Plasma 5.20 arrives with the new lower panel, more stable and with these novelties

KDE Plasma 5.20 will introduce many changes

Without as much delay as KDE Applications 20.08.2 that arrived a day later, we already have Plasma 5.20 here. The new major update to the KDE graphical environment is a major release as it introduces many new features in the form of functions and also fixes many bugs. So much so that last Saturday Nate Graham promised us that this series will be more fluid and stable than previous versions, including v5.19 that has mostly arrived to polish things up.

KDE has already announced the new release and he has published an article telling us about his most outstanding news, but still they have not been able to include all of them. As for them, I think some of them stand out, as the bottom panel has switched to using the icons-only mode by default, which is the one you have in the header capture that looks more like Windows 10. Next you have the rest of most outstanding news that have arrived with Plasma 5.20.

Plasma 5.20 Highlights

  • Much improved support for Wayland, rendering it like X11 and correcting screen transmission problems.
  • The ability to "Paste" by middle click has been added.
  • XWayland issues have been fixed.
  • KRunner can be used as a floating window, and not just from the top.
  • Notification center like grid.
  • The System Preferences now show the sections in which we have made changes.
  • The bottom panel becomes the Icon Only panel by default.
  • The display or OSD indicators have been rewritten and are less intrusive, so it will be less annoying when we change the volume or brightness, for example.
  • Added an option to task manager to disable minimization of active task windows on click.
  • Clicking on grouped items in task manager now cycles through each task by default.
  • The keyboard shortcut for moving windows and resizing them has been changed. Now, instead of dragging with the mouse while holding Alt, the META key is used.
  • Now we can dock windows in the corners in mosaic mode by combining the keys. For example, before we did it with the META key and a side, but now we can use another arrow immediately after to take it to a corner.
  • Now displays a warning when free space on system partition is running out.
  • A setting has been added to allow KRunner to use floating windows that are not docked on top.
  • KRunner also implements memorization of the previously entered search phrase and adds support for searching open web pages in the Falkon browser.
  • Minimized windows are now placed at the bottom of the task list in the Alt + Tab task switching interface.
  • Filtering of unused audio devices is enabled by default on the Sound Settings and Sound Control Applet page.
  • The 'Device Notifier' applet has been renamed to 'Disks & Devices' and has been expanded to provide information about all drives, not just external ones.
  • To switch to Do Not Disturb mode, we can now use the middle click on the notification icon.
  • Added a setting to change the zoom level in the browser control widget.
  • In the configurator, highlighting of changed values ​​is implemented, allowing you to clearly see which of the settings differs from the default values.
  • Added display of failure and event warnings to track the status of disks received through the SMART mechanism.
  • Completely redesigned and equipped with a modern page interface with settings for autorun, Bluetooth and user management.
  • The sound settings now have an option to change the balance, allowing the volume to be adjusted separately for each audio channel.

Your code is now available, soon in KDE Neon and from the 22nd in the Backports PPA

plasma 5.20 is now officially available, but it has yet to reach our teams. It should arrive before any other system to KDE neon, which is the operating system of the project that gives them the most freedom to work. Later, a little later, it will reach distributions whose development model is Rolling Release, such as Manaro KDE. As for Kubuntu, we will still have to wait for the launch of Groovy Gorilla, so we will have to be patient until next Thursday the 22nd, at least, to be able to install it. In any case, it will be worth it.


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  1.   Fran said

    Today I have installed the KDE Framework 75 in Manjaro KDE, and today I have installed Plasma 5.20 and the behavior is very erratic.

    When you access the right-click menu in an application from the taskbar, and try to navigate through them, almost immediately, the preview appears (which should not appear) covering said menu.

    When you hover over an icon for a while, its tooltip appears. If you right-click at that moment, both the tool tip and the tool configuration option disappear.

    Right-clicking on a tool on the taskbar, for example the clock, as soon as you go through the option «Add panel», the suboptions appear in the upper left corner of the screen instead of next to it. And as soon as you pass the mouse over the option "Add graphic elements", everything is deleted.

    Very unstable, very green. I don't know if this happens in general or only in my installation.