A lot is going to change KDE in the coming months. The desktop will go up to Plasma 6, and on that leap they met in Germany to discuss how to do things. There will be many modifications, some that you will like less, some that you will like less, but part of the intention is that the second most used desktop in Linux gains in stability, as well as that everything looks better after starting an operating system with KDE software for the first time. time.
This has been published by Nate Graham, who also publishes weekly articles on the news they are working on, in a note that he has titled "best default values". KDE met at the offices of Tuxedo Computers, one of its sponsors, and they started talking about how do you want things to be from now on. One of them is that they will make fewer pitches, and this may be one of those points that some like more and others less.
The future of KDE starts with Plasma 6
Graham says he already uses Plasma 6 by default, and hopes to stay that way until the stable version is released. As for the new, there will be changes to some defaults. In Plasma 6, opening files and folders will be done with double click, and not with just one click. Most of the KDE team prefers one click, but users and different platforms work with two, so moving to two will make things easier for those who decide to move to KDE. I have always had the double click, but because the distributions I have used have decided so. Logically, this change will be like this after the installation from scratch and it can be used again with one click if the change is made from System Preferences.
The next point that they have dealt with is a little more scary: wayland by default. And why is it scary if I've been using it for weeks? Well, it still has a lot to polish. If I use it on my own and run into problems, it is my responsibility; If they change it and there are problems, it is their responsibility. And they have a lot of work ahead of them. Right now, in some WordPress boxes where there is something by default, I have had to refresh the page twice to be able to delete that element and enter what I wanted manually.
But KDE promises that it will work hard and make this different. So that no one worries the X11 session will still be available (as GNOME does), and many of the bugs are from third parties, so they consider that they are the ones that should improve their software.
Other default settings in Plasma 6
El floating panel will be enabled by default in Plasma 6. I think they're going to have to improve it a bit more to make it more consistent, because if I'm not using it it's because things don't quite fit together. Kickoff, i.e. the app launcher stays on the “non-floating” edge, and I think that should be different. Also, when hiding, sometimes it does not hide from the bottom edge, but from a few millimeters above (the gap between the floating panel and the bottom edge), and this does not give a good impression.
One of the reasons for making this change is that although Windows 11 was based on KDE, people say that KDE copied Microsoft, and putting the floating panel will make a very identifiable difference.
There will also be changes to the accent color. By default, the top bars will use that color. They posted a sample, but it's a montage and to be honest, having used a similar color to the light theme, I hardly notice a difference.
New application switcher (Task Switcher), removed gestures...
El application switch It is something that I personally have never used much, neither in Windows, nor in Mac OS X (I have not used macOS) nor in Linux, but sometimes the keyboard shortcut falls. I have to say that the one that is in Plasma by default is not the most beautiful in the world, and I have changed that to the option that shows the applications in cascade. The choice of KDE will not be that, but they will change it to the following image:
What there is now is a bar that comes out from the left edge and goes down from the app as we press the tab (with Alt pressed). The one KDE intends to use is the one with the grid, and it will present "cards" under the icons, and also stacked vertically grid mode. Along the way, other options that say they're rarely used will be removed; pray that they don't remove your favorite option.
I have to confess that I did not understand what they want to change next and I had to enter the linked task To see some light The change is that they are removing the ability to switch desktops by scrolling the mouse wheel or using two fingers on the trackpad, a gesture also known as flicking. scroll. I had been worried that they were going to eliminate one of the gestures that I use the most, which is to move from one desktop to another by sliding three fingers on the touchpad, but what they will eliminate the option to change desktop by sliding two fingers on the virtual desktops icon in the bottom panel.
It's better explained in the linked task and makes perfect sense: swiping on the volume and turning it up or down makes sense; do the same on the desks, no. It can happen that it moves by accident, we go to a completely empty window and we don't know what happened or how to get back to where we were. This can happen to all of us, but especially to the less experienced.
Also related to scrolling, KDE will introduce a change where clicking the scroll bar will jump directly to that point. You can return to the previous behavior from the settings.
Two KDE Plasma releases per year
KDE has matured a lot in the last 8 years. In KDE 4 not everything was going as well as it should, in 5 the reliability was greatly improved and many improvements were also added, but now everything seems to be in place. It is not necessary to release three versions a year, let alone the 4 that were released before, and they will go on to release two Plasma releases per year.
This will not apply to the first changes, but when they believe they have reached a certain stability. It will give more time to get things ready, and it will also allow distros that release two versions a year to use the latest version of Plasma. GNOME releases two versions a year, and both Ubuntu and Fedora add the latest in April and October. If they do the same with Plasma, Kubuntu and Fedora in their KDE edition, they will never have to use something "old".
Plasma 6.0 will arrive alongside Qt6 and Frameworks 6.0 in the second half of 2023. In the meantime, 5.27 is what's available now, and it will continue to receive updates as an LTS release.
Images and content: nate graham.