This week in KDE

At this point we’ve got nearly all of the significant regressions from Plasma 5.18 fixed (so go file bugs if you have any new ones) and we’re starting to re-focus on fixing longstanding issues and land work for Plasma 5.19. Hopefully you’ll find something in this week’s update to feel excited about!

New Features

• now shows you a list of all changes that will be included in the commit

  Dolphin’s SVN commit dialog now shows you a list of all changes that will be included in the commit (Nikolai Krasheninnikov, Dolphin 20.04.0):

  

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• Fixed loading remote files in Gwenview (Albert Astals Cid, Gwenview 19.12.3)
• The System Settings Online Accounts page has received a bunch of bugfixes and now works properly (Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, KAccounts-Integration 20.04.0
• Fixed an issue that could cause a maliciously-crafted network name to display remote images (David Edmundson, Plasma 5.12.10)
• Fixed a case where the KDE daemon (kded5) could crash when using a modem that requires a PIN (Jan Grulich, Plasma 5.18.1)
• KInfoCenter no longer crashes when for some reason it can’t find an address for the current network interface (Harald Sitter, Plasma 5.18.1)
• Setting, un-setting, or changing settings pertaining to auto-login now works again (Filip Fila, Plasma 5.18.1)
• Showing an application’s menu inside its window’s titlebar now works again for older versions of LibreOffice (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.18.1)
• The feature to synchronize your visual settings to the SDDM login screen now works again (Filip Fila, Plasma 5.18.1)
• The Touchpad Plasma applet’s configuration window is no longer visually broken (David Edmundson, Plasma 5.18.1)
• The scrollview in the System Settings Networks panel is now properly visually separated from the content (Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 5.18.1)
• Fixed two common crashes in KWin when using the Plastik theme (Plasma 5.18.2, David Edmundson)
• Plasma on Wayland no longer crashes when you unplug a secondary display (Daniel Vrátil, Plasma 5.18.2)
• The KRunner Activities runner now works again (Oleg Solovyov, Plasma 5.18.2)
• The cursor no longer looks different when hovering over the desktop for new user accounts until the first time the cursor theme is changed (Benjamin Port, Plasma 5.18.2)
• The new Emoji panel is no longer so slow and now works for all languages and locales (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.18.2)
• Shadows behind desktop files and folders now look correct when using a high DPI scale factor (George Vogiatzis, Plasma 5.18.2)
• The currently-active window decoration theme is once again highlighted 0n the System Settings Window Decorations page (Cyril Rossi, Plasma 5.18.2)
• The color-matching functionality for GTK apps no longer mangles the appearance of some GTK apps when using themes other than Breeze-GTK (Carson Black, Plasma 5.19.0)
• KSysGuard now fully supports systems with more than 12 CPUs (Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 5.19.0)
• The Kate Sessions KRunner runner now works much better overall (Alexander Lohnau, Plasma 5.19.0)
• Fixed a case where System Settings could crash after installing new icon themes (David Edmundson, Frameworks 5.68)
• The emoji panel’s sidebar icons now look good when using a high DPI scale factor (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Frameworks 5.68):
  

User Interface Improvements

• it now tells you which apps and components from that repo need to be uninstalled to remove the repo, and does so automatically if you approve

  Discover now has a much more friendly user interface for removing Flatpak repos: it now tells you which apps and components from that repo need to be uninstalled to remove the repo, and does so automatically if you approve (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.19.0):

  

How You Can Help

In Plasma 5.19, we really want to make 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!

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 .