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K Desktop Environment 3

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K Desktop Environment 3

K Desktop Environment 3 (KDE 3) is the third series of releases of the K Desktop Environment (after that called KDE Software Compilation). It was one of the two major desktop environments for GNU/Linux systems between 2002 and 2008. There are six major releases in this series. After the release of KDE 4, version 3.5 was forked into the Trinity Desktop Environment.

K Desktop Environment 3.0 introduced better support for restricted usage, a feature demanded by certain environments such as kiosks, Internet cafes and enterprise deployments, which disallows the user from having full access to all capabilities of a piece of software. To address these needs, KDE 3.0 included a new lockdown framework, essentially a permissions-based system for altering application configuration options that supplements the standard UNIX permissions system. The KDE panel and the desktop manager were modified to employ this system, but other major desktop components, such as Konqueror and the Control Center, had to wait for subsequent releases.

K Desktop Environment 3.0 debuted a new printing framework, KDEPrint. KDEPrint's modular design enabled it to support different printing engines, such as CUPS, LPRng, and LDP/LPR. In conjunction with CUPS, KDEPrint was able to manage an elaborate enterprise networked printing system. Since KDEPrint provides a command-line interface, its framework, including its GUI configuration elements, is accessible to non-KDE applications, such as OpenOffice.org, the Mozilla Application Suite, and Acrobat Reader.

This release also introduced a new KDE address book library providing a central address book for all KDE applications. The new library is based on the vCard standard and has provisions for being extended by additional backends such as LDAP and database servers.

K Desktop Environment 3.1 introduced new default window (Keramik) and icon (Crystal) styles as well as several feature enhancements.

The update included greatly improved LDAP integration throughout Kontact, enhanced security for KMail (S/MIME, PGP/MIME and X.509v3 support) and Microsoft Exchange 2000 compatibility for KOrganizer. The desktop lockdown framework, introduced in version 3.0, was extended. Other improvements included tabbed browsing in Konqueror; a new download manager, KGet; a new multimedia player plugin, based on Xine, and a desktop sharing framework. Redesigned New UI.

K Desktop Environment 3.2 included new features, such as inline spell checking for web forms and emails, improved e-mail and calendaring support, tabs in Konqueror and support for Microsoft Windows desktop sharing protocol (RDP). Performance and Freedesktop.org standards compliance were improved by lower start up times for applications and strengthened interoperability with other Linux and UNIX software. After the KDE community worked in concert with Apple's Safari web browser team, KDE's web support saw performance boosts and increased compliance with web standards.

KDE Desktop Environment improved usability by reworking many applications, dialogs and control panels to focus on clarity and utility, and by reducing clutter in many menus and toolbars. Hundreds of new icons were created to improve the consistency of the environment, along with changes to the default visual style, including new splash screens, animated progress bars and styled panels. The Plastik style debuted in this release.

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