This Week in Plasma: Polish and Stability
Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma!
This was another week of focusing on bug-fixing and UI polishing. Not massively flashy stuff, but critical for the long-term stability of the platform. Check out the work:
Notable UI improvements
Plasma 6.6.2
The arrows in Discover’s “See More” buttons are now in the right place and point in the right direction for both left-to-right and right-to-left languages. (Nate Graham, discover MR #1275)
Plasma 6.6.3
The Panel Spacer Widget no longer appears in the widgets sidebar, because it only makes sense to put on panels, and there’s already a dedicated button to do that. (Tobias Fella, plasma-workspace MR #6376)
Allowed some labels in the Task Manager widget’s tooltips to become multi-line instead of eliding. (Nate Graham, plasma-desktop MR #3598)
Plasma 6.7
Trying to save a color scheme with the name of an existing system color scheme no longer shows an accusatory and unclear error message; now it tells you you’ll need to choose a different name, and then prompts you to do so. (Akseli Lahtinen, plasma-workspace MR #6316)
Enabled the “Global Shortcuts” KRunner plugin by default. (Nate Graham, plasma-desktop MR #3590)
Notable bug fixes
Plasma 6.6.2
Fixed a bug that made KWin crash if you used the kscreen-doctor tool to create a custom modeline while already using a different custom modeline. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #516452)
Spectacle no longer crashes when you try to share a rectangular region screenshot using KDE Connect. (Noah Davis, KDE Bugzilla #516717)
Fixed various issues with Plasma’s remote desktop server when accessed from a client running Microsoft Windows. (Nicolas Blackburn, krdp MR #148, krdp MR #149, krdp MR #150, and krdp MR #151)
Fixed a regression that made bridged Ethernet networks show an inappropriate icon in the Networks widget. VLANs still show the wrong icon though; hopefully that’ll be fixed next week. Networking is complicated! (Nate Graham, KDE Bugzilla #516712)
Fixed a bug that made day names in the Digital Clock widget’s tooltip not be capitalized with certain languages. (Alessio Bonfiglio, plasma-workspace MR#6289)
Plasma 6.6.3
Fixed a case where KWin could crash when using the kscreen-doctor tool to change the resolution of a virtual screen in certain ways. (Xaver Hugl, KDE Bugzilla #517198)
Fixed a bug that could make Plasma crash on login with certain multi-monitor setups. (Dobry Nikolov, KDE Bugzilla #516937)
Fixed a regression that prevented certain monitors from automatically dimming at the right times. (Xaver Hugl, KDE Bugzilla #516867)
Fixed a regression that made Spectacle sometimes crash when quitting, instead of quitting cleanly. (Noah Davis, KDE Bugzilla #517064)
Fixed a regression that could cause long-presses on desktop widgets to unexpectedly trigger interactive controls on them. (Marco Martin, KDE Bugzilla #517040)
Fixed two visual glitches affecting on/off switches in Plasma when using non-default Plasma styles. (Filip Fila, KDE Bugzilla #504116 and KDE Bugzilla #516542)
Plasma 6.7
Fixed a somewhat common way that Plasma would quit (not crash, actually quit) with a Wayland protocol error when certain monitors woke from sleep. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #507691)
Fixed a bug that made Plasma’s file transfer progress notifications claim that the total number of files was 0 in cases where the actual number was very very large. (Kai Uwe Broulik, plasma-workspace #6369)
Fixed a funny bug that made auto-hidden Plasma panels unexpectedly un-hide when the password dialog appeared while the “Dim Screen for Administrator Mode” effect was in use, which it is by default. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #516864)
Frameworks 6.23.1
Worked around a Qt bug that was causing Plasma to repeatedly crash on login for some people. (David Redondo, KDE Bugzilla #514098)
Fixed a bug that caused KDE’s desktop portal implementation to crash when copying certain content in a remote desktop session. (David Edmundson, KDE Bugzilla #515465)
Fixed various inter-related issues with the app database that could make favorite apps disappear from launcher menus and the Task Manager widget under certain circumstances, including when using certain JetBrains apps in auto-start mode. (Harald Sitter, KDE Bugzilla #516426 and KDE Bugzilla #507838)
PulseAudioQt 1.8.0
Fixed a bug that could make Plasma crash when you tried to access certain audio devices’ profiles menus. (Harald Sitter, KDE Bugzilla #496067)
Notable in performance & technical
Plasma 6.6.2
Made the Global Menu widget more robust in the face of apps that lie about having any menus. (Christoph Wolk, plasma-workspace MR#6345)
Plasma 6.6.3
Made KWin’s screencasting feature more robust when using PipeWire 1.6.0 or newer, which imposes stricter requirements compared to earlier versions. (Conn O’Griofa, kwin MR #8939)
Plasma 6.7
Let the kscreen-doctor tool modify the value of screens’ AutoRotatePolicy key. (Xaver Hugl, libkscreen MR #291)
Made the kscreen-doctor tool capable of targeting the active screen, so you don’t need to look up its technical ID. Also made it possible to toggle HDR and wide color gamut support simultaneously. (Yossef Rostaqi, libkscreen MR #294)
How you can help
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You can also help out by making a donation! This helps cover operational costs, salaries, travel expenses for contributors, and in general just keeps KDE bringing Free Software to the world.
To get a new Plasma feature or a bug fix mentioned here
Push a commit to the relevant merge request on invent.kde.org.
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