This week in KDE: The calm before the storm (of new features)

This week we worked really hard on a lot of important backend stuff that’s not so user-visible but will pay dividends down the road, such as launching applications using cgroup slices . We also did a ton of work on the Breeze Evolution project, however most of it is still in heavy development and not ready to be announced. It should trickle in during subsequent weeks, but until then, have a look at what did get landed:

New Features

• switch the current timezone by clicking on a different one in the Digital Clock applet’s pop-up

  It’s now possible to switch the current timezone by clicking on a different one in the Digital Clock applet’s pop-up (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.19.0):

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• While dragging a file in Dolphin, the cursor hint showing what will happen now changes appropriately if you press different modifier keys (Tranter Madi, Dolphin 20.04.0 when using Qt 5.15 or later)
• Files accessed using an sftp:// URL no longer show bogus creation dates when no creation date information is available (Harald Sitter, Dolphin 20.04.0)
• Okular’s Find function now finds occurrences of the given text that are split across multiple lines (Albert Astals Cid, Okular 1.11.0)
• Filelight now uses the correct font style in its tooltip (Shubham, Filelight 20.08.0
• Fixed a case where Discover could crash while updating when a terminal window is opened and used to perform a different kind of update ( Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.18.4)
• When using multiple virtual desktops, adding or removing rows is immediately reflected in the paper applet (Kai Uwe Broulik, Plasma 5.18.4)
• Fixed various sizing issues with long dates displayed in vertical panels (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.18.4)
• Disabled System Tray items no longer show up in the config window as “Always visible” under certain circumstances (Nicolas Fella, Plasma 5.18.4)
• Discover now respects the user-configurable APT update interval on Debian-based systems (Eli Acherkan, Discover 5.19.0)
• It’s no longer possible to accidentally click on invisible buttons in an unfocused Sticky Note widget, because they’re now only clickable when visible (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 5.19.0)

User Interface Improvements

• When adding a radio in Elisa, the “Title” text field is now focused by default (Matthieu Gallien, Elisa 20.04.0)
• The Pin button in the System Tray and Digital Clock pop-ups is now more appropriately sized and has a nicer icon (me: Nate Graham, and Noah Davis, Plasma 5.19.0):
  
• Monitors for the Baloo file indexer in the KInfoCenter app and the balooctl monitor command now consistently update once per second (Stefan Brüns, Frameworks 5.69)
• When creating a new file in Dolphin or another KDE app that uses the standard “create new file” menu, the appropriate file extension is now automatically appended to the filename (Ahmad Samir, Frameworks 5.69)
• The “Open With…” dialog now displays tooltips with additional information when you hover the mouse over app entries (Ahmad Samir, Frameworks 5.69)

How You Can Help

In Plasma 5.19, we are making a push on our Breeze Theme Evolution work. It’s proceeding, but would go faster with your help! There are tons and tons of mockups in the linked task and its child tasks, and what we really need at this point is people willing to help implement them. QML skills are helpful, and C++ is also useful for the needed work on the Breeze theme itself. If this sounds interesting to you, don’t be shy, step right up! Head over to the VDG channel to find out how you can get involved and coordinate work.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved and find out more ways to help 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!

Finally, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the KDE e.V. foundation .