• Windows version now built against Python v2.6 and includes Phonon
• QVariant.toPyObject() will now handle any Python object. The way in which QVariant wraps objects has subtlely changed in that the name returned by typeName() may now be different, but is now more consistent.
• Added the data() method to the QPolygon, QPolygonF and QXmlAttributes classes.
• Added the --no-designer-plugin option to configure.py to disable the building of the Python plugin for Qt Designer.
• Added the missing Windows and Mac versions to QSysInfo.

Downloads (source, Windows installer) here.

Other new releases:

• Version 3.17.5 of PyQt 3 (download here
• Version 2.3.1 of QScintilla, the code editing framework (download here)
• Version 4.7.8 of SIP, the Python bindings generator for C and C++ libraries (download here)

Version 4.1.3 of KDE, the Qt-based desktop environment for Unix, has been released. This is a monthly service update; another is expected in December before KDE 4.2 is released in January. Major changes:

• Two crash bugs fixed in Dolphin (file manager)
• Many optimisations and bugfixes in KHTML
• Bug fixes to Kopete (instant messenger), Okular, KAlarm and KMail
• Many enhancements to translations

Full changelog here. Downloads (source, binaries for Debian, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu) here. Requires Qt 4.4.

A release candidate of version 4 of Syntext Serna, a WYSIWYG XML content editor based on Qt, has been released. Changes:

• New look&feel of Serna due to the migration to the Qt graphic library version 4.4.3.
• Fonts are rendered correctly and documents are redrawn properly on MacOS X.
• Serna maintains and validates the uniqueness of DITA elements' IDs within the scope of the parent topic.
• Enhanced Print Draft lets you save documents to PDF format.
• SSL protocol support provides for secure communication between Serna and an SSL-enabled remote HTTP or WebDAV server.
• SVG images are natively supported.
• Serna can now work as an ActiveX control on Windows.
• Fixed a number of stability issues.

Screenshots here, download links (login required) here. Free use for non-profit activities; prices start from $89 for a personal version, with the professional version costing $199 for a single licence (see here). Based on Qt 4.4.

Qt Software (the division of Nokia which was formed out of Trolltech) has released a binary-only technology preview of Qt Creator, a cross-platform IDE for developing Qt applications. The IDE features syntax highlighting, code folding, code tracing and completion, real-time warning and error reporting, context sensitive help, an integrated debugger with built-in support for Qt types, and an easy one-button build process. Release is expected in early 2009. You can find a Flash presentation on Qt Creator here, with a download link; also, see the FAQ here.

The KDE Bug Squad will be having its first KOffice day this coming Sunday (26th October), starting around 0700 UTC (note that summer time ends in some European countries that day) on the #kde-bugs channel on IRC (irc.freenode.net). Participants need a copy of the recently released Beta; no programming knowledge required.

Riverbank Computing have published a roadmap for the future of the Python-Qt bindings (PyQt). The planned developments include:

• Python v3 support, which it is intended will not involve changes to the API
• Enabling Python-type signal-slot connections as well as the current C++ style connections
• Allowing the use of QDataStream to transmit pickled Python objects
• Wrapping of standard Python objects for the Qt model-view system (Interview)
• Removing a number of Qt classes which duplicate Python classes, such as QString and QByteArray
• Improving the documentation

The full list, with explanations, is available at the link above. You can use a form at the page above to send suggestions to Riverbank.

A second beta of KOffice v2.0 has been released. This contains a substantial number of bug fixes and speed and UI improvements, and a few minor new features, since the first beta; the full changelog is here. The official announcement, with general information about KOffice v2.0, is here, with downloads (source, links to Ubuntu binaries) here.

Qt Software has released a technology preview of Qt v4.5. Major changes in this release include:

• Re-engineering of core Qt library, and new pluggable graphics system, for improved performance
• Performance benchmarking library
• WebKit upgraded to the latest version, with Netscape plugin support, allowing Flash, and HTML 5 and new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish
• Qt/Mac now Cocoa-based, allowing true 64-bit application development
• Debugger for QtScript
• XSL-T support
• Open Document Format (ODF) support
• Improved proxy support
• Improvements to Qt Designer (see recent Qt Labs blog post)

Source downloads are available from this page (Windows, Mac, Linux X11 and Embedded, and Windows CE) at the Developer Zone.

Qt Software have announced that they are porting Qt to the Symbian S60 platform, which in their estimation, opens up some 80 million new devices to Qt applications. Pre-release packages are available here and contain the Core, GUI, Network and Test libraries, and support S60 v3.1 or later, including the new version 5.0. There are open-source and commercial downloads; the former contains libraries in binary, because the free GCCE compiler cannot build Qt. See the announcement for further details and the mailing list. Qt Software are exhibiting at the Symbian Smartphone Show at Earls Court, London, this Tuesday and Wednesday (21st-22nd Oct 2008). The first production release is expected in the 2nd quarter of 2009.

Qt Software has launched a competition entitled "Pimp My Widgets", by which:

Qt Software is kickin' out a new developer contest, throwin' down a challenge to the Qt community of developers to create innovative, attractive and functional and blingin' widgets using Qt across all supported platforms.

You can find the guidelines, T&C's and so on here, or you can watch the watch the Trolls get ghetto-fabulous in the video below (or after the fold).

Version 0.10.0 of Smb4K, a Samba client (i.e. a Windows share browser) for KDE, has been released. Changes include:

• Ported to KDE 4
• Changed build system to CMake
• Many small optimisations
• Fixed GCC 4.3 warnings
• Removed IRIX and Solaris support
• New class, Smb4KIPAddressScanner, to look up IP addresses for hosts
• New class, Smb4KSearch, to look up search strings provided through a search dialog and can search remote shares
• Revised bookmark editor
• Revised custom options, print, synchronisation, configuration and search dialogs
• Rewritten main window
• Updated the handbook

Full changelog here. Screenshots here, downloads (source, links to third-party binaries) here. Requires Qt 4.3, KDE 4 and Samba 3.

Version 0.6.5 of KBib, a bibliography manager for KDE which uses BibTeX as its file format, has been released. Changes:

• New remote database searchers: ArXiv, Spires and Scitation
• Improved Google Scholar searcher
• Fixed problem with download reference from Crossref

Screenshots here, downloads (source, links to various Linux distro binaries) here. Requires KDE 3.2.