Please give feedback, check the details about that on the Contact Page

Kraft Release 0.40

april 18th, 2010

The Kraft team is happy to announce the new stable version 0.40 of the KDE office software Kraft. Eleven month of work resulted in Kraft 0.40 as the first version based on the KDE 4 software platform. Many changes to the codebase of Kraft where made to benefit from the new technologies introduced with KDE 4.

The latest version of Kraft comes with only minor changes in the set of features compared to the KDE 3 version, as the focus was integration to KDE 4 data management. The changes are aimed to make Kraft even more convenient to work with for beginners.

There is a new setup assistant that starts automatically on first run of Kraft. It reads the database details, creates and populates the database layer automatically. Furthermore, Kraft now supports SQLite as an embedded database backend in addition to MySQL. Both improvements make the setup of Kraft even more easy.

We are also happy to announce a new project homepage available here. It is a new technology base to write better documentation and make it available.

We wish you a lot of fun and success working with Kraft 0.40 on the KDE 4 platform.

We are looking forward getting feedback from you on your Kraft experience. Please find the details on the Contribution page.


Page: Main.Releases - Last Modified : Sat, 16 Sep 23

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