KDE Usability & Productivity: Week 66

Here’s week 66 in KDE’s Usability & Productivity initiative, and some major features have landed! Check it out:

New Features

• The label width/grid size for files and folders on the desktop is now user-configurable, allowing small icons to have small labels if that’s what suits you (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.16.0):
  
• Dolphin and other KDE apps now have the ability to display file creation dates on Linux when using version 2.28 or later of the glibc library (Méven Car, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• It’s now possible to open Kate with the insertion point at a user-specified position , using syntax like kate file://foo.txt?line=123&column=456 (Gleb Popov, KDE Applications 19.04.0 with KDE Frameworks 5.58)

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• Fixed a bug that could cause the Baloo file indexer to never stop indexing when configured to exclude a particular folder but include a sub-folder inside of it (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.57)
• Desktop item labels are now always sharp and crisp (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.9):
  
• For Plasma 5.12.x and 5.15.5, the minimum width of desktop items is now a little bit smaller and more reasonable (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.12.9):
  
• The System Monitor widgets’ configuration pages now accurately display the actual status of what’s visible/checked and what’s not (Pavel Mars, KDE Plasma 5.15.5)
• The button to mute notification sounds now works anytime , rather than only after you’ve adjusted the volume slider at least once (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Plasma 5.15.5)
• When using the proprietary NVIDIA driver and Qt 5.13, graphics are no longer often distorted after waking the computer from sleep (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
• Improved support for changing the brightness on DDC-compatible displays (Dorian Vogel, KDE Plasma 5.16.0)
• When using KDE applications outside of Plasma, file transfers are now displayed in a standalone window (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• When Krusader is installed, using the krarc:/ URL to access compressed files now allows you to use the URL navigator to go back to paths outside of the compressed file (Natsumi Higa, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• Dolphin no longer crashes when tagging multiple files at once (Nicolas Fella, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

User Interface Improvements

• When a document open in Kate or any other app using the KTextEditor framework (like KDevelop) is deleted on disk, the message widget alerting you to this fact now has a button allowing you to close it (Méven Car, KDE Frameworks 5.58):
  
• Improved auto-bracket support in Kate and other apps using the KTextEditor framework (Loh Tar, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• In Kate and other apps using the KTextEditor framework, spaces are now correctly inserted when doing multi-line indentation in block selection mode (Loh Tar, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• The “Alternatives…” menu item for widgets now has a better icon and text (Bjorn Fëber and me: Nate Graham, KDE Frameworks 5.58):
  
• On Wayland, the Plasma Vault window as well as other system-service-related windows now show the right icon (David Edmundson, KDE Frameworks 5.58.0)
• Kate and other apps using the KSyntaxHighlighting framework like KDevelop now do syntax highlighting for Fish shell scripts (Arnd Diestelhorst, KDE Frameworks 5.58)
• Dolphin no longer shows “Open With” menu items for empty directories (me: Nate Graham, KDE Applications 19.04.0)
• When navigating using the keyboard, Dolphin now automatically scrolls the view to ensure that selected items are visible (Tranter Madi, KDE Applications 19.04.0)

Finally I’d like to give a shout-out to KDE developer Matthieu Gallien, who is developing KDE’s next-generation music player Elisa, which is shaping up nicely . I’m close to using it as my daily driver. Give it a try via KDE’s nightly Flatpak builds , or compile it from source .

Eagle-eyed readers will no doubt notice many visual papercuts, but they’re being worked on!

Next week, your name could be in this list! Not sure how? Just ask! I’ve helped mentor a number of new contributors recently and I’d love to help you, too! You can also check out https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved , and find out how you can help be a part of something that really matters. You don’t have to already be a programmer. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

If you find KDE software useful, consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation .