The latest KDE weekly development report has been published, presenting changes for the KDE Plasma 6.7 branch, expected to be released in June. Recent changes include:
- 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 continues to support the Vulkan graphics API in the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) backend. Vulkan is expected to improve performance in multi-GPU configurations. Over the past week, Vulkan was enabled for loading textures from the GPU to the CPU. The vulkanToQImageFormat() handler was added for converting image formats to QImage. VulkanDevice::createCommandBuffer() capabilities have been expanded. The isSoftwareRenderer() method has been implemented in VulkanDevice. Integration tests have been added. Testing was conducted on a system with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti graphics card using proprietary driver 595.58.03.
- 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.
Source: opennet.ru
