Release AnnouncementsPlasma 5.13.0

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KDE Plasma 5.13

Tuesday, 12 June 2018. Today KDE unveils the final release of Plasma 5.13.0.

Members of the Plasma team have been working hard to continue making Plasma a lightweight and responsive desktop which loads and runs quickly, but remains full-featured with a polished look and feel. We have spent the last four months optimising startup and minimising memory usage, yielding faster time-to-desktop, better runtime performance and less memory consumption. Basic features like panel popups were optimised to make sure they run smoothly even on the lowest-end hardware. Our design teams have not rested either, producing beautiful new integrated lock and login screen graphics.

Browse the full Plasma 5.13 changelog to find even more tweaks and bug fixes featured in this release: Full Plasma 5.13.0 changelog

New in Plasma 5.13

Plasma Browser Integration

Plasma Browser Integration is a suite of new features which make Firefox, Chrome and Chromium-based browsers work with your desktop. Downloads are now displayed in the Plasma notification popup just as when transferring files with Dolphin. The Media Controls Plasmoid can mute and skip videos and music playing from within the browser. You can send a link to your phone with KDE Connect. Browser tabs can be opened directly using KRunner via the Alt-Space keyboard shortcut. To enable Plasma Browser Integration, add the relevant plugin from the addon store of your favourite browser.

Plasma Browser Integration for Downloads and Media Controls

System Settings Redesigns

Our settings pages are being redesigned. The KDE Visual Design Group has reviewed many of the tools in System Settings and we are now implementing those redesigns. KDE's Kirigami framework gives the pages a slick new look. We started off with the theming tools, comprising the icons, desktop themes, and cursor themes pages. The splash screen page can now download new splashscreens from the KDE Store. The fonts page can now display previews for the sub-pixel anti-aliasing settings.

Redesigned System Settings Pages

New Look for Lock and Login Screens

Our login and lock screens have a fresh new design, displaying the wallpaper of the current Plasma release by default. The lock screen now incorporates a slick fade-to-blur transition to show the controls, allowing it to be easily used like a screensaver.

Lock and Login Screen new Look

Improved Blur Effect in the Dash Menu

Graphics Compositor

Our compositor KWin gained much-improved effects for blur and desktop switching. Wayland work continued, with the return of window rules, the use of high priority EGL Contexts, and initial support for screencasts and desktop sharing.

Discover's Lists with Ratings, Themed Icons, and Sorting Options

Discover

Discover, our software and addon installer, has more features and sports improvements to the look and feel.

Using our Kirigami UI framework we improved the appearance of lists and category pages, which now use toolbars instead of big banner images. Lists can now be sorted, and use the new Kirigami Cards widget. Star ratings are shown on lists and app pages. App icons use your local icon theme to better match your desktop settings. All AppStream metadata is now shown on the application page, including all URL types.

Work has continued on bundled app formats. Snap support now allows user control of app permissions, and it's possible to install Snaps that use classic mode. And the 'snap://' URL format is now supported. Flatpak support gains the ability to choose the preferred repository to install from when more than one is set up.

Much More

Other changes include:

A tech preview of GTK global menu integration.

Redesigned Media Player Widget.

Plasma Calendar plugin for astronomical events, currently showing: lunar phases & astronomical seasons (equinox, solstices).

xdg-desktop-portal-kde, used to give desktop integration for Flatpak and Snap applications, gained support for screenshot and screencast portals.

The Digital Clock widget allows copying the current date and time to the clipboard.

The notification popup has a button to clear the history.

More KRunner plugins to provide easy access to Konsole profiles and the character picker.

The Mouse System Settings page has been rewritten for libinput support on X and Wayland.

Plasma Vault has a new CryFS backend, commands to remotely close open vaults with KDE Connect, offline vaults, a more polished interface and better error reporting.

A new dialog pops up when you first plug in an external monitor so you can easily configure how it should be positioned.

Popups in panel open faster due to a new preloading mechanism.

Plasma gained the ability to fall back to software rendering if OpenGL drivers unexpectedly fail.

GEdit with Title Bar Menu. Redesigned Media Player Widget. Connect an External Monitor Dialog.

Supporting KDE

KDE is a Free Software community that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether it is help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information or become a KDE e.V. supporting member through our Join the Game initiative.

About KDE

KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and macOS.

Trademark Notices. KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are registered trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

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