This week in KDE: System Settings modernization and Wayland color management

This Week in Plasma 3 Minutes

Many folks are on vacation right now, but KDE’s tireless contributors still worked hard to bring you a number of improvements anyway, among them some nice System Settings modernization work and improvements to Wayland color management. You’ll find them mentioned below, along with various other improvements!

Notably, we’re back to only 30 15-minute Plasma bugs — the lowest level since February of this year right before Plasma 6 was launched! Essentially, having regained the level of stability we had at the end of Plasma 5 in only 6 months, we’re super well positioned to drive this even further in the coming months. With Plasma 6 offering both stability and features, who says you can’t have it all? 😎

Notable New Features

Plasma’s weather widget now shows “feels like” temperatures that take into account the heat index (Ismael Asensio, Plasma 6.2.0. Link 1 and link 2):

And yes, I see that the temperature labels in the forecast view are misaligned! We’ll get that fixed.

Notable UI Improvements

Landed a redesign of System Settings’ Keyboard page to match other similar modern pages and make things easier to find (Evgeniy Chesnokov, Plasma 6.2.0. Link):

Modernized the UI for System Settings’ Thunderbolt page, which also fixed a text readability bug (Ivan Tkachenko, Plasma 6.2.0. Link):

Modernized the UI for multiple pages in System Settings that still use QtWidgets, so that they look a bit more like their more modern QML counterparts (Thomas Duckworth, Plasma 6.2.0 and KDE Gear 24.12.0, link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, and link 5):

Discover and its System Tray icon now always agree on whether there are any updates available (Harald Sitter, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Weather forecasts from the Environment Canada provider now fit in the System Tray popup at its default size, so you don’t have to enlarge it (Ismael Asensio, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

When you drag an image or other file out of a web browser window and onto the desktop or Dolphin, the drop menu now contains only relevant actions, and with better text and icons (me: Nate Graham, Frameworks 6.6. Link 1 and link 2):

Notable Bug Fixes

We accidentally broke SVG wallpaper support in Plasma 6.1.4 with the fixes to Centered placement mode, so now we’ve fixed it again. Sorry about that, everyone! (Marco Martin, Plasma 6.1.5. Link)

Fixed a tricky KWin bug that caused copied text to sometimes not be paste-able into XWayland-using apps (David Edmundson, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Worked around a Qt issue that was causing some windows on disconnected screens to sometimes not get moved over to one of the remaining screens as expected (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Addressed a few more edge cases for the bug whereby Plasma’s “Show Alternatives” popup wouldn’t close in certain circumstances, so now it should always close when needed (Niccolò Venerandi, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Fixed an issue that caused some symbolic icons in Plasma panels to be colored improperly with mixed light/dark global themes (Nicolas Fella, Frameworks 6.6. Link)

Other bug information of note:

Notable in Performance & Technical

Added support for rendering intents and black point compensation to KWin’s implementation of the Wayland color management protocol, and enabled it by default so apps that also implement support for it can make use of it immediately (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 6.2.0. Link 1, link 2, and link 3)

KWin has gained support for the alpha-modifier Wayland protocol (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

On Wayland, you can now copy to and paste from the system clipboard while in Overview and other KWin effects (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Qt 6.8 changed how screen scaling affects icons, so we adapted to those changes to prevent icon blurriness everywhere for people already using Qt 6.8 (Nicolas Fella and Kai Uwe Broulik, Frameworks 6.6. Link 1, and link 2)

Human Interface Guidelines

Expanded the Text and Labels page to include some more symbols that should use real unicode glyphs rather than handmade approximations (Emir SARI, link)

Fixed a number of small typos, punctuation, and grammar issues throughout the text (John Veness, link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5)

Tweaked a bunch of text labels in Okular to be HIG-compliant by using real ellipses and unicode symbols (Emir SARI, Okular 24.12.0. Link)

KWin’s “Screen Edge” effect has been renamed to “Highlight Screen Edges and Hot Corners” for HIG-compliance and user-comprehensibility (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)

Tweaked the text of Plasma’s critical battery level notifications and System Settings’ unsaved changes dialog to be HIG-compliant and therefore less redundant and more user-friendly (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 6.2.0. Link 1 and link 2)

…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

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! Or consider donating instead! That helps too.

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22 thoughts on “This week in KDE: System Settings modernization and Wayland color management”

  4. Modernized the UI for System Settings’ Thunderbolt page, which also fixed a text readability bug

    Hu, the yellow label in the screenshot is very hard to read! 🙂

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  5. Very nice additions, especially to color management.

    Does Plasma 6.2 now supports high gamut displays with 12 or 14 bpc (LUT) @zamundaaa? 🙂

    And I am also grateful for any weird copy paste issue. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. After following the link to the Text and labels page (https://develop.kde.org/hig/text_and_labels/) I found an error on that page. There’s a link on that page to “Create documentation issue”, but when I follow that link and authenticate with my KDE Identity user I get the message “Your account has been blocked. Please contact your GitLab administrator if you think this is an error.” I *do* think it is an error, but I can’t find any information about how to contact the GitLap administrator to unblock it. Also, the KDE Identity user isn’t blocked and my password is correct, at least it works at identity.kde.org. There is an option to apply for developer access, but unfortunately my contributions are not as a developer, I’ve contributed to and with bug reports – so developer access shouldn’t be necessary. How can I get my KDE Identity activated so I can report documentation issues?

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  7. Hi Nate,

    Is there any reason why the System Settings window will not remember its maximized state after closing it and reopening it? Is this a bug or maybe a mis-configured setting or file on my part?

    Is there a fix for this planned / already done? If so, any idea what Plasma version it might be included in?

    I am currently running Plasma 6.1.4, Frameworks 6.5.0, Qt 6.7.2 on Wayland.

    Arch Linux / Kernel 6.10.5-arch1-1 (64-bit)

    Thank you

    PS: Great blog BTW! 🙂

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  8. This is amazing! I have hit a number of these with 5.27.x and can’t wait to be able to use Plasma 6.2 (currently no packages for kubuntu 24.04). It looks wonderful.

    Thanks for the update and all the hard work from everyone.

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    1. Yeah, the lack of Debian/Ubuntu packaging for Plasma 6 is frustrating. I’d jump onto Plasma 6 in a heartbeat, but I’m not willing to distribute hop for the pleasure. Just gotta play the waiting game, sadly.

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  9. Adaptive-Sync refresh rate becomes unstable after log out

    The refresh rate stays constantly at 160Hz when I enter the desktop, but once I log out and log in again, it keeps jumping between 138Hz and 160Hz.

    The adaptive-sync is set to automatic mode.

    It seems to happen since linux 6.10 kernel was released, but I don’t have older kernel, I can’t test it.

    GPU: AMD RX6750XT

    ArchLinux.
    6.10.5-zen1-1-zen
    Trying display: waylandvainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0) vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 24.1.6-arch1.1 for AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (radeonsi, navi22, LLVM 18.1.8, DRM 3.57, 6.10.5-zen1-1-zen) vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileAV1Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc

    The problem is gone if the refresh rate is <=119.94Hz, everything >120Hz has this problem.
    There is no way to select 119.94Hz in Plasma6, only Gnome can do it.

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  10. Plasma 6 offering both stability and features, who says you can’t have it all?”

    For the last week I faced with random crashing of Plasma (fortunately was restarted itself). Yes, I use daily unstable version of Plasma (providing by Neon distribution). I suppose in stable distribution there is stable version of Plasma.

    There are many features, but where is that, on which is waiting many users – restore session like in X11? I think because of implemented in 6.2 “primitive restore” doesn’t work restore session neither in Kate nor in Konsole.
    I think there is no hope to have it in 6.2, but the worse is that we don’t know when will be implemented.

    Sorry for these bitter words, but I don’t need color mangament in Wayland only would like to have one of major functionality of X11 version (provided in Plasma 5) – restore session. I think many users wating for it.

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    1. Hmm, if Session Restore is an important feature for you and Wayland features are not then aren’t you better off using Plasma 6 on X11 than on Wayland?

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  12. Thunderbolt in System Settings. I think the color choice on this page is not conducive to readability, especially yellow text on a white background.

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  13. System Settings ->Thunderbolt. IMHO the color choice on this page is not conducive to readability, especially yellow text on a white background.

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  14. When is the KDE team going to make a proper, fully featured ‘User Manager’? This has been something that has been sorely lacking in KDE for years now.

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    1. I remember that there used to be one back in KDE 3 or 4 days that worked pretty well. I wonder if it could be resurrected and polished up.

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