I can't help but remember that all developers say their latest software is the best ever, but I also can't help but echo what Nate Graham says about KDE. It doesn't say that exactly, but it is the project's desire, that Plasma 5.27 be the most incredible of the 5 series so that we are all happy for 8 months until they release the first version of Plasma 6. And if with the graphical environment we don't have enough, they will also improve your applications.
The novelty that strikes me the most is that Spectacle will allow you to record the screen. I haven't found much information about it, so I don't know if it will record it with or without sound, or in what format the recorded video can be saved. It does explain that you can record it in Wayland, and taking into account that Show 23.04 hasn't been released yet and there's no mention of X11, this feature might work only on Wayland.
New Features Coming to KDE
- Spectacle allows you to record the screen in Wayland (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Spectacle 23.04, header image).
- OpenConnect VPNs now supports double authentication mode using SAML authentication (Rahul Rameshbabu, Plasma 6.0).
- By default, the tooltips on all of our clock widgets now show seconds, in case we need to see them quickly, but don't want to have to manually enable the settings display. This is also configurable of course (Alessio Bonfiglio, Plasma 6.0).
- When using the Unsplash Picture of the Day plugin, you can now choose to show only results from the "Cyber" category (David Elliott, Plasma 6.0):
Improvements in the user's interface
- When we have the filter bar open in Dolphin and it's filtering the view, clicking a Places panel for the current view entry now resets the filter and shows you everything (Serg Podtynnyi, Dolphin 23.04).
- Spectacle's “Capture current popup only” checkbox is no longer present in Wayland, because it doesn't do anything there (Nate Graham, Spectacle 23.04).
- The System Preferences Icons page now shows a "Help" button that leads to documentation (Natalie Clarius, Plasma 5.27).
- It is now possible to remove Global Themes directly from the grid view in System Preferences, without having to go to the "Get New Global Themes..." window to do so, just like in most other System Preferences pages to choose from visual theming options (Fushan Wen, Plasma 6.0).
- Hovering over scrollbars (don't drag them; hovering over them) now works consistently in QtQuick-based applications. And they also look better when using right-to-left language. (Ivan Tkachenko, Frameworks 5.103).
Correction of minor bugs
- Spectacle is no longer included in screenshots taken without a delay of 1 second or more using the main window (David Redondo, Spectacle 23.04).
- Under certain circumstances, Discover no longer always crashes on startup unless its cache folder (~/.cache/discover) is empty (Fabian Vogt, Plasma 5.24.8).
- KWin can no longer sometimes crash when quickly resizing a quick tile window adjacent to another quick tile window (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.27)
- Fixed a recent regression in Plasma's Wayland session that could cause GTK applications to send clipboard data to Plasma only once and fail all subsequent times (David Redondo, Plasma 5.27).
- GTK4 apps no longer scale twice when using screen scaling (Luca Bacci, Plasma 5.27)
- When a window rule has been configured that wants to move a window to a screen location that does not exist (for example, because that location is on another screen that is no longer connected), it will no longer be moved to an off-screen location. where it is open but inaccessible; instead the rule simply doesn't get executed until the location you want to move the window to exists again (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 5.27)
- When an application requests that the system prevent the system from going to sleep - and only from going to sleep - Plasma no longer inappropriately prevents the screen from locking as well (Kai Uwe Broulik, Plasma 5.27).
- In the Plasma Wayland session, fixed another bug that could cause you to not be able to choose a screen resolution other than the native screen resolution (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.27).
- In the Plasma Wayland session, minimized GTK2 applications can now be restored to their system tray icon (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.27).
- Fixed a number of subtle bugs in the positioning of desktop widgets, so your widgets will no longer move slightly every time you start the system (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.27).
- In the notifications widget, the "show more" text no longer overlaps other history notifications (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.27).
- If we've resized the Kickoff app launcher popup, browsing to it no longer sometimes resets it to the default size (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.27).
- After installing a new font, clicking the "OK" button for the "job is finished" message now makes it go away as expected (Nate Graham, Plasma 5.27).
- The entire system no longer hangs sometimes (but especially when using the Btrfs filesystem) while installing or updating Flatpak applications (David Redondo, Frameworks 5.103).
- Fixed a bunch of clipboard issues in Plasma Wayland session (David Redondo, Frameworks 5.103).
This list is a summary of the fixed bugs. The complete lists of bugs are on the pages of 15 minute bug, very high priority bugs and overall list. This week a total of 155 bugs have been fixed.
When will this all come to KDE?
plasma 5.27 It will arrive on February 14, while Frameworks 103 should arrive on February 4, and there is no news on Frameworks 6.0. KDE Gear 22.12.2 will arrive on February 2, and 23.04 is only known to be available in April 2023.
To enjoy all this as soon as possible we have to add the repository backports of KDE, use an operating system with special repositories like Kde neon or any distribution whose development model is Rolling Release.
Images and content: pointieststick.com.