The wheels of the Usability & Productivity initiative chug along, knocking out issue after issue! Check out how the KDE universe improved this week:

New features

• Konsole color schemes can now be downloaded using the Get Hot New Stuff system (KDE Phabricator revision D10766, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Harald Sitter)
• The “new screen connected” interface is now displayed when a laptop’s Display key is pressed (KDE bug 390096, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, authored by Sebastian Kügler)
• Okular now has a “print and then quit” command-line option (KDE bug 318998, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Dileep Sankhla)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that could cause the user switcher to only work on the second click (KDE bug 391007, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.3, authored by Fabian Vogt)
• Fixed a bug in Gwenview causing renamed images to show the wrong filename in Full Screen mode (KDE bug 390332, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Silas Lenz)
• Fixed a bug in Kate that could cause folders containing umlauts to not be shown in the Project plugin’s tree view (KDE bug 389415, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Dominik Haumann)
• Chromium’s titlebar buttons now look okay again when the window is maximized (KDE Phabricator revision D9773, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13, authored by Tom Anderson)
• Recent Documents that happen to be executable are now always opened, never executed (KDE Phabricator revision D10835, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, Authored by Алексей Шилин (Alexei Shilin))

UI improvements & polish

• Plasma’s Volume widget now allows you to transfer audio streams to different hardware devices using the context menu (KDE bug 384292, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13, authored by Christian Fuchs):
  
• Title and header text in Plasma is now 100% opaque and matches the actual color set in your text theme (KDE Phabricator revisions D10899 and D10902, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.44, authored by me, Nate Graham):
  
• Text field placeholder text is now lighter and less visible so it doesn’t compete with nearby content(KDE Phabricator revision D10922, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.44, authored by me, Nate Graham):
  
• When a device is plugged in and the notification pop-up appears, it stays visible while no user activity is detected to make sure you don’t miss it when you come back to your computer (KDE Phabricator revision D10921, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, quthored by Marco Martin)
• Dolphin’s Filter bar can now be involed with the backslash (/) key, just like in modern web browsers (KDE bug 156381, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Roman Inflianskas)
• Dolphin now exposes an option allowing you to choose whether or not to warn before emptying the trash (KDE bug 340572, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Roman Inflianskas)

I also want to make an exciting announcement: we’ve heard the prodigious amount of user feedback about the state of store.kde.org/Get Hot New Stuff, and we’ve started an initiative to clean it up. We’re also working to improve Discover’s display of store.kde.org resources. This initiative is in the early stages so it hasn’t borne fruit yet, but we believe it will provide a significant improvement in the experience of using 3rd-party plugins!

Like what you see? Consider becoming a part of this titanic and so far successful effort to produce the finest free software the world has ever known. Developers and bug triagers are in particular demand right now! It’s a great time to get involved.

If my efforts seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal.

Gwenview is a core KDE app, and an important tentpole of the Usability & Productivity initiative.

However, a few months ago Gwenview had no maintainer and few contributions. It was still a jewel, but was starting to bit-rot. Fast-forward to today: a lively crew of interested contributors are improving it daily, fixing bugs and resolving UI papercuts. Check out the Gwenview Phabricator project; it’s a hotbed of activity!

Gwenview highlights the value of joining a community over going your own way. Apps developed by a single person are vulnerable to dying when that person leaves the project, but apps with many developers can outlive the loss of any individual contributor.

Before starting a new project all by yourself, please consider joining an existing project whose design vision you can live with–it will be far more likely to outlive your interest in it. KDE offers a rich assortment of mature and popular cross-platform software already in use by people all over the world, so there are a lot of great options here!

Anyway, the new Gwenview team has been hard at work knocking out polish and fit-and-finish papercuts and adding new features. Here’s an assortment of what they’ve been up to recently:

New Features

• Gwenview now has a “Fill” feature that will make the image always fill the entire viewport (KDE bug 195579, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Silas Lenz)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the upper selection handles could become inaccessible iun full screen mode (KDE Phabricator revision D10876, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Henrik Fehlauer)
• Fixed a bug that caused SVG images to not be scaled up when “Enlarge smaller images” is set in Gwenview’s Configure window (KDE bug 364822, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Henrik Fehlauer):
  

 

UI improvements & polish

• Back and forward icons are now more appropriate, and all the buttons in the Save confirmation window now have icons (KDE Phabricator revision D10847, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Andrew Crouthamel):
  
  
• Replaced a few uses of -symbolic icons with regular ones, for better compatibility with non-Breeze icon themes (KDE Phabricator revision D10843, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Andrew Crouthamel)
• Selection and accent colors in full screen mode now match the system color scheme (KDE Phabricator revision D10649, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Huon Imberger):
  
• The Crop and Red Eye Removal toolbars now look right in full screen mode (KDE Phabricator revision D10763, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Huon Imberger):
  
• The thumbnail bar now remembers whether it was shown or hidden while in full screen mode (KDE Phabricator revision D10785, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Huon Imberger)
• Gwenview now starts in full screen mode if it was in full screen when last quit, like other KDE apps do (KDE bug 383093, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Peter Mühlenpfordt)
• The URL navigator now has consistent and appropriate margins in full screen mode (KDE Phabricator revision D10881 fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3, authored by Huon Imberger)

There’s more on the way, too. One of the core KDE apps, Gwenview’s future is bright and getting brighter. Come check out the Phabricator project and join the Gwenview team!

Another busy week in Usability & Productivity. As has been observed, we’re fixing issues at Warp 9 speed! KDE contributors racked up some pretty significant wins this week, and we’ve already got some great stuff in the pipeline that I hope to be able to announce next week! But for now, take a look at this week’s haul!

New Features

• Plasma now shows an on-screen-display that allows you to choose what happens the first time you connect in an unknown new screen (KDE Phabricator Revision D9414, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13):
  
• KRunner can now be limited to searching for archives, presentations, and spreadsheets; search for e.g. “Type:Archive [search term]” (KDE Phabricator revision D10624, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13.0)
• KRunner now shows a downward-pointing arrow you can click to bring up its search history (KDE bug 375207, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13.0)
  
• Okular gained improved support for calculations in PDF forms that use Javascript (KDE Phabricator Task T7805, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0) – See more information here!
• Okular now renders content within code tags in FictionBook files (KDE bug 387426, implemented in KDE Applications 17.12.3)
• Kate/KDevelop syntax highlighting is now compatible with SELinux config files and work better with AppArmor config files (KDE Phabricator revisions D10174 and D10220, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that broke certain global keyboard shortcuts for mute, sleep, and brightness control for some users upgrading to Plasma 5.12 (KDE bug 389991, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.2)
• Fixed a bug that broke auto-mounting certain disks for many users who upgraded to KDE Frameworks 5.43 (KDE bug 389479, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.44).
• Fixed a bug that caused KRunner’s bookmarks runner to crash all the time and not display favicons from Firefox (KDE bug 363136 fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.2)
• Fixed a bug where Spectacle would capture an inappropriately large area for certain windows (such as Spectacle’s own window!) when using “Window Under Cursor” mode (KDE bug 376350, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0)
• Fixed a bug where dragging a maximized window’s titlebar down using a touchscreen on Wayland did not de-maximize the window (KDE bug 390113, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.3)
• Fixed a bug that could cause entries in Dolphin’s breadcrumb menu to be accidentally activated when the menu was very tall and Dolphin’s window was close to the bottom of the screen (KDE bug 380287, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.44)

UI improvements and polish

• Headers in System Settings’ sidebar are now actually visible (KDE bug 384638, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.2)
  
• The Desktop Toolbox (That little square button in the corner of the desktop) now defaults to always living in the screen corner on the opposite side of the where the desktop icons appear by default, which based on whether you’re using a left-to-right or right-to-left language (KDE bug 390038, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0)
• Task Manager status icon badges are now readable when using the Breeze Dark theme (KDE Phabricator revision D10697, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.2):
  
• Hidden files in Dolphin and file pickers can additionally be shown and hidden again with the Ctrl+H keyboard shortcut, matching other Linux file browsers (KDE Bug 390527, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0 and KDE Frameworks 5.44)
• Places that have been hidden in Dolphin’s Places panel no longer appear in dropdown menus that show Places items, and categorys now get their own sub-menus for greater usability (KDE bug 389635, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.44):
  
• The Media Frame widget’s “image fill mode” dropdown menu now correctly displays all text (KDE bug 390571, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0)
• Clicking on Gwenview’s “show image full screen” hover button now actually shows the image in full screen mode (KDE Phabricator revision D10651, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0)
• In Gwenview’s browse mode, tooltips for long image names no longer lag badly when you move the cursor very quickly between thumbnails (KDE bug 245091, fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3)
  
• Most of Gwenview’s toolbars and menus that lacked icons now have them, and the icons are more appropriate in HiDPI mode (KDE Phabricator Revision D10726, Fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3):
  

• KTorrent now looks good in HiDPI mode (KDE bug 390605, Fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0):
  
• KGet now looks good in HiDPI mode (KDE bug 390903), fixed in KDE Applications 17.12.3):
  
• The Plasma Network Manager’s Add New Connection scrollbar now looks right when you use Breeze dark for your panel, but Breeze light for your windows (KDE bug 390846, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.3)

Someone on Reddit recently mused, “It’s like a year’s worth of improvement every week”. KDE’s momentum is intense, and it’s an amazing time to join the team as a contributor! In these tumultuous times, you can be part of a project that’s producing enduring value. KDE’s impact is truly global, and grows all the time. You can help us provide humanity with the finest free software ever written.

If my efforts seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal.

It’s been another big week in Usability & Productivity! We’ve got usability improvements, performance improvements, and bugfixes galore! Have a look:

• Plasma is now a full second faster to start (KDE Phabricator revision D10536, Improved in Plasma 5.13)
• Fixed a severe freeze in Discover 5.12 (KDE bug 390123, available in KDE Plasma 5.12.1)
• Apps whose desktop files contain spaces can once again be pinned and stay where they’re supposed to be on the panel (KDE bug 385942, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13)
• Creating a new file using Dolphin is now instantaneous (KDE bug 388887, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04)
• The Open With panel received a UI redesign that yields significant usability and productivity boosts, in addition to fixing some bugs (KDE bug 359233, implemented in KDE Frameworks 5.44):
  
• Fixed Drag-and-drop from Spectacle to Chromium (KDE bug 369404, available in KDE Applications 18.04)
• Dolphin’s Edit menu now has menu icons for Select All and Invert Selection, making it a 100% icon-complete menu (KDE Phabricator revision D10503, implemented in KDE Applications 17.12.3):
  
• All KDE Apps using the Deselect and Replace KStandardActions now get menu icons for them (KDE Phabricator revision D10508, implemented in KDE Frameworks 5.44):
  
• Apps on the touchscreen-friendly Application Dashboard can now actually be launched with touchscreen taps (KDE bug 366527, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.2)
• Gwenview can now be configured to not show the image action buttons that appear over thumbnails when you hover over them with the mouse (KDE bug 164847, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04)
  
  
• The Web Browser Widget has been overhauled and now works much better, regaining the features it lost in the KDE4 -> Plasma 5 transition (KDE bugs 361939 and 371023)
• Icons in Dolphin’s Information Panel now look good in HiDPI (KDE Phabricator revision D10532, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04)
• The Toggle Touchpad shortcut actually toggles the touchpad now (KDE bug 370588, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.12.1)

I’ve noticed a significant influx of new contributors recently, so what we’re doing seems to be resonating with the community. It’s a great time to get involved. Our documentation and new contributor pipeline are getting better all the time. You don’t need to be a programmer to start submitting patches! Most of my first patches were simple one-liners and string changes. Once you’ve got your development environment set up, submitting trivial patches like these is as easy as pie, and will familiarize you with the codebase so you feel comfortable tackling slightly larger challenges.

If my efforts seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, consider supporting me on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal.