KDE Plasma Desktop Release 5.16

Available release of a custom KDE Plasma 5.16 shell built using the platform KDE Framework 5 and Qt 5 libraries using OpenGL/OpenGL ES to speed up rendering. Evaluate the work
new version can be through Live build from the openSUSE project and builds from the project KDE Neon. Packages for various distributions can be found at this page.

Key improvements:

• Desktop management, design and widgets
  • The system for displaying notifications has been completely rewritten. Added Do Not Disturb mode to temporarily turn off notifications, improved grouping of entries in the notification history, added the ability to display critical notifications when applications are running in full screen mode, improved information about the completion of copying and moving files, expanded the notification settings section in the configurator;
    

  • In the theme selection interface, the ability to correctly apply themes to panels is implemented. Added new features for themes, including support for defining the shift of the analog clock hands and blurring the background through themes;
    

  • In the panel editing mode, the “Show Alternatives…” button appeared, which allows you to quickly change the widget to the available alternatives;
    

  • Changed the design of the login and logout screens, including replaced buttons, icons and labels;
    

  • Improved widget settings interface;
  • Added support for moving colors to text editors and graphics editor palettes to the widget for determining the color of arbitrary pixels on the screen;
  • An indicator of the activity of the sound recording process in applications has been added to the system tray, through which you can quickly change the volume with the mouse wheel or mute the sound with the middle mouse button;
  • Added an icon to the default panel to show desktop content;
  • In the window with desktop wallpaper settings in slideshow mode, images from selected directories are displayed with the ability to manage their marking;
    

  • In the task manager, the composition of the context menu has been redesigned and support has been added for quickly moving a window from any virtual desktop to the current one by clicking the middle mouse button;
  • The Breeze theme brought back the use of black for window and menu shadows, which improved the visibility of many elements when using dark color schemes;
  • Added the ability to lock and unlock the Plasma Vaults applet directly from the Dolphin file manager;
• Interface for system settings
  • A general revision of all pages was carried out and many icons were replaced. Updated the section with appearance settings. The “Look and Feel” page has been moved to the first level;
    

  • The design of the pages for setting up color schemes and decorating windows has been changed, which are switched to the layout of elements on a grid. On the page for setting color schemes, the ability to separate dark and light themes has been added, support has been added for installing themes via drag and drop with the mouse and applying them by double-clicking;
    

  • Theme preview mode on the login screen settings page has been redesigned;
  • Added reboot option to UEFI configuration mode on the Desktop Session page;
  • Added full support for customizing touchpads when using the Libinput driver in X11;
• window manager
  • Implemented initial support for Wayland session using proprietary NVIDIA drivers. On systems with the proprietary NVIDIA driver and Qt 5.13, graphics corruption issues after resuming from sleep are also resolved;
  • In a session based on Wayland, the ability to drag and drop application windows using XWayland and Wayland has appeared;
  • In the touchpad configurator, when using Libinput and Wayland, it was possible to configure the click handling method, switch between areas and simulate a click with a touch (clickfinger);
  • Added two new keyboard shortcuts: Meta+L to lock the screen and Meta+D to show desktop content;
  • For application windows based on GTK, the correct activation and deactivation of color schemes is implemented;
  • The blur effect in KWin now looks more natural and familiar to the eyes, without unnecessary darkening of the area between blurred colors;
    

• Network configurator
  • In the network settings widget, the process of updating the list of available wireless networks has been accelerated. Added a button to search for specific networks by the specified parameters. Added an element to the context menu to go to the network settings;
  • Added support for one-time passwords (OTP, One Time Password) in the Openconnect VPN plugin;
  • Made the WireGuard configurator compatible with NetworkManager 1.16;
    

• Applications and Add-ons Installation Center (Discover)
  • Updates page for apps and packages now displays separate "downloading" and "installing" labels;
  • Improved indicator of the completion of operations, added a full-fledged line to evaluate the progress of the action. When checking for updates, the Busy indicator is shown;
  • Improved support and reliability for packages in the AppImages format and other applications from the store.kde.org directory;
  • Added an option to exit the program after the completion of the installation or update operations;
  • Added display of version numbers of applications available for installation from different sources in the "Sources" menu.
    

Source: opennet.ru