The KDE Plasma team is focused on bug fixing in preparation for the release of Plasma 6.2.1. This is the penultimate week of development before the code is frozen for the release. The developers are working hard to ensure that Plasma 6.2 is in good shape, and they are confident that it is.
The most serious remaining issues are related to notification freezing and rendering problems, which were caused by recent changes to fix a less significant problem. In the worst-case scenario, the changes will be reverted before the final 6.2 release if the regressions cannot be fixed in time.
There have been many notable improvements and bug fixes in this week's update. Let us briefly discuss them.
Table of Contents
User Interface Improvements
Plasma 6.2 is getting a visual refresh in several areas. Some of the notable improvements are given below:
Kickoff Menu:
Kickoff's category icons are now symbolic and monochrome, aligning with the HIG and recent changes to Discover.
System Settings:
System Settings' Region and Language page has an alphabetised and properly capitalised list of languages.
Digital Clock:
Calendar dates in the Plasma Digital Clock popup are horizontally aligned, even with event text.
File Renaming:
Context menus are now available for the text field when renaming files and folders on the desktop.
Legacy X11 App Support:
System Settings' Legacy X11 App Support page supports non-default settings highlighting.
Screen Edge Behavior:
Screen edges without virtual desktops no longer glow when "Switch virtual desktops on screen edge" is enabled.
Notifications:
Plasma notifications for job progress no longer display a "Details" button when there are no details to display.
Windows Snapping:
Windows no longer snap to the invisible edge of an auto-hidden panel when visible.
Widgets Sidebar:
Improved margins and paddings for the "Add Widgets" sidebar.
Icon Dragging:
Dragging an app representation to the desktop now only offers "Copy" and "Link" options, removing the potentially confusing "Icon Widget" option.
Default Applications Page:
System Settings' Default Applications page now better communicates when an app is forced to open file formats it doesn't support.
Kwin:
KWin effects requiring keyboard shortcuts to activate now mention this on System Settings' Desktop effects page.
Sticky Notes:
Plasma's Sticky Note widget has a symbolic monochrome icon on panels using the Breeze icon theme, completing the project to support symbolic panel icons for default widgets.
New Sleep Icon:
The "sleep and screen locking are inhibited" icon has been redesigned.
Notable Bug Fixes
No update would be complete without fixing pesky issues. Here are some notable bug fixes in Plasma 6.2:
- Fixed several crashes related to KWin, including:
- A crash that could occur when using the Khronkite tiling script.
- A crash that could occur when using the Sheet effect.
- A crash that could occur when dragging a layer from GIMP to the desktop.
- Fixed a crash in Plasma when cancelling a Global Theme and desktop layout application.
- Fixed a crash in Powerdevil that could occur on login.
- Fixed crashes that could occur on closing System Settings' KWin Rules and Device Automount pages.
- XWayland apps now correctly expose accessibility properties to screen readers.
- Discover now provides a more user-friendly message when Flatpak encounters an "Aborted due to failure" error during updates.
- Fixed a bug causing some tiled CSD-using apps (like VSCode) to become un-tiled when their headers are clicked.
- Extremely long labels for shortcuts on System Settings' Shortcuts page no longer overflow the layout.
- Fixed an issue causing maximised windows in multi-screen setups to be restored to the wrong screen.
- Setting the
Metakey to toggle KWin's Overview effect now works consistently after a reboot. - Newly installed or deleted third-party splash screens are now correctly reflected on the relevant System Settings page.
- Improved edge and hotcorner triggering on screen edges with auto-hide panels.
- Fixed a graphical glitch affecting users with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs when maximising windows on a screen with a floating panel.
- Fixed a colour bug in Kirigami that affected the appearance of disabled buttons and some text elements.
- Fixed sizing issues with
Kirigami.Dialogand its subclasses, ensuring they are wide enough for long footer buttons. - Fixed visual issues with the Qt font selector dialog when using a dark colour scheme.
- Setting the
GTK_USE_PORTAL=1environment variable no longer breaks font rendering in GTK apps unless the GTK portal is also installed.
Performance and Technical Improvements
The KDE team hasn't just been busy resolving existing issues; they've also been working behind the scenes to enhance performance.
One notable improvement involves the Plasma Task Manager widget. The Plasma Task Manager widget's context menu now appears faster when recent document tracking is disabled, especially with networked home directories.
Fixed binding loops in Kirigami.Dialog and its subclasses, potentially leading to performance improvements.
The Plasma 6.2 beta release is available for testing. Bug reports are encouraged to ensure a stable final release. For more details, check the KDE developer Nate Graham's blog post in the link given below.
