Plasma 6 porting continues, with stability improving daily and new features and user interface improvements trickling in.
New Features
Okular now lets you choose the default scaling mode when printing PDFs (Martin Schnitkemper, Okular 23.08. Link)
Global Themes can now set the window decoration border size (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 6.0. Link)
User Interface Improvements
Gwenview’s color correction settings have been rephrased to be more comprehensible and correct (Adam Fontenot, Gwenview 23.08. Link)
Apps that have been marked as “Favorite” in Kickoff/Kicker/Application Dashboard/etc are now weighted more a bit more highly in KRunner-powered search results (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 6.0. Link)
KRunner’s own search history no longer includes searches made in other KRunner-powered search tools such as Kickoff (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 6.0. Link)
In the Clipboard widget, when you generate a QR code for some text, you can now drag it anywhere images can be dragged (Fushan Wen, Plasma 6.0. Link)
When a Flatpak app requests permission to run in the background, the way this is presented is now clearer and more user-friendly (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.0. Link)
Metadata from Krita’s .kra files is now parsed, extracted, and displayed in “Details” views of the Properties Dialog, Dolphin’s Information Panel sidebar, etc (Joshua Goins, Frameworks 6.0. Link)
Other Significant Bugfixes
(This is a curated list of e.g. HI and VHI priority bugs, Wayland showstoppers, major regressions, etc.)
When using the optional ddcutil support in Powerdevil, changing the brightness via any of the current methods now prioritizes changing the brightness of a laptop’s built-in screen, rather than only adjusting the brightness of an external screen. Support for per-screen brightness control is being scoped out and may come in the future! (Quang Ngô, Plasma 5.27.6. Link)
Category names in Widget Explorer are once again translated (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 5.27.6. Link)
Switching Global Themes or color schemes in System Settings no longer results in the “Appearance” category list item becoming temporarily invisible (Someone awesome, Plasma 6.0. Link)
Windows marked “Show on top” now remain where they are when the “Peek at Desktop” effect is invoked (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.0. Link 1 and link 2)
Other bug-related information of interest:
- 3 Very high priority Plasma bugs (down from 4 last week). Current list of bugs
- 52 15-minute Plasma bugs (same as last week). Current list of bugs
- 66 KDE bugs of all kinds fixed this week. Full list of bugs
Web presence
Another “KDE for” page has been created, this time showcasing what KDE can do for software developers! (Carl Schwan, right now! Link)
Changes not in KDE that affect KDE
In the Plasma Wayland session sidebars and docks provided by QDockWidget now work much better: it’s now re-dockable, and visually moved when dragged (David Redondo, Qt 6.6. Link)
…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, please please please start living on Plasma 6 and fixing the bugs that you encounter. It’s usable for daily driving (I’m doing so) but still very much pre-alpha and in need of work to get it into a releaseable state by the end of the year. We need your help!
Otherwise, visit https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover other 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!
And finally, KDE can’t work without financial support, so consider making a donation today! This stuff ain’t cheap and KDE e.V. has ambitious hiring goals. We can’t meet them without your generous donations!
Adventures in Linux and KDE 
When I pinch-to-zoom in Okular on a touch screen laptop, it changes the page number (it lands on a totally different page) in addition to zooming. I reported a bug. Does someone know any workaround? If you also experience this, can you please vote on this bug report so that it gets more importance? https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=470289
This would be a major bug while reading any document in Okular in PineTab and other Linux tablets.
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For some reason okukar tabs never worked for me even when they’re enabled from settings, I have no idea how to debug this, it just doesn’t work.
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I still remember how Planet KDE’s web review columnist called Apple “neo-feudal overlords” over their client-side surveillance plans…
Look. KDE Vision just straight up says that users should control their computers and nobody else, not even the government.
But maybe it needs to be updated to acknowledge that Western democracies are totally trustworthy and it’s all good if they require AI surveillance on all our devices.
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I don’t know if I should even be commenting this as it’s subject is actually pretty inflammable but…
>totally trustworthy
You’re living in a dream, pal!
1. AI is not technologically capable of – alone – do correct judgments of the information it gets
2. It will, eventually, always end up in a human’s eyes.
3. There will ALWAYS be someone that will abuse it’s power.
So, thanks but no thanks.
Also, I do like my privacy “that’s why I close the door when i go to the bathroom”
All in all the day that that
“users should control their computers and nobody else, not even the government” mentality change, that’s the day I’ll put my boots on and get out the door.
Oh and you should read a bit more on the subject because our “Western democracies aren’t all that trustworthy” as you think. They are tremendously corrupt and suffer from a lot of other problems that should be fixed before I even think about letting them know at what time I go to the bathroom!
But that’s just me…
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“But maybe it needs to be updated to acknowledge that Western democracies are totally trustworthy and it’s all good if they require AI surveillance on all our devices.”
I’ll have whatever you’re smoking!
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About Global Themes:
If you take a look at this theme’s page I tried the other day:
https://store.kde.org/p/1669399
You will notice I’m complaining the hamburger menu icon always gets wrongly switched.
All Global Themes I’ve tried has this “??? bug ???”.
here’s a screenshot of what I mean:
https://postimg.cc/0K1RkmYj
Is this fixable? Or is it working as intended?
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You can contact the developers of the global theme here https://github.com/L4ki/Mega-Plasma-Themes . I could not understand what the issue is from the screenshot, though.
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I would then have to contact all global theme developers I’ve tried so far (and that would be a lot) because so far I have not find any that does not have this “bug”
The “bug”, by the way, as it’s explained on the link, in the comments,
occurs when you place the global menu button on the window frame/titlebar and then change the global theme. Instead of keeping the hamburger look or even change to a specific icon it always assume the application icon leading to the window having two duplicated icons side-by-side.
Theme devs I’ve contacted (2) were not able to solve this!
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Maybe the bug is in the icon theme, not in the global theme.
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Every week I anxiously wait to see the very high priority Plasma bugs count. Like a dog waiting for a treat. Still not at zero..aaaaaaaaaaaaarggghhhhhhhhhhhh so clooooose!!!!! =) Aaaaaany day now….aaaaany day now.
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> In the Plasma Wayland session sidebars and docks provided by QDockWidget now work much better: it’s now re-dockable, and visually moved when dragged
Sounds great, but what are examples of QDockWidgets one can encounter in KDE software? 🙂
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They’re used as the implementation for the sidebars in Dolphin, Okular, Konsole, Partition Manager, and most other QtWidgets-based apps.
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Thank you for your answer! Do tabs also fall under QDockWidgets, i.e. will it be possible to detach (undock) and attach (dock) tabs in e.g. Dolphin, Konsole or Okular? 🙂
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Those tabs generally use the standard Qt QTabBar widget which doesn’t have that feature. Someone would need to either add the feature to QTabBar, or else make a KDE specific version that has that (and other) features.
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Great progress as always.
Does anyone know if the work being done on power management will fix the issue where my laptop screen brightness is dimmed every time I unplug the power cord despite me deselecting the option to do so?
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Is the r/kde subreddit legally allowed to modify an official KDE logo and use it on that subreddit? Is it not protected by copyright? Are the KDE developers even giving permission to do this as it looks like the KDE project itself is standing for something that individual developers might not be? Can we stop mixing business with social issues?
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I believe the answer to all of those questions is “they’re not the right questions to ask so any answer would be nonsensical.”
Instead let me provide an answer the true question: FOSS and KDE have *always* been political. And more to the point, if expressing support in a completely harmless way for people who are often marginalized and discriminated against in society annoys you, I would strongly suggest you look inside yourself to find out where that character flaw comes from, and fix it. You don’t want to keep going down that path. Trust me. I did for a while and it leads to a very, very bad place. Come back to the light! It really is better than the dark. And stronger too.
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Nate, your comment is pretty disappointing. For a start your answer is a cop out, the questions are valid and you can’t just glibly dismiss them like that (you can refuse to answer of course, but they can’t be waved away just because you don’t like them).
Secondly: open source is not political in the slightest. Some persons/individuals might make it so, but the “movement” is about software freedoms only. It was never a movement or vehicle to be used for social issues.
Thirdly: there are many marginalized and discriminated individuals, why do you choose to support this specific group? Will you support the muslims in China who are being tortured and killed? Or the Christians there? These questions were asked in various threads on reddit with no answer (of course).
Fourthly: there is a time and place for everything. KDE should remain focused on software, and software freedoms. You don’t need to support BLM or femminism next.
Fifthly: this isn’t about me, so attempting to redirect this as “my problem” doesn’t fly. This is about KDE taking stands on issues they shouldn’t be, without the permission of KDE developers, possibly illegally.
Sixthly: if KDE does not change their stance on this, I will be uninstalling it on every machine under my care. As will other individuals and companies.
You won’t care about any of this now, but you will never recover these users and good faith you are burning at this point. And it’s all completely pointless, the LGBTQ movement will survive and flourish fine without attempting to be dragged into places it doesn’t need to be dragged.
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Ok, bye. We’ll still be here, ready to welcome you back, if and when you return.
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What happens if a KDE sub project (thunar/konsole etc) decides to support the right to life for the unborn (pro life)? Will you be equally happy to support that? Or will there be pressure for that project to remove support?
I don’t think you’ve thought this through. This has the potential to be a nightmare of people all picking pet social issues and running with it and causing embarrassment, tension, and destruction of the community at some level. Let sleeping dogs lie.
If you were wise you would have a bit of future vision, stop all this, and just say: KDE is for software only. Leave the social issues where they are.
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And as a final thought, it’s one thing for individual users/fans of KDE to express their support for any given social issues, and a completely different thing for “Official KDE” as a project/group to do so.
A better way to do this would be to provide icons/flairs in the KDE subreddit where redditors can pick their flair as appropriate, make one for LGBTQ if it doesn’t already exist. But KDE as a group should not get involved in any social issues, because that’s not the purpose of the project and it will only lead to problems.
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@nate
(I had a very long text about this… Long and boring but I won’t push it here)
I’ll just say this for you to think about it (or as musk would say: “let that sink in”):
1. Either you like it or not, you are now probably the most visible “face” on the KDE community. So… You should “think” before you post because your personal opinions may pass as KDE’s. (that came with the job! Your “bye” reply doesn’t seem like you and i don’t think it was very polite to localdev)
2. Also, either you like it or not, I also think he has a few valid points and is being neutral about it.
I’m sure I’m not against LGBT community!!!
But you should really think if KDE is not pushing away those who do not support it.
Love (or light, as you said) is the way. Be sure it is for everyone, not only those who share the same vision – which should be of “open software”, I think…
(or should we, again, go the exclusion path that hurted the LGBT community so much?)
I do not want a reply! 🙂
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If people really want to know my opinion on the matter, here it is:
First of all, keep in mind that we’re not talking about KDE e.V. here, or KDE itself. KDE isn’t doing anything. There have been no official statements. The official logo has not been changed on any KDE infrastructure to my knowledge. For heaven’s sake, we’re talking about the logo of a subreddit! r/kde is not an official KDE thing in any way, and in fact in KDE we would prefer if you would discuss things using https://discuss.kde.org–which you might notice still has the normal KDE logo. KDE itself has taken no position at all. So we are literally talking about a decision taken by certain individual members of the KDE community who happen to have admin rights to r/kde. It’s a *very* different situation from KDE itself taking an official position on anything. KDE has taken no such position. r/kde is not KDE. Repeat after me: “r/kde is not KDE.”
But regarding the specific position being expressed by r/kde changing its logo, it’s not really a random political position like any other; “LGBTQ people deserve to exist and have value” is not on the same moral plane as a zero-sum topic where for one group to gain, another one has to lose–questions like whose taxes should be higher or whether life begins at conception or which side should win in a war. No, by LGBTQ people having a recognized right to exist and appreciation for their value, no one else is harmed, no one else is disadvantaged, no one loses rights or social status or property. And if you believe otherwise, you’re just wrong, sorry.
And why did the the admins of r/kde decide on *this* specific expression of support? Why for *this* group? Well I think it’s probably because KDE is full of LGBTQ people who feel like they need support in a world that appears to be becoming more hostile to them in recent years. Or at least that’s the way it seems to me, a non-LGBTQ person looking at it from outside. And in KDE, we *do* support LGBTQ people and offer them a digital refuge. So why not stand up and say it on the month where it feels slightly less random to do so? It makes sense to me. If KDE had a lot of community members who were Muslim Uyghurs or Black people or oppressed Christians in ISIS-controlled territory, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the r/kde admins did a similar thing for those groups and their issues when the time seemed right.
Now, if I were the boss of r/kde, would I have done this? Probably not. Ultimately r/kde is big, and people mistake it for an official thing, and explaining this difference in this context is a tiresome distraction. But, again, this is the logo of a subreddit we’re taking about here. It’s not exactly a life or death situation. If this kind of thing really gets to you, honestly I think you need to spend less time on the internet and go do something productive. It’s such a waste of time, of life, of human potential to get steamed by a subreddit changing its logo. Especially if you actually support LGBTQ people, to make a stink over this is just classic leftist circular firing squad behavior. Seriously, we all have better things to spend our precious time on. Life is so fleeting. Why waste it getting mad over nonsense like this–especially if it’s even for a thing you actually do support? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. And now here I am writing this response instead of doing something useful with my time like fixing bugs or triaging bugs or discussing design or fundraising. I’d so much be rather spending my time making the world a better place in whatever small way I can than discuss why a subreddit changed its logo.
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We live in weird times when people are worried that a desktop environment might be homosexual. I’m gonna trigger you so bad right now: KDE : Straight by default – Gay when needed.
See? NOBODY CARES.
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There are legitimate concerns such as the sexualisation of children and the genital mutilation of children who cannot make informed decisions that are all flying under this rainbow flag (which, by the way, many LGBT individuals are starting to say ‘does not represent me.’ There is also the push for legitimising MAPS (polite name for pedophiles.)
Honestly the response and the seeming attempt to attribute your comment to some kind of hate leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.
LGBTQIA are not marginalised – they have the full force of media, government and corporation behind them. Children are marginalised and should be our primary concern here.
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@nate nice reply! Much more “Nate”
@all else:
please do repeat Nate’s
“r/kde is not KDE.”
That’s the end of the discussion!
Every group has it’s reasons, but it’s nothing to do with KDE. KDE makes open software (and still welcomes everyone equally).
Take the discussion to the right place: elsewhere.
And, please, do remember to be polite and LOVE everyone. The world has too much hate in it already!
(WT**?! “legitimising MAPS”?!?!… Well, I saw that coming!!!)
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Nate, nobody here is arguing that LGBTQ people can’t exist. However your comment is horribly incorrect. The right to life itself of an unborn child, is far more important than the issue of whether gender dysphoria should be recognized as dysphoria, or celebrated and encouraged with anti-science views on gender and medical mutilation.
However you still missed the thrust of my argument. By opening the door to one social issue you turn people away who cannot possibly agree with that social issue, and you open the door to other groups demanding recognition and support, those groups you may not agree with.
KDE doesn’t need to open this door. KDE builds software, it is not a vehicle designed to express or further the agenda of social issues, regardless of which side you happen to take on that issue. KDE developers as individuals should be more than free of course to express their personal views, KDE as a project would be wise to stay silent and have no position on any social issues.
I am happy to be set straight that is not an official KDE change. However you still cannot blindy turn your eye. r/KDE is recognized as “the default KDE” subreddit on a massively popular social media site. You know its there, you and other KDE devs post there regularly. This is probably at the very least a copyright infringement, which by your posting/time there and silence on the matter, indicate compliance and acceptance with this use.
Would you be happy with your logo being used in other non-official subreddits and associated with groups/morals that you consider atrocious, or would you send them a cease-and-desist? Can ISIS use your logo in combination with their flag? Can pro-life groups use your logo?
You cannot simply overlook this issue. Its completely loaded and explosive, and can set very dangerous (even legal) precedents.
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Oh, and you wouldn’t be here waisting your time discussing this instead of triaging and bug fixing, if you would have shut down this idea immediately in the first place. Your observation on that is only strengthening my argument that this is a mine field, and it just causes more and more unneeded tension, stress, division, destruction, and time away from the real issues of KDE: which is SOFTWARE. Not social issues.
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Here is your fish <°)<
If you want to do something productive, instead of writing non-sense, please read https://rosenzweig.io/blog/growing-up-alyssa.html and Nate's answer again, go out, calm down and think about what your exact personal problems really are.
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I provided my opinion as requested, and now this discussion here in the comment thread of this blog post is done.
Localdev’s comments are classic sealioning. I recognized it with the first one, which is why I tried to shut it down then and there. Since the behavior has not stopped, I am now officially shutting it down. This blog–which you might notice took no position at all on what’s being discussed here–is not the right place to express dissatisfaction with r/kde’s policies or how they do or do not reflect on KDE as a whole. Take it elsewhere.
Ironically, let me note that the people pushing social issues in everyone’s faces appear to be here, on this blog, which, again, is not political and took no position on the topic. Yet here we are, with people even posting right-wing propaganda about “medical mutilation” and equating LGBTQ people with child predators, no less. Because of course, that’s what it actually comes down to: the people objecting to the r/kde logo change are not in fact standing on principle but rather are simply anti-LGBTQ despite their protestations to the contrary, and are hiding behind the fig leaf of principle. Y’all ain’t fooling anyone. And it’s extremely disappointing to see KDE people themselves fooled by this nonsense, which is pure fantasy and has no real basis in reality.
This blog is not a public forum; it’s my private property, and I won’t accept those kinds of comments being posted here. And it certainly is not the place to be posting right-wing propaganda. Any further posts like that will be deleted and their authors perma-banned.
To repeat: the discussion here is now closed. All further comments on the subject will be deleted. I get to have the last word because it’s my blog, my private property. Those are the rules. Don’t like it? Go elsewhere. End of discussion.
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The ability to toggle the light theme wallpapers when using plasma dark theme would be a cool addition. Some of the dark variations of the KDE wallpapers are not as nice
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“[…]but still very much pre-alpha and in need of work to get it into a releaseable state by the end of the year.”
I really hope Plasma 6 WON’T be released in 2023. The transition from 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 left a really bitter taste on people’s mouths. People still believe Plasma is heavy despite that not being the case for years. Do you think Plasma 6 could maybe feature freeze at the end of the year and use one additional development cycle to make sure everything is polished? I’d definitely contribute by testing and filling bug reports.
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The problem with that is always the same in software development and QA. It does not matter when a new version or product is released. It will always have bugs, just by the plain fact that after release a magnitude of more people will start using it. Is more time helpful – of course, but there is always a point where it is contra productive to wait any longer with the release. And the developers are just a small group with not even close to a representative sample of available hardware out there.
So in the end the more people start testing it pre-release with the expectation of a rough time, the better it will be when it is released (whenever that will be). If you do not ave more testers it won’t matter much if you wait 6 months more for a release.
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I’m very much in favor of waiting to release Plasma 6 until it’s free of known issues and regressions from Plasma 5, perhaps with a lengthened feature freeze, indeed.
But as Kavalor points out, there will always be *some* issues found after launch simply because users are using diverse setups that nobody tested. This is why we do beta releases, and we’ll do some for 6 as well. They do help, but most people don’t run beta releases either, so there are always some post-release issues found anyway.
Kavalor is also right that the more people test Plasma 6 in its WIP state, and the sooner they do it, the better the final release will be.
And of course, the more people who get involved with development, the better. All the well-investigated and confirmed bug reports in the world don’t help much if there aren’t enough people to action them!
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