Plasma has gained its first user of the new notification inline reply feature in 5.18: Telegram Desktop!

Big thanks to Kai Uwe Broulik for venturing forth to contribute a patch to Telegram that made this possible.

Next up, we have a winner for the Plasma 5.18 wallpaper competition: the elegant and soothing Volna, by Nikita Babin!

Let’s all give a round of applause to Nikita for his incredible contribution which will be seen for years to come!

And one more thing: thanks to Niccolò Venerandi, the kde.org website now has a page showing where you can buy devices with Plasma and KDE apps pre-installed!

This is a great way for people and institutions to buy a complete product featuring the end-to-end KDE software experience without having to manually install an OS or worry about hardware compatibility.

As if that weren’t enough, here’s the usual assortment of new features, bugfixes, and UI improvements:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

How You Can Help

Please test the Plasma 5.18 beta release! You can find out how here. If you find bugs, file them–especially if they are regressions from Plasma 5.17. We want to get as much testing, bug filing, and bugfixing as possible during the one-month beta period so that the official release is as smooth as possible.

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.