KDE Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile too) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. In addition to other hardware, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.7.
This new major release brings back the Oxygen and Air themes from the KDE 4 era, including the Horos wallpaper. The ability to switch virtual desktops independently for each output/display was added. It is now easier to toggle between light and dark mode directly from the Brightness & Color widget. You can now test microphones from the audio settings, and assign a custom global keyboard shortcut for “push-to-talk” microphone un-mute. If you have Plasma keyboard enabled and a physical keyboard key is long-pressed a selection of related special characters is presented to choose from. When it comes to printing it is now much easier to connect to shared printers on Windows networks, and a new print queue management tool offers more power than ever before. Vietnamese lunar calendar was added, and you can now select the default system calendar application. It is now possible to set mouse and tablet stylus pointers to be synced. ICC color profile can now be applied when HDR mode is active. Graphical performance has been improved and power usage lowered for CPU-rendered applications, some full-screen applications and on Intel graphics hardware. This release also features an experimental preview of the Union theming engine, which is based on web-like CSS definitions and will make creating and using new themes easier in the future.
For complete list of new features and changes check out the KDE Plasma 6.7 release announcement and the complete changelog.
Some thoughts for features I care, for my personal setup:
Highlights / Per-screen virtual desktops: Just in time for me. I finally added another screen and had to enable a workaround KWin Script “Virtual Desktops Only on Primary”. For my use case this was already enough, but it is an awkward workaround that should have not been there. So glad this is resolved. Just need to remember to tick that off after the update and check it out. :-)
Highlights / Press-and-hold for special characters: This will have a bigger impact for me personally probably. There are lot of solutions to this available, but after my new installation (years ago now) I didn’t bother to set anything up. Right now my keyboards physical layout is German, but I use an English-German hybrid layout in KDE. Its confusing enough to remember where all the special keys and access combinations are, so glad there is a much simpler way built into KDE now.
Widgets / “Background Apps” in the System Tray: I think this could be useful for certain apps that does not have a tray icon, but are able to go to background. Because otherwise I don’t see any use for this. How many applications that can go to background without closing the app doesn’t have a system tray? Oh is it for GNOME first designed apps maybe?
Usability / Faster virtual desktop switching in the Overview: This ability to switch desktops via shortcuts should be default on any multi desktop system. Me coming from tiling window managers is used to Meta+1 (or any other number) to switch to desktop with one hand directly to the desired desktop. I find the new pre-configured way of scrolling through with Page Down / Up a bit awkward. Not sure why they opt in to that.
Usability / “Type-ahead” on the desktop: Curious about this one. Nothing much to say, as there is no deep explanation here. Need to see it in action.
Theming / Breeze: Oh no, I do NOT enjoy rounded stuff. The new slide in for notifications on the other side looks pretty.
Theming / Union: This is a big one. But as I see its still not part of the regular desktop and needs additional “that is under heavy development” package to be installed. I’m actually happy with my current setup, so won’t try it out yet. But this development is exciting for future me.