This Week in Plasma: move by default when dragging-and-dropping
Welcome to a new issue of “This Week in Plasma”! Every week we cover the highlights of what’s happening in the world of KDE Plasma and its associated apps like Discover, System Monitor, and more.
This was another big week, the result of Plasma 6.4’s soft feature freeze fast approaching and then taking effect today. So there are tons of useful and interesting user-facing changes! I think Plasma 6.4 is shaping up to be a big release! Check it all out:
Notable new Features
Plasma 6.4.0
18 years after it was first requested, you can now configure the system so that dragging-and-dropping files and folders to another location on the same disk automatically moves them, rather than asking every time. (Sebastian Parborg, link)
You can now activate KWin’s full-screen zoom feature with a three-finger pinch gesture (thumb plus two fingers). (Xaver Hugl, link)
System Monitor now lets you monitor GPU usage on a per-process basis (Intel and AMD only for now; NVIDIA is coming later). (David Redondo and Lenon Kitchens, link)
The Task Manager now lets you configure it so that scrolling on a Task will cycle through only its windows, rather than all windows. (Theo Luschnig, link)
Added a new “Sensors” page to Info Center that allows you to see raw sensor data. (Thomas Duckworth, link)
Notable UI Improvements
Plasma 6.4.0
System Monitor’s History page now includes two styles of CPU graph (total and per-core) and also includes a GPU usage graph. (Arjen Hiemstra, link)
…But don't worry, if you had customized the History page in the past, your customized version will be preserved!
Improved the default quality level of the RDP server, and clarified the range of responsiveness/quality levels that you can choose between to be more sensible. (Akseli Lahtinen, link)
The authentication dialog now plays a sound from the sound theme when it appears. (Bogdan Cvetanovski Pašalić, link)
Frameworks 6.14
The dialog that asks you whether you want to open or run a file is now much fancier! (Kai Uwe Broulik, link)
Notable Bug Fixes
Plasma 6.3.5
Fixed a bug that caused notifications whose text include the < character to cut off all the following text. (Akseli Lahtinen, link)
Fixed a bug that caused Sticky Notes widgets on the desktop to forget their custom size if you resize them. (Christoph Wolk, link)
Plasma 6.4.0
Removed the videos from System Settings’ Desktop Effects page, since they were all in various states of brokenness, and basically could not work over the long term because nobody is going to keep them up to date. Removing them fixes multiple bugs. (Oliver Beard, link 1, link 2)
The item labeled “C” in language lists on System Settings’ Region & Language page now works. (Han Young, link)
Fixed a bug that caused Breeze-themed group box titles using non-default fonts and font sizes to not appear correctly. (Kai Uwe Broulik, link)
The System Tray configuration window’s “Entries” page is now smarter about knowing when a change that was made but not applied before being reverted shouldn’t be counted as a changed setting. (Christoph Wolk, link)
Fixed a bug with the “Activate, raise and pass click” window click mode setting not always raising the window. (John Kizer, link)
Gear 25.08.0
The System Tray icon for KTeaTime now respects your Plasma style’s color scheme properly, and the steeping indicator is rendered at an appropriate size. (Fabian Vogt, link 1 and link 2)
Frameworks 6.14
Other bug information of note:
- 1 very high priority Plasma bug (same as last week). Current list of bugs
- 20 15-minute Plasma bugs (down from 21 last week). Current list of bugs
Notable in Performance & Technical
Plasma 6.4.0
If you have a misbehaving monitor that doesn’t play nicely with DDC/CI (the mechanism that allows Plasma to manipulate screens’ hardware brightness levels), you can now disable this. (Jakob Petsovits, link 1 and link 2)
Implemented support for the “Relative tablet dials” (zwp_tablet_pad_dial_v2) Wayland protocol. (Nicolas Fella, link)
Implemented support for the “Toplevel tag” (xdg_toplevel_tag_v1) Wayland protocol. (Xaver Hugl, link 1 and link 2)
Implemented support for the “Color Representation” (color_representation_v1) Wayland protocol. (Xaver Hugl, link)
Improved game controller joystick support in various ways. (Jeremy Whiting, link)
The DrKonqi crash tracing system now uses much less memory while working, making it less likely to cause your system to run out of memory and terminate it. (Harald Sitter, link)
How You Can Help
KDE has become important in the world, and your time and contributions have helped us get there. As we grow, we need your support to keep KDE sustainable.
You can help KDE by becoming an active community member and getting involved somehow. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE — you are not a number or a cog in a machine!
You don’t have to be a programmer, either. Many other opportunities exist:
- Triage and confirm bug reports, maybe even identify their root cause
- Contribute designs for wallpapers, icons, and app interfaces
- Design and maintain websites
- Translate user interface text items into your own language
- Promote KDE in your local community
- …And a ton more things!
You can also help us by making a donation! Any monetary contribution — however small — will help us cover operational costs, salaries, travel expenses for contributors, and in general just keep KDE bringing Free Software to the world.
To get a new Plasma feature or a bugfix mentioned here, feel free to push a commit to the relevant merge request on invent.kde.org.
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