KDE Usability & Productivity: Week 72

Usability & Productivity 3 Minutes

Week 72 in Usability & Productivity initiative is here and it’s chock-full of goodies! We continue to polish Plasma 5.16 ahead of its release in two weeks. There was one point in time when veteran KDE developer and author of the new notifications system Kai Uwe Broulik was literally committing fixes faster than I could add them to this blog post! In addition, features for Plasma 5.17 as well as many of our apps are starting to trickle in. Check it out:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

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.

Published by Nate

Published

32 thoughts on “KDE Usability & Productivity: Week 72”

  3. Screening works since Plasma 5.15. It’s remote desktop what is new in Plasma 5.16 and support for it in Krfb in upcoming KDE Applications 19.08.

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    1. In fact it’s already come, and what’s new is Remote Desktop–and it’s actually in 5.16!

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    2. does this framework open the door for things like casting the desktop to say widi or airplay devices?

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  5. > All KDE software now transparently supports performing actions on files whose names contain characters that are invalid for the current filesystem

    That’s a bit misleading. The change only converts invalid UTF-8 filenames to valid UTF-8 filenames. The filesystem still needs to support the full Unicode range.

    Additionally, only those applications that uses KIO to access local files are affected. Applications that use QFile directly still won’t work with invalid filenames. Let’s assume it works only for Dolphin and kioclient5, which is still an improvement.

    Thanks for the updates; always nice to see new names popping up 🙂

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  6. Another amazing week full of amazing work and improvements for KDE world.

    Plasma 5.16 is really close, i can’t wait to have it on my Arch Linux installations, but i have to mention that Plasma 5.17 looks really promising (solving one of the main issues with Wayland session, so really really hoping that version of Plasma could be the chosen one to me for make the move to Wayland), maybe i’ll try the Wayland session even on Plasma 5.16 to see how’s the state there.

    Thank you as always for your huge and amazing work Nate & everyone at KDE that makes everything this possible.

    Bests to all mentioned above ^^.

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    1. Thanks! I was actually wrong, and the post has since been corrected: Screen sharing already worked as of 5.15, and what’s new is Remote Desktop (i.e full control), which is actually in 5.16, not 5.17. Sorry for the bad information! At least the truth is even better. 🙂

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    2. Yeeeah. That’s nice.

      I was about to comment then but i forgot to do it. On the Okular bugfixes & performance improvements, the version is wrong, it shows 1.8.0, when i suppose it should be 19.08.

      Thanks as always for your amazing work Nate.

      Bests ^^.

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    3. I’ve decided to start using apps’ actual version numbers rather than the KDE Applications bundle version. For several apps like Dolphin, kate, Konsole, and Spectacle, they actually happen to use the same version number so there’s no difference. But Okular has its own version numbering system so I’m showing that instead.

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  7. A problem occurs about the ability of a client to get the printer linked to a different router linked to another router by WDS, The printer is not detected if not via personal activity which allows to install the driver by PPD file and to give the IP address of the printer, if both the client and the printer are linked to the same router the printer is visible and detected and immediately available to be used. The printer is sometimes visible because of unknown causes probably due to some kind of upgrade of cups packages, but I am not sure about this.

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    3. It’s not a blog, it’s the official KDE bug tracker, and it’s where bugs are tracked. If you don’t report your issues there, then the developers won’t see them.

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  8. Hi Nate, those are really awesome changes! Can’t wait to have the new notifications system. Big kudos to Kai!!! 🙂

    Once thing that is bothering me and probably many other android users as well, is
    > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=336397

    Is this on your radar? I could not find a topic on Phabricator. Currently I have to dual boot into Windows to transfer files locally. It’s so annoying under KDE. 😦

    Regards

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    2. Thank you for giving your attention to it! Hopefully someone will find a solution soon. 🙂

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  9. Still missing an option to make one monitor default for opening new windows. Its really annoying to have to switch on my TV to see there is a small accept-box or something like that on it while it was shut down. Also, because for some windows it is not possible to set window-rules, so they keep popping up on the left screen. Probably nothing you can do anything about, but still. *sigh*

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    2. Ah, i remember now, the last time i filed something. I just try to draw my thought line because i think reporting a bug is way too complicated at all. I understand there are A LOT of bugs, but still.

      https://neon.kde.org/, nothing found about bug reporting. Ah, okay, “Get involved”. (Btw. Why is there a weird submenu when there IS already some kind of menu? Weird decision imho), okay, “Start here”. Hm, “Bug reporting” fine. Ah, step 5. “File a bug” – “File new bug” – oh fuck that long list again… Wait a second, i did something there about that already. Hm. Not possible to find what i have filed already. Head over to my e-mails and search. Ouh, yes. First one https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=398690 closed. Fine, its not a bug and it is not completely what i meant, after rereading. So, there is this one https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=406312 i filed. (Found through my e-mail, not through my bug-whatever-account (bugzilla?).

      So, there is the problem, i described it and i found multiple people mentioning it around. I mean, (also, my reddit-thread) people came already up with weird hacks https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/bar7m5/primary_not_as_expected_windows_open_on_secondary/ to achieve what i mentioned.
      I filed a bug, maybe i described it wrong, but it got closed as “Yeah, it is what it is.” Thats a bit disappointing and for now i help myself by blindly pressing ALT and LMB blindly into the deactivated screen to drag it back to center. And when something is not working because nothing is clickable and i suspect something i don’t catch with random ALT+LMB, i have to turn on my TV, because i would like to not use a dirty hack.

      I just think as more people are using 3 monitors these days, there should be something made. Most people have 3 active screens and i think thats the reason why they don’t care that much about this topic. Or just use some ugly hack.

      Thanks for answering at all and sorry that you now get that text 😀 Not mad if you can’t do anything about it.

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  10. This is sort’ve subjective, but what would thoughts be on using the dark shell theme out of the box with the regular breeze look & feel for everything else? I feel like it’d add some more contrast to the overall experience out of the box as well as fit in a lot better with more of the wallpapers.

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    1. Kubuntu and Manjaro ship this way and I’ll admit it’s rather nice. Not sure it necessarily needs to be made the default everywhere though.

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  11. Ain’t gonna lie, I’ve fallen head over heals in love with Plasma since these 5.x releases, its ruling the desktop arena imo. Resources, user experience, aesthetic, configurability are just outright amazing, thank you ! Had to finally bite the bullet and get a new laptop, went with a Dell XPS – biggest problem is deciding what Plasma based install to use – Kubu LTS, Kubu disco, Neon or Manjaro (all amazing imo). Finally decided Kubu Disco and its an absolute joy.

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    1. Excellent decisions all around! 🙂 I’m glad you like it. I feel exactly the same way you do.

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  12. A bit off topic, because I don’t know any other way to contact you.
    Please, what do you think about my proposal for Kup to become a KDE equivalent of timeshift if the project is still active and ready to reverse some old and very bad decision?

    https://github.com/spersson/Kup/issues/71

    Here is the video that triggered this thought:

    This is so damn close to timeshift and its potential is wasted. It would be nice to change that and introduce a complete system backup solution for KDE, now that timeshift is no longer being actively developed.

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  13. Yes, I’ve long believed that we need a simple, user-friendly, easy-to-set-up, installed-by-default backup and restore system like Timeshift plus Apple’s Time Machine. I hadn’t actually heard of Kup before, and I just tried it out and love it! I filed a bunch of issues on the bug tracker: https://github.com/spersson/Kup/issues

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