Plasma 6, is the next and most important release of KDE that is expected in this 2023
Few days ago information about the changes was released that have been done in the codebase behind the userland release of KDE Plasma 6.
Among the changes announced, it stands out that the behavior to activate icons on the desktop has been changed, as well as that the files and directories now require a double click to open files and directories by default instead of a single click, whereas a single click in the new KDE just highlights the icon.
According to the developers, the change will make it easier for newcomers who switched to KDE from other systems to adapt, and for KDE users who prefer the old one-click-open setup, they can do so without any problem.
Other recent changes in KDE include a completely redesigned blur effect in KWin, which also solves the problems that were present, such as fractional scaling, as well as blocky cursor traces for NVIDIA users and some AMD GPUs.
In addition to this, it also highlights the updated interface for sending messages about program crashes, which has been improved and now includes an option to report the failure automatically.
It is also noted that in the configuration, it was possible to see technical details about the autorun sequence, which allows the user to be able to debug the autostart systemd units.
Backlight control has been improved, since now when turning the keyboard backlight on or off, it now remembers its previous brightness level, in addition to the fact that adjustments were made so that the minimum screen brightness is now always 1, while the minimum of the keyboard is now 0, this in order to ensure that the backlight of the screen never turns off completely at the minimum brightness.
The project to completely eliminate the concept of icons in the Plasma style has been completed, so now all the icons come from the system-wide icon theme, as now the widget icons have been unified in the systray and systray configurator.
On the other hand, it is also worth mentioning that in the code base of Firefox which compiles the version 118 adds support for the fractional scale extension of the Wayland protocol, which improves browser display in the KDE Plasma environment when Wayland and non-integer scale values are used.
Of the bug fixes, it stands out that a way in which taking screenshots using Spectacle could crash in the Plasma X11 session was fixed, as well as a way in which Plasma could crash when launching an application using the Task Manager while its tooltip was open.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Dolphin's settings window has been restructured to reorganize things to be more logical.
- The initial location for Elisa's "Files" view is now user-configurable, but defaults to the system "Music Folder" location
- KCalc now remembers the size of your window and also the position in X11
- Apps using the KHolidays framework now have support for Tanzanian holidays
- Fixed a test that had been failing for a long time in plasma-workspace, and in the process required fixing several things that weren't actually working that text had detected
- Fixed a major graphical issue affecting people using certain AMD GPUs
- Speed up glCopyTexSubImage2D graphics operation on integrated Intel GPUs, helping various KWin effects
- Improved icon for Breeze .bak and other backup files
- Added the ability to search for settings on individual pages to QtWidgets-based settings dialogs now have a search field in the header area
finally if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the original publication in the following link