Plasma 5.21 already has the first batch of corrections prepared, and 5.22 and more news are still being prepared

This week, KDE launched plasma 5.21. From what I have read and continue to read, or stop reading, this version has not arrived with as many bugs as 5.20, a series of the graphical environment that took KDE neon especially badly. The project and the community say 5.21 feels great, and no worrisome bugs are being mentioned. Still, the K team has already identified the first points where they can improve.

La improvement will arrive this Tuesday, with the release of Plasma 5.21.1, and much of it mentioned this week by Nate Graham in his note are corrections for this point update. In fact, they only mention a new function, one that will come to Kate 21.04 and that will allow us to perform basic git operations from the same application. Here are the rest of the changes that KDE is working on to improve its desktop.

Performance and interface fixes and improvements coming to the KDE desktop

• Ark no longer asks for confirmation twice when updating a file in an archive (Ark 21.04).
• Keyboard repeat is no longer disabled (Plasma 5.21.1 and most distributions have implemented it before).
• The Task Manager, once again, allows you to run executable programs not provided by the distribution you have pinned (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Plasma Wayland session no longer hangs when logging in when using an Nvidia Optimus laptop (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Trying to log out no longer just fails, which sometimes happens (Plasma 5.21.1).
• The sleek new Plasma System Monitor application introduced with Plasma 5.21 no longer hangs on startup when not using the optional Systemd startup feature (Plasma 5.21.1).
• The hard drive activity widgets now show the correct information again (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Clicking on a screenshot in Discover now displays the correct one (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Kickoff App Launcher now works with a stylus (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Plasma no longer takes long to load when the splash screen is disabled when using the optional Systemd startup feature (Plasma 5.21.1).
• KWin's window manager brings back an option to disable screen tearing protection and maximize refresh rate regardless of what the GPU says (Plasma 5.21.1).
• The back arrow in the System Preferences sidebar header no longer looks bad when using a non-Breeze icon theme (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Synchronizing user settings with the SDDM login screen now makes the non-default font settings apply there, at least when using SDDM 0.19 or later (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Section headings in the "All Applications" category of the new launch menu are no longer lowercase when the first item in that section begins with a lowercase letter (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Wobbly windows again wobble correctly (Plasma 5.21.1).
• Vertical and horizontal maximization now works in the Plasma Wayland session (Plasma 5.22).
• The Rules page of the System Preferences window now enables its "Apply" button as soon as you change something, not when you change to something else (Plasma 5.22).
• KTextEditor-based applications no longer crash when we delete all their bookmarks (Frameworks 5.80).
• Plasma no longer crashes when we install a Windows application with WINE (Frameworks 5.80).
• Buttons on either side of the KRunner text field no longer display crashed tooltips when no search results are visible (Frameworks 5.80).
• System Preferences now arranges columns in the correct order when using a right-to-left language and a large window size (Frameworks 5.80).
• Grid views in system settings and elsewhere do not show irritating misalignment for adjacent items where one has a caption and the other does not (Frameworks 5.80).
• The Baloo file indexer no longer attempts to index swap .swp files (Frameworks 5.80).
• Discover no longer truncates reviews displayed on app pages (Plasma 5.21.1).
• The System Preferences home page now uses the nice new Get New [Item] dialog (Plasma 5.22).

When will all this come

Plasma 5.21.1 will arrive on February 23 and KDE Applications 21.04 will do so on April 22. The 20.12.3 will be available from March 4 and KDE Frameworks 5.80 will be on March 13. Plasma 5.22 will arrive on June 8.

To enjoy all this as soon as possible we have to add the KDE Backports repository 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.

You have to remember that the above will not be met with Plasma 5.21, or not for Kubuntu until the release of Hirsute Hippo, as we already discussed in this article in which we talk about Plasma 5.20. As for Plasma 5.22, they have not yet indicated which version of Qt5 it will depend on, so we cannot be sure if it will come to Kubuntu 21.04 + Backports or we will have to wait for 21.10.