Although we like to read and enjoy new features, KDE Plasma It would not be what it is today if they had not taken their time to correct some mistakes. I know very well what I'm talking about: a few years ago I installed Kubuntu, I loved how light and customizable it was but, as the expression says, it failed more than a fairground shotgun (on my computer, at least). Now everything works better, but the project continues to work so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
El this week's article in KDE it's called "Fixing a bunch of annoying bugs", and reading what's new in it we realize it's true from the start. The main reason is that there is no "New Features" section and it goes directly to the error correction. Some of them will arrive already in Plasma 5.23.4.
Performance fixes and improvements
- Creating files through the main Ark interface works again (Kai Uwe Broulik, Ark 21.12).
- Elisa no longer displays an error message instead of the number of tracks in the footer of the playlist when the playlist only has one track (Bharadwaj Raju, Elisa 21.12).
- Okular's zoom buttons are now always toggled on and off at the correct times, particularly when opening a new document (Albert Astals Cid, Okular 21.12).
- Ark can now handle archives whose files internally use absolute paths, instead of relative paths (Kai Uwe Broulik, Ark 22.04).
- Touch scrolling in Konsole now works correctly (Henry Heino, Konsole 22.04).
- Fixed a common crash in the systray (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.23.4).
- Fixed a common crash in Discover when used to manage Flatpak applications (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.23.4).
- The logout screen again has a blurred background and becomes animated as it appears and disappears (David Edmundson, Plasma 5.23.4).
- In the Plasma Wayland session, dragging a file or folder from folder view to parent folder no longer causes Plasma to crash (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.24).
- In the Plasma Wayland session, when using a stylus, it is now possible to activate other windows from their title bars and also interact with the title bars in general (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.24).
- Changing various settings in System Preferences no longer causes a flicker effect behind Plasma panels (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.24).
- Repositioning a panel from horizontal to vertical or vice versa no longer causes the control strip layout to get out of order (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.24).
- Activating the new Panorama effect no longer causes hidden panels to be shown automatically (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.24).
- In the Plasma Wayland session, the Clipboard applet now displays the entries for images added to the clipboard using the wl-copy command line program (Méven Car, Plasma 5.24).
Improvements in the user's interface
- Cursor and centered Breeze-style scroll bars no longer blend as much with your track (S. Christian Collins, Plasma 5.23.4).
- Kate has been superseded by KWrite in the default set of favorite apps, as it is a bit easier to use and less programmer-centric (Nate Graham, Plasma 5.24).
- The somewhat confusing Discover box at the bottom of the Updates page has been transformed into a couple of buttons and a label that should be clearer, and it also no longer says the word "Updates" so many times on that page (Nate Graham , Plasma 5.24).
- When using PipeWire and streaming audio from one device to another, the audio stream now displays the name of the remote device in the Plasma Audio Volume applet (Nicolas Fella, Plasma 5.24).
- The file properties window now shows which application will open the file (Kai Uwe Broulik, Frameworks 5.89).
- The icon selection dialog now preselects the icon for the currently used folder for easier keyboard viewing and navigation (Kai Uwe Broulik, Frameworks 5.89).
- Those little transient messages that sometimes appear at the bottom of the windows of Kirigami-based applications (which are absurdly called "Toasts" in Android land) now have easier-to-read text (Felipe Kinoshita, Frameworks 5.89) .
When will this all come to KDE?
Plasma 5.23.4 is coming November 30 and KDE Gear 21.12 on December 9. KDE Frameworks 5.89 will be released on December 11th. Plasma 5.24 will arrive on February 8. KDE Gear 22.04 has no scheduled date yet.
To enjoy all this as soon as possible we have to add the repository backports from KDE or use an operating system with special repositories like Kde neon or any distribution whose development model is Rolling Release, although the latter usually take a little longer than the KDE system.