On September 19, 2019, the beta version of the KDE Plasma 5.17 desktop environment was released. According to the developers, this new version includes many improvements and features, making it even lighter and more functional.
Release highlights:
- System settings received new capabilities to manage Thunderbolt hardware, a 'night' mode was added, and many pages were redesigned for easier configuration.
- Notifications have been improved, and a new do-not-disturb mode has been added for presentations.
- The Breeze GTK theme for Chrome/Chromium browsers has been enhanced.
- The KWin window manager has received many improvements, including those related to HiDPI and multi-screen support, as well as fractional scaling support for Wayland.
The full release of version 5.17 will take place in mid-October.
The Plasma 5.17 release is dedicated to one of the KDE developers, Guillermo Amaral. Guillermo was a passionate KDE developer, describing himself as an 'incredibly beautiful self-taught multidisciplinary engineer.' Last summer, he lost his battle with cancer, but all who worked with him will remember him as a good friend and a competent developer.
More details about the new features:
Plasma:
- The Do Not Disturb mode automatically activates when screens are 'mirrored' (e.g., during a presentation).
- The notification widget now uses an improved icon instead of displaying the number of unread notifications.
- UX widget positioning has been enhanced, especially for touch screens.
- The middle mouse button behavior in the Task Manager has improved: clicking the thumbnail closes the process, while clicking on the task itself launches a new instance.
- Light RGB hinting is now the default font rendering mode.
- Plasma now starts faster (according to the developers).
- Conversion of fractional units to others in Krunner and Kickoff (Image)
- The slideshow in the desktop wallpaper selection can now have a user-defined order, not just random (Image)
- The ability to set the maximum volume level below 100% has been added.
System settings:
- A 'night mode' option for X11 has been added (Image)
- Accessibility features for moving the cursor using the keyboard have been added (using Libinput).
- Now, custom fonts, color settings, and themes can be applied for SDDM, so the login screen can match the overall desktop environment styling.
- A new feature has been added: 'Sleep for a few hours, then hibernate'.
- You can now set a global keyboard shortcut to turn off the screen.
System monitor:
- The ability to view network usage statistics for each process has been added.
- The ability to view NVidia GPU statistics has been added.
KWin:
- Fractional scaling has been added for Wayland.
- Improved support for high resolution HiDPI and multi-screen setups.
- Scrolling with the mouse wheel on Wayland now consistently scrolls the specified number of lines.
Live images can be downloaded. here
Source: linux.org.ru
