Category: This Week in KDE

This week in KDE: all about the apps

This week we landed a lot of nice improvements for KDE’s apps, which I’ve highlighted below! Of course we didn’t forget about Plasma, so have a look-see:

New Features

Dolphin now lets you mount ISO images using a new menu item in the context menu (Kwon-Young Choi, Dolphin 20.08.0):

Konsole now lets you monitor a tab for the active process to complete (Will Westrop, Konsole 20.08.0):

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

Improved search speed/performance in Okular’s sidebar (Ahmad Samir, Okular 1.10.2)

Fixed a very common Yakuake crash (Maximilian Schiller, 20.04.2)

Fixed a common crash in Konsole when right-clicking and using Qt 5.15 (Ahmad Samir, Konsole 20.04.2)

Gwenview’s touch gestures now work properly when using display scaling (Steffen Hartlieb, Gwenview 20.08.0)

Notes widgets placed in a panel now display the pop-up note if clicked on when all windows are hidden or minimized (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.19.0)

Clicking on the settings button for a notification now opens the Notification settings page with that particular app focused and visible (Benjamin Port, Plasma 5.19.0)

KRunner once again shows Firefox bookmarks (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 5.19.0)

KRunner now does a better job of handling file paths beginning with a tilde (Méven Car, Plasma 5.20)

When using Dolphin to view the desktop using the special desktop:/ URL, the amount of free space is now correctly displayed in the status bar (Ahmad Samir, Plasma 5.20.0)

Dates displayed in the file overwrite confirmation dialog now respect the date formatting of your current locale (Méven Car, Frameworks 5.71)

Deleting files from a Samba share no longer displays a notification with an inaccurate number of deleted files (Kai Uwe Broulik, Frameworks 5.71)

User Interface Improvements

Okular’s sidebar user interface has been overhauled, with the result that it now takes up less horizontal space, is easier to show and hide quickly, has a more consistent appearance overall, and fixes many bugs (me: Nate Graham, Okular 1.11.0):

The default gesture for moving windows has been changed to Meta+click, to avoid conflicting with apps like Krita, Inkscape, and Blender which use Alt+click for their own usages. Tell all your friends and spread this information far and wide so people aren’t surprised! If you hate the new one and don’t use Krita, Blender, Inkscape, or another app which uses Alt+Click for something, you can of course change it back to Alt+click (Noah Davis, Plasma 5.20)

When dragging files from Dolphin (or elsewhere) onto the desktop, the files now end up at the location where you dragged them, rather than at the end of the last row (Radek Husek, Plasma 5.20)

The battery charge level icons displayed by the Battery And Brightness applet now reflect the current charge status more accurately (Daniel Roschka, Frameworks 5.71):
more accurate battery charge level icons

The standalone KRunner widget now closes the pop-up if you hit the Escape key while the text field is empty (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 5.20)

When using an ultrawide screen wider than 21:9, the default horizontal panel now no longer spans the entire screen width, but rather remains at the size it would be on a 21:9 screen, horizontally centered. Also in this mode, notification pop-ups that are configured to appear close to the Notifications System Tray applet will pop up close to it rather than way far away in a corner of the screen (Kai Uwe Broulik, Plasma 5.20.0):

The new OSDs now show a percentage label for brightness and volume (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.20):

Screenshot_20200529_092619

How You Can Help

Have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: We have migrated to GitLab!

After years of using Phabricator, KDE has officially begun the migration to GitLab! So far we are using it for patch review, and developer task tracking will be migrated soon. We are still using Bugzilla for bugs and feature requests as migrating those functions to GitLab is a significant project in and of itself! Already the KDE community is enjoying GitLab’s smoother workflow; why not take advantage of this and submit a merge request? 🙂

But that’s not all: big changes for Plasma 5.20 have started to land too. It promises to be a very significant release! Check it out:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

KDE Software is made by people just like you, often on their free time! If you know a KDE developer, send them a kind note. Developers like to put on a logical face but they need love and care too, especially during trying times like these.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: Plasma 5.19 beta and more

The KDE Plasma 5.19 beta has been released! We’re very proud of the work that’s gone into 5.19, but it is no doubt buggy and in need of QA. Please help us find all the bugs we missed! Go test it in your favorite distro; options include KDE Neon Testing or Unstable editions, openSUSE Krypton or KDE:Unstable repos, Arch’s kde-unstable repos, and probably many more I’m not familiar with (please tell me!).

But wait, there’s more…

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

Go test that Plasma 5.19 beta! Read the first paragraph of this post to see how. 🙂

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: Get new clipped subsurface Dolphin folder sizes

This week a lot of work was put into improving the reliability of the “Get new [thing]” feature integrated into many KDE apps and System Settings pages. Also, several Wayland improvements landed, including subsurface clipping. Finally, a major Dolphin feature request was implemented, allowing the display of on-disk folder sizes! There are also scads of other things, so read the full list and be happy:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

We recently updated our documentation for how to build and run Plasma Mobile locally on your desktop machine: https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/development#Plasma_Mobile. Plasma Mobile is really amazing and advancing at warp 9 speed, so please do check it out and see what all the fuss is about! More information can be found at https://www.plasma-mobile.org

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: Features you’ve been waiting for

This week we have some big stuff for you, including a rewritten global shortcuts settings page, an option to remember Dolphin’s window state across launches, a fix for longstanding kerning issues with centered text in QML-based software, and much more!

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

Have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: so many videos for you

Version 20.04.0 of KDE’s apps has been released! Go check it out; there’s amazing stuff in there.

Work proceeds on the Breeze Evolution task for Plasma 5.19. In particular, the System Tray visual overhaul subtask is nearly complete and our tray popups are looking better than ever:

Other work is proceeding nicely as well!

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

Just keep being awesome, and rest when you need it. These are hard times. Don’t beat yourself up for not doing more; it’s enough. We’ll get through it.

This week in KDE: our cup overfloweth with improvements

Three main topics will hold the floor today: Dolphin and other file management stuff, Plasma polish, and Wayland–we’re making a bit of a push on Wayland stuff so you should see more Wayland fixes going forward! For all three, we’re concentrating on fixing longstanding issues. There’s more too, of course!

Also, as you’ve no doubt noticed, I’m going to try out sending these posts on Saturday morning Europe time, instead of Sunday. Hopefully it should be a nice way to start your weekend. 🙂

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

Version 20.04 of the apps using KDE’s release service–such as Dolphin, Gwenview, Okular, Konsole, Spectacle and Elisa–is going to be released soon! Once it’s released, please upgrade and submit bug reports so we can get the issues you find fixed as soon as possible–hopefully by 20.04.1. If your distro features “unstable” or “pre-release” versions, feel free to try out the new apps bundle a week early. It’s a big help!

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and find out more ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: Libinput scroll speed, Dolphin remote access improvements, and more

This week’s update includes an eclectic collection of bugfixes and new features, some of them quite annoying or longstanding–such as being able to use Dolphin’s terminal panel on remote locations, set the scroll speed when using the Libinput driver (at least on Wayland), and connect to Samba shared on a workgroup with a space in the name. But wait, there’s more…

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

In Plasma 5.19, we are making a push on our Breeze Theme Evolution work. It’s proceeding, but would go faster with your help! There are tons and tons of mockups in the linked task and its child tasks, and what we really need at this point is people willing to help implement them. QML skills are helpful, and C++ is also useful for the needed work on the Breeze theme itself. If this sounds interesting to you, don’t be shy, step right up! Head over to the VDG channel to find out how you can get involved and coordinate work.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and find out more ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: Moar performance!

Some very nice performance fixes landed this week, which should substantially boost move and copy speeds for local transfers and transfers to and from Samba shares in particular. But that’s not all, and there’s more on the menu…

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

In Plasma 5.19, we are making a push on our Breeze Theme Evolution work. It’s proceeding, but would go faster with your help! There are tons and tons of mockups in the linked task and its child tasks, and what we really need at this point is people willing to help implement them. QML skills are helpful, and C++ is also useful for the needed work on the Breeze theme itself. If this sounds interesting to you, don’t be shy, step right up! Head over to the VDG channel to find out how you can get involved and coordinate work.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and find out more ways to help 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.

This week in KDE: The calm before the storm (of new features)

This week we worked really hard on a lot of important backend stuff that’s not so user-visible but will pay dividends down the road, such as launching applications using cgroup slices. We also did a ton of work on the Breeze Evolution project, however most of it is still in heavy development and not ready to be announced. It should trickle in during subsequent weeks, but until then, have a look at what did get landed:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

In Plasma 5.19, we are making a push on our Breeze Theme Evolution work. It’s proceeding, but would go faster with your help! There are tons and tons of mockups in the linked task and its child tasks, and what we really need at this point is people willing to help implement them. QML skills are helpful, and C++ is also useful for the needed work on the Breeze theme itself. If this sounds interesting to you, don’t be shy, step right up! Head over to the VDG channel to find out how you can get involved and coordinate work.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and find out more ways to help 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.