KDE Developer Nate Graham's usual weekly update is out! This week in KDE, despite many contributors being on vacation, the focus remained on delivering improvements and squashing bugs. The highlight of this week's update is the modernization of System Settings and improvements to Wayland color management.
One of the major achievements this week is the significant improvement in Plasma stability. With only 30 fifteen-minute bugs reported, Plasma 6 has reached the same level of stability as Plasma 5 in just six months. This achievement indicates the KDE developers' commitment to offering both a feature-rich and stable experience to users.
Table of Contents
System Settings Modernization
- The Keyboard page has been redesigned, aligning it with the modern design language adopted by other system settings pages. This revamp aims to simplify navigation and improve user experience.
- The Thunderbolt page gets a UI modernization, which also addresses a text readability issue, making it easier for users to interact with Thunderbolt settings.
- Several System Settings pages still using QtWidgets have received UI updates, bringing their visual style closer to their modern QML counterparts. This change contributes to a more cohesive and visually appealing experience across System Settings.
Wayland Enhancements
Significant changes have been made in bolstering Wayland support. Notably, KWin, the KDE window manager, now supports rendering intents and black point compensation for the Wayland color management protocol, enabled by default to allow applications with matching support to leverage these features immediately.
Further enhancements include:
- KWin gains support for the "alpha-modifier" Wayland protocol.
- Users can now copy to and paste from the system clipboard while using Overview or other KWin effects in Wayland sessions.
UI/UX Improvements
This KDE update brings several UI/UX improvements, notably modernising various elements and enhancing user-friendliness:
- The System Settings Keyboard page has been redesigned for improved ease of use and visual consistency with similar modern pages.
- The System Settings Thunderbolt page has undergone UI modernisation, additionally addressing a text readability issue.
- Several System Settings pages still utilising QtWidgets have received UI updates to better resemble their QML counterparts.
- Discover and its System Tray icon now consistently indicate the presence or absence of updates.
- The Environment Canada weather provider's forecasts are now displayed correctly within the System Tray popup's default size.
- Dragging a file from a web browser to the desktop or Dolphin now presents a drop menu with relevant actions, improved text, and icons.
- The "Screen Edge" effect in KWin has been renamed to "Highlight Screen Edges and Hot Corners" to align with Human Interface Guidelines and improve user understanding.
- Plasma's critical battery level notifications and the unsaved changes dialogue in System Settings have been refined for better user experience, adhering to Human Interface Guidelines for clarity and reduced redundancy.
The update also improves the consistency of design elements:
- Okular has implemented several text label adjustments for HIG compliance, utilising proper ellipses and Unicode symbols.
Other Notable Improvements
- Plasma's weather widget now displays "feels like" temperatures, providing users with a more accurate perception of the current weather conditions.
- Discover and its system tray icon are now in sync regarding available updates, eliminating any confusion about update status.
- Dragging and dropping files from web browsers to the desktop or Dolphin now presents a refined drop menu containing only contextually relevant actions with improved icons and text.
Main Bug Fixes Addressed in this KDE Update
The main bug fixes addressed in the KDE update are:
- SVG wallpaper support has been restored in Plasma 6.1.5 after it was broken in Plasma 6.1.4 by fixes to Centered placement mode.
- A KWin bug that prevented copied text from being pasted into some XWayland apps has been fixed in Plasma 6.2.0.
- A Qt issue that sometimes prevented windows on disconnected screens from moving to a remaining screen has been worked around in Plasma 6.2.0.
- Several edge cases for a bug that prevented Plasma's "Show Alternatives" popup from closing have been addressed in Plasma 6.2.0.
- An issue that caused some symbolic icons in Plasma panels to be coloured incorrectly with mixed light/dark global themes has been fixed in Frameworks 6.6.
For more details, read Nate Graham's blog post:
Last Week's KDE Update:
