It’s time for your weekly dose of KDE’s Usability & Productivity initiative!
But first, I want to draw everyone’s attention to our Plasma 5.16 wallpaper competition. In addition to getting their wallpaper used as the default background for millions of users of KDE Plasma 5.16, the winner also receives a Slimbook One computer! So what are you waiting for!? Go and submit an awesome wallpaper! Here are the rules. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out the last six wallpapers:
Anyway, here’s the Usability & Productivity work:
New Features
- The System Tray now shows a microphone icon to notify you when some app is using the microphone (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
- The Skanlite scanning app received High DPI support (Alexander Volkov, Skanlite 2.2)
- You can now easily switch all playing audio streams to a different device (Valerio Pilo, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
Bugfixes & Performance Improvements
- Discover and the Get New [thing] dialogs now show a placeholder image instead of a big ugly blank white square for items that have no screenshots (Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, fixed right now on the server)
- The Baloo file indexing service no longer crashes while trying to index malformed JPEG files or .spx files containing GIS data (Alexander Stippich and Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
- Symlinks to programs with no icons of their own now have a default icon (Harald Sitter, KDE Frameworks 5.58):
- Fixed a bug that could cause wireless networks to disappear from the network list after a failed connection (Oleg Solovyov, KDE Plasma 5.15.5)
- The KWin window manager now correctly displays emojis in window titlebars (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.15.5):
- Discover no longer tries to translate keyboard shortcuts (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- Discover now correctly lists all available Flatpak runtime updates on the Updates page (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- KInfoCenter now shows the correct amount of memory on 32-bit systems (Christoph Feck, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- Fixed an issue on Wayland that could cause blur in menus to become un-blurred the second time the menu is opened (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- The KWin window manager no longer crashes when compositing is turned off and the current window is closed while selected in the alt-tab interface (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- Assigning tags to files on the desktop no longer results in the creation of new tags with the wrong name (Stefan Brüns, KDE Applications 19.04.1)
- Invitation emails in KMail are no longer deleted after replying to them (Allen Winter, KDE Applications 19.08.0)
User Interface Improvements
- It’s now possible to switch between normal input move and vi input mode using the status bar in Kate and other KTextEditor-based apps, like KDevelop (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Frameworks 5.58):
- It’s now possible to quickly switch the “Show Desktop” widget for “Minimize all” (if you prefer that behavior instead), by right-clicking on it and clicking “Alternatives” (Björn Feber, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
- The Virtual Desktop/Activity pager’s label is now more legible when a Virtual Desktop or Activity has a lot of open windows (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
- The Plasma network configuration window no longer lets you try to enter a password that cannot possibly be correct for the given network connection–such as a password for a WPA-PSK protected wifi network with less than 8 characters (Oleg Solovyov, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- When searching for the “Log Out” command using the Kickoff Application Launcher’s built-in search feature, it’s now the top entry (Björn Feber, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
- Refined the System Settings Window Decorations page’s drag-and-drop user interface (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
- On Plasma widgets’ “Keyboard Shortcuts” settings page, the “remove shortcut” button is now the same height as the “assign shortcut” button, and the explanatory text is simpler and clearer (Filip Fila and me: Nate Graham, KDE Frameworks 5.58 and KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
Next week, your name could be in this list! Not sure how? Just ask! I’ve helped mentor a number of new contributors recently and I’d love to help you, too! You can also check out https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved, and find out how you can help be a part of something that really matters. You don’t have to already be a programmer. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!
If you find KDE software useful, consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.
Adventures in Linux and KDE 
Hello!
I’ve found visual inconsistency in toolbar items’ height when using small icons with and without label (screenshot below), but because it’s a common problem in all kde applications, not just in Gwenview, I don’t know where exactly on Bugzilla to report it (or check if it already exists). I’m not sure, so could you help, please? I’m sorry, just don’t know well the Kde Applications structure.
LikeLike
This will probably end up being a bug in the Breeze theme itself. Please file it at https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Breeze
LikeLike
> Invitation emails in KMail are no longer deleted after replying to them (Allen Winter, KDE Applications 19.08.0)
Yaaaay!
Kudos to everyone. Great job Nate.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Said it before and I’ll say it again, the rate and dedication with which these papercuts are being nixed is damned impressive. Kudos to all involved.
LikeLike
Glad it’s appreciated! 🙂
LikeLike
> Fixed a bug that could cause wireless networks to disappear from the network list after a failed connection (Oleg Solovyov, KDE Plasma 5.15.5)
I always have worked around it by disabling and re-enabling the NM applet. Thanks for fixing that! 🙂
> Go and submit an awesome wallpaper! Here are the rules. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out the last six wallpapers:
Does this mean you prefer computer generated modern art or are photographs welcome as well?
LikeLike
Anything is welcome, but emulating the colorful and geometric visual style of the prior wallpapers is encouraged. A lot of those were originally started as photographs, which were used as inspiration and then painted/drawn over to produce the final result.
LikeLiked by 1 person
> Refined the System Settings Window Decorations page’s drag-and-drop user interface
Could’ve dropped that useless “?” button and added a spacer while you were at it. 😇
I’m just teasing. Great work. Thanks a lot to everybody involved.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I tried. See https://phabricator.kde.org/T9986
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazing as usual!
Now that Plasma shows the microphone icon when it is being used it makes me think it should also show a “using webcam” icon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not a bad idea!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great job!!
I have a question about the activity pager. I don’t know if this is a bug. But when i try to move a window between the activities using the pager… don’t work. Sometimes i can move from the right activity to the left, but from the left to the right don’t work. I use Manjaro KDE. Thank you.
LikeLike
Sounds like you should file a bug. First please read https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Bug_Reporting
Thanks!
LikeLike
Great work done by KDE community!
Great report!
and spreading the word about it for spanish speakers community!
https://victorhckinthefreeworld.com/2019/05/06/mejorando-kde-en-facilidad-de-uso-y-productividad-semana-17-de-2019/
Greetings!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantastic news as always.
I think i detected a typo at the input Vi-mode, it reads that it has been solved at KDE Frameworks 5.57, but i suppose it was meant to be 5.58 instead.
Plasma 5.16 keeps receiving more and more love, lots of improves. I can’t wait to have it on my system.
Thank you as always to Nate & everyone else who make this possible.
Bests to all mentioned above ^^.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oops, you’re right! Fixed now, thanks.
LikeLike