Based on the current development landscape for KDE, the primary tools for building visual applications are KDevelop combined with KDE Builder. While “KBasic” was a historical Basic-compatible language for KDE, modern development for the KDE desktop environment centers on technologies like QML and Kirigami.
Core Development Tools: Developers primarily use KDevelop as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to build, debug, and manage code, often utilizing KDE Builder (formerly kdesrc-build) for managing project dependencies.
Visual Application Design (Kirigami): Kirigami is the official framework for creating convergent applications (apps that work on both desktop and mobile). It allows for creating visually appealing layouts, cards, and adaptive interfaces.
QML Usage: Many KDE applications, such as Discover, utilize QML (Qt Modeling Language) along with Kirigami to design the user interface.
Language Options: While C++ is the traditional language for KDE apps, Python is heavily supported and used for scripting and building applications.
Development Setup: New contributors are encouraged to join the KDE community via Matrix to receive guidance on setting up their environment.
Windows Development: KDE apps can be built on Windows using the KDE Craft framework, which helps manage dependencies.
If you are looking to build a new KDE app today, the focus is generally on Kirigami for UI, QML/Python for logic, and KDevelop as the editor. If you are interested, I can: Provide a basic Kirigami/QML code example Help you find the beginner tutorial on developing for KDE Explain how KDE Builder works