This week in KDE: tap-to-click by default

This week we weren’t done improving input device defaults; for Plasma 6, touchpad tap-to-click is now enabled by default! If you’re curious about the reasons, click that link.

In addition, convergence is starting to happen. You might notice that the number of open Plasma 6 issues is lower this week than it was last week! A good sign for sure.

Plasma 6

General info – Open issues: 85

In the Plasma Wayland session, text copied from an XWayland-using app now remains on the clipboard after it quits (David Edmundson, link)

In the Plasma Wayland session, dialog windows with parent windows set to live on multiple virtual desktop now always appear on the current virtual desktop (Vlad Zahorodnii, link)

System Settings’ minimum window size is now smaller, fitting better into low-resolution 1366×768 screens with thick panels (me: Nate Graham, link)

System Settings’ Printers page has been rewritten in QML for better future maintainability and a more modern and consistent style (Mike Noe, Print Manager 23.12 with Plasma 6. Link):

Icons in Dolphin’s item view now look better and smoother when using a fractional scale factor (Kai Uwe Broulik, Dolphin 23.12 with Plasma 6. Link)

Other User Interface Improvements

In Dolphin, you can now middle-click a file to open it in the first app in the expanded “Open with” list, rather than the default app for its file type (Méven Car, Dolphin 23.12. Link)

.3mf files now display thumbnails showing their 3D model contents (Bernhard Sulzer, Dolphin 23.12. Link)

Other Significant Bugfixes

(This is a curated list of e.g. HI and VHI priority bugs, Wayland showstoppers, major regressions, etc.)

Yet again fixed the ability to monitor NVIDIA GPUs using System Monitor, this time improving compatibility with multi-GPU setups (Oliver Beard, Plasma 5.27.8. Link)

The time that you configure your system to dim the screen after is now respected, instead of the screen dimming in half that time (Konstantin Kharlamov, Plasma 6.0. Link)

Starting a Plasma Wayland session in VirtualBox is now more reliable (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 6.0. Link)

Improved reliability with symlinked or hardlinked files on Samba shares opened with KIO-using KDE apps (Kevin Ottens, Frameworks 5.110. Link)

Other bug-related information of interest:

• 4 Very high priority Plasma bugs (down from 5 last week). Current list of bugs
• 57 15-minute Plasma bugs (down from 59 last week). Current list of bugs
• 90 KDE bugs of all kinds fixed this week. Full list of bugs

Automation & Systematization

Koko now produces Flatpak bundles with every commit and Merge Request change via its CI system (Tobias Fella, link)

…And everything else

This blog only covers the tip of the iceberg! If you’re hungry for more, check out https://planet.kde.org, where you can find more news from other KDE contributors.

How You Can Help

If you’re a developer, work on Qt6/KF6/Plasma 6 issues! Plasma 6 is usable for daily driving now, but still in need of bugfixing and polishing to get it into a releaseable state by the end of the year.

Otherwise, visit https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover other ways to be part of a project that really matters. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE; you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to already be a programmer, either. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

And finally, KDE can’t work without financial support, so consider making a donation today! This stuff ain’t cheap and KDE e.V. has ambitious hiring goals. We can’t meet them without your generous donations!