🥇KDE Plasma 6.7 Beta Release

KDE Plasma 6.7 has been announced to be entering beta testing, with the codebase frozen for feature changes (only patches are accepted). KDE Plasma 6.7 is scheduled for release on June 16.

Key changes in KDE Plasma 6.7:

The package includes the Plasma Bigscreen user interface, designed for use on multimedia devices connected to TVs and projectors. The environment is optimized for large screens and keyboard-free operation using remote controls or voice assistants.
The release includes the unified Union style engine, which enables the use of various application styling technologies available in KDE. By default, CSS is used for styling, replacing the previously used SVG. A new implementation of the Breeze theme, styled in CSS, has been prepared. The Union engine consists of three layers:
- The input layer is implemented through plugins that parse input stylesheet formats and convert them into abstract rendering descriptions. For example, SVG or CSS themes can be used as input formats.
- The middleware layer is designed as a library that describes the data model and methods for applying styles to each element.
- The output layer contains plugins for converting the generic style generated by the middleware layer into drawing commands specific to a particular graphics stack. For example, the output could generate styles for QtQuick or Qt Widgets.
Full session saving and restoration support has been implemented when using Wayland, allowing you to restore the state, virtual desktop bindings, and window positions of an interrupted session after a reboot or crash. This implementation is based on support for the xdg-session-management protocol added to KWin, introduced in Wayland-Protocols 1.48.
Added the ability to independently switch between virtual desktops on each screen (previously, virtual desktops were switched synchronously on all monitors, but now they are linked to each monitor).
A keyboard input mode for diacritics and special characters not available on the physical keyboard has been added. Holding down the key associated with a special character now displays a tooltip, allowing you to quickly select the desired special character while typing. Selection is made using the cursor keys, by pressing the numbers mentioned in the tooltip, or by clicking the mouse. This mode is implemented in the plasma-keyboard module and requires enabling the virtual keyboard (System Settings > Keyboard > Virtual Keyboard).
It is now possible to install your own sound themes from downloaded archives, without having to manually unpack them into the …/share/sounds directory.
A feature has been added for testing microphone settings, allowing you to record yourself and then play back the recording to evaluate the microphone sensitivity setting.
The old dialog for managing the print queue has been replaced with a call to a separate application, plasma-print-queue, which allows you to visually manage multiple queues for different local or external printers.
The KWin compositing manager now supports multi-GPU swapchains, and supports the Vulkan graphics API in the DRM backend (Direct Rendering Manager). Future optimizations will improve performance in multi-GPU configurations. Currently, the performance of integrated AMD and Intel GPUs paired with discrete AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards using Vulkan is roughly comparable to OpenGL.
Added support for the Notification xdg portal for configuring and displaying notifications from isolated applications, such as those delivered in the Flatpak format.
Added support for the "Background apps" (org.freedesktop.background.Monitor) portal (xdg-desktop-portal), which allows graphical applications to go into the background with hidden windows, leaving only an indicator of their status in the system tray.
Added support for the second version of the org.freedesktop.impl.portal.InputCapture portal, which is used to provide access to input capture from sandboxed applications.
KWin now supports the Wayland protocol ext-background-effect-v1, which allows for effects such as background blur.
The KWin compositing manager implements support for the experimental xx-fractional-scale-v2 Wayland protocol, which eliminates unnecessary gaps between adjacent elements on high-density screens, such as between a maximized window and a panel. The xx-fractional-scale protocol enables scaling of the logical coordinate system, which uses integer values, to improve positioning accuracy and increase the resolution of logical coordinates down to individual pixels. This capability addresses the limited resolution of the logical coordinate system, which is insufficient for the pixel-level positioning required for full implementation of fractional scaling in KDE.
Using the xx-fractional-scale protocol, the composite server and client can consistently use different coordinate systems (logical and pixel) when working with the wl_surface object. Logical coordinates are used to describe the size of content and window positions from the user's perspective, while pixel coordinates reflect the actual sizes in buffers when rendering to the screen. The xx-fractional-scale protocol introduces a scaling factor (scale) that links logical and pixel coordinates, allowing for handling situations where multiple pixels correspond to a single logical coordinate unit.
KWin has been updated with optimizations that improve performance and power efficiency in programs that render using the CPU. These optimizations are noticeable in most KDE programs and in applications using QtWidgets (QtWidgets uses the CPU for rendering, while QtQuick utilizes GPU acceleration). For example, when working in KDevelop, the pointer now always moves smoothly, and CPU usage during scrolling has been reduced from 80-90% to 20%.
KWin continues to support the Vulkan graphics API in the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) backend. Using Vulkan is expected to improve performance in multi-GPU configurations. Vulkan can now be used to load textures from the GPU to the CPU.
On systems with i915 and Intel XE drivers for Intel GPUs, KWin now supports hardware overlay planes, allowing content to be displayed directly without compositing. This change improves performance and reduces power consumption for applications and games that support the added functionality.
Menus using the Breeze theme now change the background of elements when clicked.
The interface for displaying a QR code in the clipboard widget has been simplified (the copy button has been moved to the header).
The accuracy of widget positioning on the desktop has been improved. When moving a widget to an area where it doesn't fit, a thumbnail is now displayed showing the nearest available space where the widget will actually fit.
The style of tooltips can now be changed to match the active design theme.
Improved implementation of the Mouse Marks effect (turning the cursor into a marker that leaves lines on the screen) on touchscreens. Support for drawing multiple lines simultaneously on multi-touch screens has been added.
Keyboard layout options have been added to the settings synchronized with Plasma Login Manager.
The option to use larger icons and increased margins on touchscreens and tablets has been removed from the Task Manager and System Tray widgets. This option was reported to be inconsistent and caused display issues.
A global push-to-talk mode has been implemented, in which the microphone is turned on only when a certain key combination is pressed and held.
Buttons for quickly switching between light and dark modes have been added to the brightness and color control widgets.
The configurator now displays settings pages for game controllers, mice, and touchpads only if these devices are present.
Improved editing of desktop elements on touchscreen systems.
When searching for the word "memory", a recommendation to launch the System Monitor application is now included.
The System Monitor widgets and application now support monitoring network activity on the FreeBSD platform.
A progress indicator has been added to the dialog for terminating frozen processes.
The Color Picker widget now displays a hint about the absence of the selected color (previously it showed that the color #000000 was selected).
In overview mode, you can now use scrolling or the Page Up/Page Down keys to switch between virtual desktops.
On Wayland systems, the stylus pointer image is synchronized with the mouse and touchpad pointer.
KWin now allows you to define persistent rules that exclude the contents of certain windows when recording screencasts.
The Spectacle screenshot program now has a "--release-capture" option, equivalent to the "Accept on click-and-release" option in the settings (creating a screenshot immediately after releasing the mouse button after selecting a rectangular area, without separate confirmation of the operation).
The System Monitor app and widget for monitoring system status now take into account the choice of units of measurement for information, such as GB (billion bytes) or GiB (2^30).
Implemented rounding of screen scaling levels close to 100%, 200%, and 300% to these values to improve performance.
The Widget Explorer control panel now appears on the desktop next to the mouse pointer instead of near the left edge of the screen.
In the configurator, the page with remote desktop settings has been moved to the "Security and Privacy" group.
The "Disks & Devices" widget now handles devices mounted in loop mode better.
In the Kicker application menu, similar to Kickoff, it is now possible to use non-square buttons in the panel.
The configurator now supports video previews for SDDM login screen themes.
Improved design of dialogs created by KWin.
Added a setting to change the delay before the window switching interface appears after you start holding Alt+Tab.
Options for changing the sorting order and grouping by virtual desktops and rooms (activitie) have been added to the window list view widget settings.
In the configurator, on the cursor settings page, the cursor images are now resized to the selected size when previewed.
Kwin now remembers the margins between windows in tiled mode for each screen.
When you reopen the desktop wallpaper selection interface, you will be taken back to where you left off last time.
In the Emoji picker interface, the skin tone icon options are grouped into a separate pop-up dialog.
The ability to set a global key combination for clearing notification history has been provided.
The configurator uses a more traditional "< Back" button to return from subcategories (previously it was "< Category Name").
Added a separate interface for configuring network printers shared in Windows-networks.
The configurator's notification settings page now supports playing selectable notification sounds, regardless of whether notification sounds are enabled.
Options for L2TP VPN have been added to the network setup page in the configurator.
The ability to choose the Air Plasma theme, which is more lightweight than the Oxygen theme, has been returned.
A rounded selection style has been implemented in QtWidgets-based applications such as Dolphin, Okular, and KMail. This change unifies the appearance and seamlessly transitions to the selection style previously used in QtQuick-based applications.
The Kickoff app menu now flashes the "Favorites" section of the menu immediately after adding an app to "Favorites" via the context menu, to clearly show where the app can now be quickly found.
Notifications generated by the Plasma desktop have had their icon changed and their title shortened.
The clock widget now supports the Vietnamese lunar calendar.
The settings interface has been updated OpenVPN, which adds support for parameters to control compression, MTU, NCP, TLS, timeouts and ciphers.
In the configurator, on the network connection settings page, the “Wi-Fi” and “Wi-Fi Security” tabs are combined.
A button has been added to the application access rights management page in the configurator to revoke all permissions for screencast recording by applications at once.
A KIO S3 handler has been released, allowing you to work directly with files stored in S3-compatible cloud storage services such as Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, and MinIO from Dolphin and KDE applications.
A unified button for returning to the previous page has been implemented in the clipboard and network connection management widgets (two "Back" buttons are no longer displayed on nested pages).
KRunner has a plugin enabled by default that displays information about global key combinations.
The widget implementing the global menu ensures that the menu for the active window is displayed, even if that window is located on another screen. To restore the previous behavior, where the menu disappears after moving the window to another screen, a special option has been added to the settings.
When tiling two adjacent windows, they are now evenly centered across the available screen space, taking into account panels (previously, the window closest to a panel would shrink more than the other window).
Improved reliability of screencast recording and remote desktop requests initiation in sandboxed applications.
Improved support for 3D acceleration in configurations with multiple GPUs, one of which does not support OpenGL.
Clipboard issues in some wxWidgets-based applications, such as KiCad and Audacity, have been resolved. The fix is included in the wxWidgets 3.3.3 development branch.
The kscreen-doctor utility now supports changing the AutoRotatePolicy screen property, determining the active screen, and simultaneously enabling/disabling HDR and Wide Gamut support.
In the dialog for selecting a screen for broadcasting to other systems or providing shared access, the visualization of thumbnails has been improved and the display of the desktop wallpaper has been ensured as a background.
The ability to add additional clock widgets for different time zones has been introduced, which will, among other things, show the time differences from the current time zone.
In the global menu widget, the corners of the highlighted menu items are rounded.
The ability to define a separate modifier key for moving focus to a panel has been provided.
The dialog for selecting directories has been unified with the dialog used when saving and opening files (instead of a separate dialog for directories, a mode for showing only directories has been added to the standard file opening dialog).
The Plasma Vault directory encryption tool now indicates whether it is mounted in read-only mode.
The network settings applet provides the ability to limit the Wi-Fi frequency range (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz).
When disabling KRunner activation when attempting to type from the desktop keyboard, a handler call is implemented for selecting files based on the first letters typed.
An option to sort items in reverse order has been added to the System Tray widget.
On multi-GPU systems, Spectacle and KPipeWire-based applications now correctly capture screen content (previously, the wrong rendering device might be used).
The System Monitor utility and system information widget now support detection of multiple GPU configurations, as well as provide statistics on full-disk encryption and RAID.
KWin has added support for 3D LUTs (3D Lookup Tables) for color remapping, reducing the GPU resource consumption of features that accelerate color conversion.
Stopped creating OpenGL contexts for applications that do not use OpenGL, which reduced memory consumption by 10-15 MB for each such application and reduced startup time.
KWin has been optimized to improve the performance of the Alt+Tab window switching interface when the Highlight Window effect is enabled and when there are a large number of minimized windows.
In the configurator, on the "Default Applications" page, it is now possible to select the default application with the calendar-scheduler implementation.
An option to open the calendar scheduler has been added to the applet called by clicking the middle mouse button on the clock.
Added support for favorites for operations in apps shown in search results.
An item for viewing information about the image has been added to the context menu displayed when you right-click on the desktop wallpaper.
System Monitor now categorizes GPUs by name. The context menu for the System Monitor app now allows direct access to specific monitoring modes, such as viewing a list of running processes.
The widget for inserting into the splitter panel is now accessible via the add new items button on the panel settings page, rather than via the sidebar with the widget list.
For multi-monitor configurations, an option has been added that allows displaying the Alt+Tab window switching interface only on the primary screen, regardless of which screen has input focus.
The Kicker application menu now features a special icon for recently installed programs, similar to how this is done in the Kickoff interface.
Allowed to move applications with the mouse to the "favorites" section of the Kickoff, Kicker and Dashboard widgets.
KRunner has expanded its capabilities for calculating arbitrary mathematical expressions; for example, you can now enter not only “sqrt(2) + 2”, but also “2 + sqrt(2)”.
Reduced the size of animated GIF images created in applications using the KPipeWire library.
KWin has added a heuristic that determines whether to use direct scan-out to improve performance and reduce power consumption when windows are expanded to full screen.
Implemented the ability to set an ICC color profile for the display when HDR mode is enabled.
Many laptops with AMD processors now have the option to disable the adaptive backlight modulation driver or manually adjust its settings when enabled. This driver modifies the screen colors to improve visibility at low brightness levels.
When displaying system information (Info Center), temperature sensor readings are now displayed in the units of measurement specified in the system settings.
The Kickoff menu now supports removing applications from the Favorites section by dragging the shortcut outside the widget with the mouse.
The print output control widget now displays the number of active and queued print jobs separately for each printer.
KWin has been updated with optimizations that reduce power consumption when working with full-screen windows and effects that are not affected by direct scan-out.
An option to display a list of recently opened directories has been added to the Kicker application menu. The Kicker and Dashboard widgets now allow you to remove items from the Favorites section by dragging them outside the widget.
Support for creating duplicate network connection profiles has been added to the network management widget.
The KWin Window Rules now support binding dialog boxes to a specified parent window.
Added the ability to rename or move the default "Projects" directory, which has recently been created by distributions in the user's home directory in addition to the "Documents", "Downloads", "Desktop", "Videos", "Music" and "Pictures" directories.
Added a feature to enlarge screen content without noticeable loss of quality, based on the Zoom effect in KWin.
The print output widget placed on the panel now displays labels indicating the number of active and queued jobs.
When an X11 application running via XWayland requests permission to send programmatically generated mouse and keyboard events, the application name is now displayed. The configurator now displays a list of applications that have previously been granted this permission.
The KDE style is now applied to dialogs displayed by Qt applications that use the MessageDialog QML type (for example, used by the Sticky Note application in its confirmation dialog).
Clicking on buttons at the top of Widget Explorer has been simplified (clicking now works if you click with the cursor on the screen border above the button, without having to click the button directly).
Additional parameters are now taken into account when automatically changing screen brightness for better performance in conditions of frequently changing lighting.
The 25-second limitation for selecting a color after invoking the Color Picker widget has been removed.

Source: opennet.ru