This week in Usability & Productivity, our flagship Kate text editor got a lot of love–and there’s more in the pipeline too! But that’s not all…

New Features

• Bluetooth devices now show their battery status in the power plasmoid (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• The Notes widget now has a “Transparent with light text” theme (KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• The Baloo file indexer is now able to extract and display cover art for .asf, .wav, .aiff, .ape, .wavpack and .speex files (Alexander Stippich, KDE Frameworks 5.54)
• Kate’s File menu and tab context menu now feature a bunch of useful new actions: Rename, Delete, Open Containing Folder, Copy File Path, Compare [with another open file], and Properties (Gregor Mi, KDE Applications 19.04.0):
  
  

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• When scrolling through lists of Plasma addons in Discover, images are now properly cached so they don’t reload when you scroll backwards (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0
• The names of color schemes are now translatable, and should be translated soon (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Much more metadata from image EXIF data is now visible in Dolphin, Gwenview, Baloo, etc. (Alexanter Stippich, KDE Frameworks 5.54)
• Made some progress on the Samba share discovery issue: when using a modern version of the SMB protocol, now Samba shares for Mac and Linux machines can be discovered (Harald Sitter, KDE Applicstions 19.04.0)
• Konsole now does a better job of rendering box and line characters (Martin T. H. Sandsmark, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

User Interface Improvements

• Improved the user interface and layout for the Digital Clock’s settings window, which fixes various bugs (Marco Martin and me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
  
• The wallpaper chooser interface now looks good when using a fractional scale factor and no longer cuts off the text of the “Get New Plugins…” button (Marco Martin, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• In the Devices Notifier plasmoid, devices’ eject icons are now better aligned (Thomas Surrel, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• When you try to copy a file greater than 4GB in size to a FAT-32 formatted disk (which cannot support files of that size), an appropriate error message is now displayed (Shubham, KDE Frameworks 5.54)
• The Baloo file indexer now indexes metadata in SVG images (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.54)
• When using Kate’s Build View plugin, there is now better error handling when the build directory cannot be created (Loh Tar, KDE Applications 19.04.0):
  
• Improved the user interface for Kate’s Code Analysis feature (Gregor Mi, KDE Applications 19.04.0):
  

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

This week in Usability & Productivity we did a lot of work on our Plasma 5.12 long-term support release and performance improvements for KIO and Baloo (many of which are not individually significant enough to be mentioned here, but will add up to some great improvements over time). Lots of nice bugfixes and new features snuck in, too.

New Features

• Plasma’s Network Manager now allows configuring IP Tunnel settings (Pranav Gade, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• In Konsole, it’s now possible to quickly switch between the current and previous tab using ctrl+tab (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• Choosing a particular app as your default browser now actually works when the one listed in the combobox is already the one you want and you don’t need to change it (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• GTK-based apps run in Plasma no longer use the wrong cursor by default (Fabian Vogt, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• Made the Global Menu work with a few more odd apps (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• The Audio Settings page is now always translated properly when opened in its standalone form (Albert Astals Cid, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• Fixed a few ways that the Comics widget could crash (Pavel Mos, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• Text in System Settings’ scrollable sidebar (as well as other users of the Kirigami UI toolkit and throughout Plasma) no longer displays graphical glitches when scrolling with a touchpad (Marco Martin, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• It’s now possible to find files rated 5 stars with the Baloo file indexing system (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Improved small file copy speed in KIO by being smarter about how timestamps are compared (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Radically improved small file copy speed in KIO (14 hours to 10 minutes, in one case) with some code optimizations that are too clever for me to understand them (David Edmundson, KDE Frameworks 5.54)
• In Dolphin, when using icon view and icons are sorted by size, going back no longer selects multiple unrelated files or folders (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 18.12.0)

User Interface Improvements

• Filenames on desktop icons now have enough horizontal space to be legible even when their icons are very tiny (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.8):
  
• Filenames on desktop icons are now easier to read when the wallpaper is very light-colored or visually busy (me: nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.8):
  
  
• The Info Center app now opens to a sensible default window size so no scrollbars are required and nothing gets cut off (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.8):
  
• When enough apps have been added to the Kickoff Application Launcher’s favorites list that it becomes scrollable, it now defaults to showing the top of the list, not the bottom (Eike Hein, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Comboboxes in QML and Kirigami apps and Plasma now open on click, not on click-and-release (Marco Martin, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• AppImage apps now get their own icons when previews are turned off (Friedrich Kossebau, KDE Frameworks 5.53):
  
• Breeze icons for muted and off status are now better and more consistent (Rafael Brandmaier, KDE Frameworks 5.54):
  
• Okular’s document display now stays aligned to the available viewing area better when using keyboard navigation (Tobias Deiminger, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• When opening multiple files in Kate using the command line, the files are opened in new tabs that have the same ordering that was specified on the command line (Guillermo Molteni, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

This week in Usability & Productivity was full of bug squashing and user interface polishing! We landed a lot of nice fixes and improvements rather than focusing on big new features, and hopefully you’ll like them all!

Bugfixes

• In Discover, links in the descriptions for Add-On pages are now clickable (Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Discover no longer complains that AppStream isn’t set up (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• When there’s a Trash icon on the desktop, its context menu now displays the correct “Empty Trash” text (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The weather widget now correctly handles a temperature of zero degrees (Friedrich Kossebau, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• When using a Global Menu, the menu correctly empties itself when its window becomes minimized and inaccessible (Michail Vourlakos, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• When manually removing files and folders from the trash, symlinks are now preserved instead of being silently deleted (David Edmundson, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Fixed a bug that was preventing KIO from using a speed optimization when moving or copying fixes, which should improve performance (David Edmundson, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• User interfaces that employ the Kirigami FormLayout, such as the Workspace and Mouse System Settings pages, are now always laid out correctly (Marco Martin, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Breeze icons are no longer too light when used outside of KDE Plasma (Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Middle-clicking on the breadcrumbs bar of an inactive split view in Dolphin now correctly opens the middle-clicked-on folder in a new tab (Thomas Surrel, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• The “Only show when using the application” feature for Places panel items now works in Dolphin (Elvis Angelaccio, KDE Applications 19.04.0)
• When run on Wayland, Spectacle no longer frustratingly presents features that are not yet supported and don’t work (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Applications 19.04.0)
• Konsole no longer presents a non-functional option to remove “-Konsole” from the titlebar (Andrew Smith, KDE Applications 19.04.0)
• Konsole’s “Vary the background for each tab” feature now works when the base background color is very dark or black (Andrew Smith, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

UI Polish & Improvement

• It’s now possible to close the Application Dashboard by clicking in the empty space in the search results view (Eike Hein, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• The task manager’s window preview tooltips now better handle an enormous number of windows being open (Eike Hein, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• In System Settings’ icon view, the background is now flat, instead of showing a gradient that was impossible for most screens to render properly (Jan Przybylak, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• In Dolphin, the move-to-trash/delete context menu item is now disabled rather than hidden when the selected item cannot be deleted (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 19.04.0)
• In Kate, the Comment feature is now smart enough to uncomment currently-commented code (Silas Lenz, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• In Kate, three more plugins are now enabled by default, including the popular and useful inline Terminal feature (Gregor Mi, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

Let’s have a bit more Usability & Productivity, shall we? The KDE Applications 18.12 release is right around the corner, and we got a lot of great improvements to some core KDE apps–some for that upcoming release, and some for the next one. And lots of other things too, of course!

New Features

• It’s now possible to mark a network connection as “metered” (Jan Grulich, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Dolphin now shows a list of any active tags in the Places Panel (Nicolas Fella, KDE Applications 19.04.0):
  
• Dolphin now lets you assign or remove tags to items using the context menu (Nicolas Fella, KDE Applications 19.04.0):
  

Bugfixes

• The Breeze and Breeze Snow crosshair cursors now look much better and are actually distinguishable against dark and light backgrounds, respectively (Noah Davis, KDE Plasma 5.12.8):
  
• Discover once again shows progress for update tasks (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• The VPN configuration interface is now usable on a small screen (Jan Grulich, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• The Fade, Glide, and Scale effect are now mutually exclusive (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• When you change the titlebar font size in such a manner that it will cause the titlebar to become taller, that size now change takes place immediately rather than after a reboot (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Konsole now behaves better on the GNOME dash (David Hallas, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• In Dolphin, after you unmount a volume from the Places panel, it’s now possible to mount it again (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• In Konsole, when shift-clicking to extend a selection that was originally generated by double- or triple-clicking on text, the selection is extended by individual words for a double-click, or by whole lines for a triple-click(Glenn Coombs, KDE Applications 18.12)
• In Discover (and all Kirigami apps using multi-column navigation), it’s now possible to interact with user interface elements on columns that are visible but not focused (Marco Martin, KDE Frameworks 5.53)

UI Polish & Improvement

• KRunner no longer shows duplicates when files are available in multiple categories (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• Discover now features improved handling and presentation for errors arising from misconfigured add-on repos (Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Discover now supports Flatpak extensions, and lets you choose which ones of them you want to install (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• We have awesome new sorting icons, one of which is now used in a new sort order chooser toolbar button in the file open/save dialogs (Rafael Brandmaier and me: Nate Graham, KDE Frameworks 5.53):
  
• Dolphin now has a menu item you can use to show all hidden Places panel entries (Chris Rizzitello, KDE Applications 18.12.0):
  
• Kate’s embedded terminal now automatically synchronizes the current directory with the location of whatever file is open, and can now be focused and de-focused using the semi-standard F4 keyboard shortcut (Gregor Mi, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• In Kate, when the Quick Open view is already open, trying to open it again will now switch back to viewing the open document (Loh Tar, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Kate, KDevelop, and other apps using the KSyntaxHighlighting framework now offer syntax highlighting for BrightScript files (Daniel Levin, KDE Frameworks 5.53)
• Sublime Text gets a nice new Breeze icon (Rafael Brandmaier, KDE Frameworks 5.53):
  

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

Week 44 in Usability & Productivity is coming right up! This week was a bit lighter in terms of the number of bullet points, but we got some really great new features, and there’s a lot of cool stuff in progress that I hope to be able to blog about next week! In the meantime, take a look at this week’s progress:

New Features

• Plasma now offers support for WireGuard VPN tunnels when the appropriate Network Manager plugin is installed (Bruce Anderson, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The Alt+tab window switcher now supports screen readers for improved accessibility (Christian Hempfling and Frederik Gladhorn, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The Alt+tab window switcher now supports using the keyboard to switch between items (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• KRunner’s unit conversion runner can now convert between several units of measurement that are used in the petroleum industry, such as oil barrels and milli-darcies (João Oliveira, KDE Frameworks 5.53)

Bugfixes

• KDE Connect works again in KDE Neon (Erik Duisters, KDE Connect 1.3.4)
• The KWin window manager no longer crashes when KRunner is invoked while switching between virtual desktops (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• KWin window rules now work for Electron apps and other apps that change their window class during operation (Martin Flöser, kDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Discover now respects your locale preferences when displaying dates and times (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.14.4)
• Fixed a common crash with recently-rewritten System Settings pages (David Edmundson, KDE Framewotks 5.53)

UI Polish & Improvement

• Discover’s Settings page has been renamed “Sources” and now has actual pushbuttons instead of hamburger menus (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• Discover now has improved handling for local packages: it can tell you the dependencies and shows a “Launch” button after installation (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Improved the standalone search widget’s layout to match KRunner (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• We have brand new icons for the root folder and the root disk/volume, which are now used for in the Places panel for the root folder item, and to specially highlight the root volume/disk (me: Nate Graham and Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.53):
  
  New Root icons seen at the default size (16×16) and a larger size (32×32)
• Dolphin now warns you of the consequences before letting you rename something to begin with a period, which makes it invisible (Shubham Jangra, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Okular’s inline annotations now have improved the word wrap behavior (Albert Astals Cid, KDE Applications 18.12.0)

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

Get ready for the flood, because have loads of amazing stuff for you in this week’s Usability & Productivity update! There are a ton of pictures today, so hold onto your hats and be glad you don’t have to access the internet over a 56k modem (unless you do have to access the internet with a 56k modem, in which case, my condolences):

New Features

• Breeze emblem icons have been entirely redesigned, resulting in a more consistent visual style and better contrast against the icon they’re drawn on top of–and they’re much better-looking, too (Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.52):
  
  
  
• Also re-did the package-related icons in a similar style (Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.52):
  
  
• On Discover’s Updates page, it’s now possible to uncheck and re-check all available updates to make it easier to pick and choose the ones you want to apply (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)

Bugfixes

• KWin once again saves custom application/window settings (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.14.3)
• Discover no longer freezes for a moment when you view an app that’s available from distro repositories as well as a Flatpak version and then click on the “Sources” dropdown menu Flatpak repo (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.14.3
• The System Tray configuration page now displays correct icons for the Audio Volume and Networks entries (Kai Uwe Broulik and me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.14.3)
• Global keyboard shortcuts now work properly when using a non-US keyboard layout (Fabian Vogt, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• The Workspace System Settings Page now looks good when using a fractional scale factor (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• In System Settings, the category name for KWin’s global shortcuts no longer changes semi-randomly (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Turning on NumLock at boot now works on Wayland (Martin Flöser, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• More Samba shares are now recognized and made configurable (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• In KMail, HTML emails are now readable when using a dark color theme (Laurent Montel, KDE PIM 5.10.0)

UI Polish & Improvement

• The Cuttlefish icon viewer tool now opens with keyboard focus on the search field and quits when you press Ctrl+q (Chris Holland, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• Fixed a wide variety of issues with the Breeze-GTK theme–including many inconsistencies between the light and dark variants–and made it more maintainable so future improvements will be much easier (Matthias Groß, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The Kickoff Application Menu now has subtle lines separating the content view from the header and tab bar (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• Re-worked the layout of several of the Folder View settings pages to better match the common style (me: nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• Tweaked many System Settings pages to standardize the icons, wording, and placement of the bottom buttons, most notably the “Get New [thing]…” buttons (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0). For example:
  
  
  
• The Baloo file indexer is now able to read tags from .asf files, read ape tags from .ape and .wavpack files, and read ID3 tags from .wav and .aiff files(Alexander Stippich, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• Konsole now changes the icon of an inactive tab when it receives a bell signal so you can tell which tab received the signal (Andrew Smith, KDE Applications 18.12.0):
  
• In Konsole, when using default word-character settings, you can now double-click on a path that has a colon on the end of it without getting the trailing colon selected (me: Nate Graham, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Kate can now be optionally configured to quit itself when the last tab is closed, just like Dolphin now does (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 18.12.0)

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.

Hey look, there have been 42 of these Usability & Productivity posts. This week there’s a lot of in-progress work I’m tracking or working on myself that didn’t quite make it, but what I can report on is hopefully no disappointment! See for yourself:

New Features

• Implemented screen reader support for desktop icons, so visually impaired users can now read the icons on the desktop (Christian Hempfling, KDE Plasma 5.12.8). This is important work and we’re very interested in mentoring anyone else who has experience with or interest in accessibility work. If you’re interested, check out our page on how to get involved!
• Okular has a new “Zoom to 100%” menu item that uses the standard Ctrl+0 keyboard shortcut (me: Nate Graham, KDE Applications 18.12.0):
  

Bugfixes

• Discover no longer always shows the “What’s New” section on app pages even when there isn’t any relevant information there (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.14.2)
• Plasma no longer crashes when changing the icon of an app launcher shortcut (Ivan Čukić, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• Okular no longer crashes when clicking on a link in a local PDF file that points to another local PDF file (Albert Astals Cid, KDE Applications 18.08.3)
• When saving an annotated PDF file opened from a symlink, Okular no longer replaces the symlink with a new copy of the saved document (Albert Astals Cid, KDE Applications 18.08.3)
• In Konsole, it’s once again possible to double-click on a line of text that’s longer than the window’s width and have the whole thing selected (Pavel Khlebovich (KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Fixed one way that SFTP connections could fail (Harald Sitter, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Monochrome status emblems now change their color properly when the icon is selected with a full-size highlight (KDE Applications 18.12.0):
  

UI Polish & Improvement

• Discover now consistently uses the phrase “Checking for updates…” (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• It is now possible to configure whether scrolling over the virtual desktop pager will “wrap around” when reaching the end of the virtual desktop list (Phuong Nguyen, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• When performing a search using the Kickoff Application Launcher, if the cursor happens to be located in the place where search results show up, the item that appears under the cursor is no longer automatically and unexpectedly selected (Eike Hein, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The context menu for desktop icons now toggles between the “Move to Trash” and “Delete” items when the Shift key is pressed, just like in Dolphin (Eike Hein, KDE Plasma 5.14.3)
• Emblem icons that badge files and folders are now better-positioned and don’t obscure so much of the item itself (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• The Ctrl+w keyboard shortcut now quits Dolphin if there’s only one tab open (Alexander Saoutkin, KDE Applications 18.12.0)

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 my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal. Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.