Today we released version 1.10 of the KDE Connect Android app. Therefore it’s time again to share what we’ve been working on.
Targeting Android Oreo
As of this month app updates uploaded to Google Play need to target Android 8. This has several implications. Targeting Oreo comes with an updated Support Library, which forces us to drop support for Android 4.0 and below. According to our Google Play data this will affect approximately 400 users. We are very sorry about that, but these users won’t receive further updates. Furthermore, Android Oreo introduced some restrictions in regard to apps running in the background. In the future in order to be able to run in the background KDE Connect needs to show a persistent notification. The good news is that you can hide the notification. The (slightly) bad news is that we cannot do it by default. To hide the notification you need to long-press it and switch it off. Other notifications from KDE Connect are unaffected by this.
1.10 Changes
These are the main changes of version 1.10. Not mentioned are countless small improvements and under-the-hood changes.
Mouse input now works with the same speed independent from the phones pixel density.
The media controller now allows stopping playback.
Run command supports triggering commands using kdeconnect:// URLs. Useful for integration with NFC tags and 3rd-party apps.
The notification filter allows quickly (de-)selecting all apps.
Several settings scatterd across the UI have been bundled into a single settings screen.
A lot of work has gone into how we handle SMS on the Android side in preparation for something huge. Stay tuned 😉
Other changes
The desktop side has improved as well since my last post.
The windows build of KDE Connect gained support for keyboard input.
The plasmoid gained a couple of additions. In my last update I mentioned that it is possible to run commands from there. It is now also possible to lauch the command setup from there. Furthermore it is now possible to select files to share them from there.
The Linux Mobile App gained many visual improvements and features. It now supports sharing files and controlling the system volume.
If you are using Itinerary you can send booking information from the PC directly to the phone via KDE Connect.
It is now possible to send files directly from Pantheon Files (and other Elementary apps) and Thunar via KDE Connect.
Again, there are countless other improvements that I did not explicitly mention.
A big thanks to all people who contributed to this!
Nico's Blog 
KDE Connect’s connection was not stable on Android 8 and 9. Let’s see if the persistence notification fixes it. Thanks for the update.
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So far I have had pretty good connection. I suppose KDE Connect was being killing without foreground notification.
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Hopefully SMS handling on desktop side is improved and notifications as well.
I’d be awesome to have some small program for desktop that will store sms and allow you to easily answer. At this point i can answer only if i clicked in time otherwise i can only see it in the notification area but not answer.
Notifications are cleared at some point.
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Have you actually tried this? It doesn’t work unless you root your phone (known issue) due to dropping connections. This might be interesting for a fun side project, but should be shipped as part of an actual operating system.
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What exactly are you talking about?
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> small improvements and* under-the-hood
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oops, fixed. Thanks!
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Integration with elementary apps is awesome.
May I ask who was behind that idea/implementation? Is there is a standard way of supporting such file managers or do you have to spend time & effort on each file managers? Where can I support these amazing efforts?
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I added the integration bases on the integration from https://github.com/Bajoja/indicator-kdeconnect. I don’t think there is a standard way. For this case it was sufficient to install one file each.
If you can’t support us by contributing code you can donate to KDE (https://www.kde.org/donations). These donations help us gather together once in a while and work on KDE Connect together
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So you check if a specific manager is installed and add that menu integration based on it?
Yeah, will try to get involved with the code someday.
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Let’s look at the Thunar integration as an example:
https://cgit.kde.org/kdeconnect-kde.git/commit/?id=4a6db4c35f12cb023b1e511f87d13755caf81b25
We are installing a file that specifies name, icon and action of the context menu entry to /usr/share/Thunar/sendto. When started Thunar reads this file and adds the appropriate action.
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Just checked out the codebase. Do all these files under (indicator-kdeconnect/data/extensions/) get installed in specific directories at install time? stays in application dir? Just wondering about the Linux Desktop ecosystem and standards.
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Sorry I submitted my last comment before I see your second reply.
So do you check for installed applications at install time? What if a user installed the file manager after KDEConnect was installed?
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We do not check for installed file managers at all. We install the files and if there is no file manager reading them they just get ignored
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That means the files will just hang on there uselessly until the specified application is installed. Interesting. Not judging, I understand that this is the way these things are done.
Does that mean if the file manager package was “purged” -not just removed- and installed again, the integration would not work?
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I don’t know whether purging the package would remove the file. That might depend on the package/package manager
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One last personal question. Why do you all do this. I use Linux full time with [KDE these days] and always wanted to ask why do people devote time and effort to build these useful applications. I know the kernel is funded by big corps, Gnome is kinda funded by Redhat. But why independent awesome people like yourself spend time on things like this? Commitment to do good? Giving back? have free time?
Answering is totally optional 😊
Well I should probably leave you now. Thanks for being helpful and generous with your time 😍
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Thank you!!! I love KDE Connect.
My killer feature is clipboard sharing since I don’t save my passwords on my phone only keep them on my desktop computer in KeepassX.
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You mentioned there being a windows build of KDE Connect. Do you know where I can grab a build? I use a mixture of windows and linux machines, and it’d be great to have one tool for both.
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You can get it from https://binary-factory.kde.org/view/Windows%2032-bit/job/kdeconnect-kde_Nightly_win32/
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I love KDE Connect and excessively use it in my day-to-day workflow, but actually, KDE Connect on KDE was one of the reasons that drove me away from KDE/Plasma again as my primary working desktop. KDE Connect is a wonderful tool but the desktop side of it could see *way* more love especially compared to gsconnect under GNOME (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/), talking about things such as the ability to send SMS from the desktop or have all the device interactions available in one single place. 😉
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Ever since the app got updated I can no longer browse files on my phone using KDE Connect (on Ubuntu 16.04.5 and Kubuntu 18.04.1). If I double click on any of the phone directory in my file manager it just complains about the (directory) file not being found. I don’t think KDE connect has actually been updated on the PC side for my distros. Can you guys look into this?
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In the future, could you please give the translators a heads up by e-mailing the kde-i18n-doc mailing list before releasing a new version? Then we (the translators) can make sure that the translations are complete.
There are hundreds of KDE applications, and most translation teams can’t manage to have every single one of them completely translated each and every day. But if there is a string freeze and we are given notification some time (at least a week, preferably two weeks) before the release, we can prioritise to update the translations for your software, so that they are complete and proofread when your release.
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Sorry about that. I’m forwarding this to Albert so he knows next time 🙂
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Sounds great. I am especially looking forward to the command integration. All this time I was thinking ‘damn it would be nice if I could use KDE connect in automation setups’ 🙂
That said, I don’t agree with the reasoning for dropping old android versions. While I personally don’t think it’s reasonable to support android 4.x anymore, dropping support because of a google mandate is wrong, especially considering KDE Connect is a android app, not a Google Play app (Fdroid also exists). Also, I am guessing most people using KDE probably also use Fdroid or at least aren’t strangers to non-google-play app stores, so changing the entire app to cater to Google Play isn’t the greatest solution.
Just wanted to say my 2 cents, not that it actually matters too much. I think (hope) most people are using 5.x at LEAST.
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Hi there – quick question. If I manually disable the persistent notification via Android Settings, is this going to prevent KDE connect from staying running in the background? Will I still be able to get the notifications immediately? If it can still run normally after being manually hidden, is this just for KDE Connect or will it apply to all apps? I’m asking as I currently have a tonne of persistent app notifications which I want running, but would like to hide. Thanks for a response!
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It keeps running in the background and it only affects KDE Connect
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Hi, thank you for KDE connect. Would it be possible to split the persistent indicator in “Not connected to any device” and another one for being actually connected? I want to block the notification when I’m not connected but I want it when I’m connected.
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I’m using Linux full stack along with KDE and it is going very good. and thanks for the article, clearly you added what are changes made
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