This week in KDE: QA pays off

Automation & Systematization, This Week in KDE 5 Minutes

This week we released Plasma 5.26 and so far our QA focus has paid off! It has been mostly a smooth release, with just a few regressions being reported, and most of them have been fixed already. Thanks to everyone who tested, reported bugs, and fixed bugs!

New Features

Kate and KWrite have now adopted KHamburgerMenu! Because these are large and complex apps, the main menubar is still shown by default. And for the time being, the hamburger menu shows the entire traditional menu structure within it, rather than trying to offer a curated set of actions. This can be done in the future! (Christoph Cullmann, Kate & KWrite 22.12. Link):

Kate’s welcome screen now has more features in it (Eugene Popov, Kate 22.12. Link):

The Plasma Wayland session now supports high resolution scroll wheels for smoother scrolling through long views (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.27. Link)

The Network manager now supports WPA3-Enterprise 192-bit mode (Tomohiro Mayama, Plasma 5.26. Link)

User Interface Improvements

Dolphin no longer unnecessarily opens a new window after extracting or compressing an archive using the context menu (Andrey Butirsky, Dolphin 22.12. Link)

Discover no longer freezes for a few seconds when launched without an internet connection, and is now faster and more responsive in the face of transient network issues with remote resources in its backends (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.26.1. Link 1 and link 2)

The Media Player plasmoid now does a better job of handling apps with very barebones MPRIS implementations, like Totem and Celluloid (Bharadwaj Raju, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

Even though resizing them is now explicitly supported, Plasma widget pop-ups no longer inappropriately respond to the Maximize and Minimize keyboard shortcuts (Xaver Hugl, and me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

You can now select and copy text from labels in Info Center (Bharadwaj Raju, Plasma 5.27. Link)

In the Color Picker plasmoid, left-clicking a color now copies it to the clipboard, and you’ll also see a small “Copied!” message to help you visually confirm what happened (Bharadwaj Raju, Plasma 5.27. Link)

You now get a nice full-screen blend effect when you manually change Plasma themes (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.27. Link)

The Disks & Devices plasmoid now always shows the “Remove All” item in its hamburger menu when any volumes are mounted, not just when more than two are (Jin Liu, Plasma 5.27. Link)

Discover now shows you more permissions for Flatpak apps, such as printer and Bluetooth device access (Jakob Rech, Plasma 5.27. Link)

Made various KDE app windows raise to the top when activated externally in the Plasma Wayland session: System Settings when activated from KRunner, Discover when activated from KMoreTools menus, and Dolphin when activated from other apps in general (Nicolas Fella, Plasma 5.26.1, Frameworks 5.100, and Dolphin 22.12. Link 1, link 2, link 3)

Significant Bugfixes

(This is a curated list of e.g. HI and VHI priority bugs, Wayland showstoppers, major regressions, etc.)

Plasma no longer sometimes crashes when connecting an external Bluetooth headset, or when waking up the system after it was suspended while audio was being streamed over the network (Harald Sitter, Plasma 5.24.7. Link 1, link 2)

Changing the display arrangement or configuration no longer sometimes causes System Settings to crash (Someone awesome, Plasma 5.26. Link)

The system no longer becomes unresponsive after using the “Turn off screen” shortcut (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

Dragging screens to re-arrange them on System Settings Display and Monitor page no longer sometimes scrolls the view or drags the window instead of moving the screen (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

Chrome web apps no longer all show the same icon on an Icons-Only Task manager (Mladen Milinkovic, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

In the Plasma Wayland session, when using a multi-screen arrangement with external screens not being mirrored, the system no longer sometimes sees them as mirrored anyway and inappropriately enables Do Not Disturb mode, and also no longer forgets the enabled/disabled status of those screens (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.26.1. Link 1 and link 2)

Discover is now significantly better about reporting overall progress information when installing or updating Flatpak apps, so it won’t be jumpy and weird anymore (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

Fixed a regression in 5.26 with some 3rd-party KWin effects (David Edmundson, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

Symlinked images once again appear in wallpaper slideshows (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

The infamous “Korners” bug is finally fully fixed! The last issue–light-colored dots on rounded corners of dark panels–is now fixed (Niccolò Venerandi, Plasma 5.26.1. Link)

When using right-aligned icons on the desktop, adding new icons no longer causes all of the icons on the right-most column to jump to the left-most column (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.27. Link)

Other bug-related information of interest:

  • 10 Very high priority Plasma bugs (up from 8 last week, but this is fairly normal for right after a new Plasma release, as we use the VHI priority to track the most important things to fix). Current list of bugs
  • 53 15-minute Plasma bugs (up from 49 last week, which is mostly due to our new bot automatically classifying existing issues as 15-minute bugs). Current list of bugs
  • 141 KDE bugs of all kinds fixed this week. Full list of bugs

Automation & Systematization

This is a new section that I’m adding to highlight some of the work for the new “Automation & Systematization” goal. Topics include automation, documentation, increased test coverage, and anything else that improves KDE’s institutional memory by moving information out of people’s heads and into public systems.

One big change was made by Harald Sitter to the Bugzilla Bot. Now it will display a “nudge message” if you file a bug report on a version of Plasma just before the last supported version. It won’t close your bug report automatically, but will tell you that you should upgrade if possible:

What is the Bugzilla Bot? It’s the thing that closes bugs that have been the NEEDSINFO WAITINGFORINFO state for a month, automatically sets the severity to “crash” for bugs with “crash or “segfault” in their titles, and automatically closes bugs (with a gentle message) filed against Plasma versions that are too old to be supported. Harald did all of that too; he’s awesome! It’s really cool and you should contribute, especially if you have Ruby skills!

Ideas for new features:

  • If a bug report with the crash severity doesn’t have a backtrace attached or pasted inline, nag for one
  • When a backtrace is attached as a file, automatically paste its crashing stack frame inline
  • If a backtrace is lacking debug symbols, automatically add a comment asking for a new one with debug symbols, plus a link to https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports
  • Nag people to re-test bugs in the UNCONFIRMED state that are more than a year old

…And everything else

This blog only covers the tip of the iceberg! If you’re hungry for more, check out https://planet.kde.org, where you can find more news from other KDE contributors.

How You Can Help

If you’re a developer, check out our 15-Minute Bug Initiative. Working on these issues makes a big difference quickly! Otherwise, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to be part of a project that really matters. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE; you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to already be a programmer, either. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

Finally, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

Published by Nate

Published

17 thoughts on “This week in KDE: QA pays off”

  3. Hamburger menu is a good solution for a little screen as a smartphone one. But for a PC with a big screen a menu bar is best because less clicks and possible actions are less hidden.

    Generally GUI for a smartphone and GUI for a PC must not folow the same rules.

    Would you want to put a steering wheel on a motor bike ?

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    1. I think a hamburger menu makes sense for simple apps that don’t have many menu items to begin with (Notepad, gnome-text-editor, KWrite), and personally I like when the DE’s default text editor / default image viewer / default file manager / etc. has as few UI distractions and complexities as possible (but no fewer).

      On the other hand, somewhat surprised to see the same kind of menu in Kate, as it kinda feels more like an IDE that wants a full menu bar more than it wants a minimal UI. (Similarly, I feel like the “Welcome to” screen is suitable for Kate but quite unnecessary for KWrite.)

      But even in KWrite (if the screenshot is current), even though it *looks* good from the outside, it’s not enough to “adopt” it as simply as dumping the entire existing menu bar into a hamburger menu; the important items need to be pulled out to the top level instead (like you see in Chrome/Firefox). Otherwise it’s indeed a bit of a downgrade in terms of usability.

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    2. It’s optional and off by default for Kate and KWrite. Nothing has been changed for anyone; it’s simply a new option for people who want more vertical space for content.

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    3. Thank you — I’m with promeneur, desktop and cellphone interfaces are not the same, and should not be squished to match. Traditional menus are timesavers, not wastes of space.

      And that’s an impressive lot of bug squashing.

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    4. Thanks. That’s great to hear there’s still an option to not have the hamburger menu. I understand it has applications in various configurations (small touch screens), but on a desktop PC with a large screen and a mouse a full menu bar is much more practical in terms of discoverability and maneuverability.

      Now I only wish there would an option to switch back to the “classic” KDE look for all applications with a single configuration item 😉

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  4. I just saw your KDE World Conquest talk, and it was fantastic!

    Here’s my suggestions for follow-up blog posts:

    (1) Discuss the alarming trend toward remote hardware attestation, which even Web standards are embracing (WebAuthn). Imagine, for example, that you assisted a family member in installing Linux only for them to later tell you that they can’t make online payments due to “unapproved alterations to their machine”. This is already a problem for users of custom Android ROMs.

    (2) Call for the FOSS community—especially GNOME and Canonical—to swallow its ego and take the necessary action to get enough traction, so that we can make our voices heard and prevent being left with very little hardware to run FOSS on. This is not the time for squabbling, duplicating efforts (COSMIC, Budgie, Maui, Cinnamon, MATE, etc.), being obstinate, becoming paralyzed by analysis (Wayland protocols), fragmenting, etc.

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  5. I can’t believe Korners is really really fixed. There is surely something left of that enduring shame. LOL. That’s one I have to see to believe
    (staying fixed is an all different talk, naturally!)

    About the Bugzilla Bot… I was already hit by it ahahah. Good job!!!

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  6. I believe you linked the wrong bug report for “Discover is now significantly better about reporting overall progress information when installing or updating Flatpak apps, so it won’t be jumpy and weird anymore” 🙂

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  8. I think this has been the best update in terms of stability and bug free since Plasma 5 was released. I have installed KDE Neon on my laptop more than 2 years ago and have updated without reinstalling ever since. Updates, especially 5.x.0, always came with some problem, more annoying than critical. So far I haven’t noticed any bugs or things that don’t work. They have done a great job. I would like the focus on stability to be a priority from now on!

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