Christmas came early this week! Today’s Usability & Productivity status is jam-packed with awesome stuff that I think you’re all really gonna love.

There’s all the awesome work on Discover, but it doesn’t stop there:

New Features

Dolphin now helps you install Konsole if it’s not installed when you open the Terminal pane (KDE bug 371822, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Roman Inflianskas):



Dolphin now lets you find a symlink’s target file or folder (KDE bug 215069, implemented in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Roman Inflianskas):



Gwenview’s slideshow feature can now be controlled via any MPRIS-compatible playback controller, such as the Media Playback widget, KDE Connect, and laptop keyboards’ media keys (KDE Phabricator revision D10972, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13.0 and KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Friedrich Kossebau). Read more about it here!

By default for new installations, windows can now be tiled to any edge of the screen using the Meta+arrow key shortcuts, and can be maximized and minimized with Meta+PageUp/PageDown (KDE Phabricator Revision D11377, implemented in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, authored by me, Nate Graham)

Bugfixes

Fixed a bug in Gwenview causing image view’s touchpad scrolling to be uncontrollably sensitive when the scroll behavior is set to “Browse” (KDE bug 388353, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Huon Imberger)

Fixed a bug in Gwenview causing the “Disable History” feature to not work (KDE bugs 332853 and 391527, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Peter Mühlenpfordt)

Fixed a bug in Plasma causing fonts to be rendered in an ugly and pixellated manner when using a non-integer scale factor (e.g. 1.3x) and PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 (KDE bugs 391691 and 384031, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.45, authored by me, Nate Graham):



(KDE bugs 391691 and 384031, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.45, authored by me, Nate Graham): Fixed a bug regarding how fonts were rendered in KDE software that uses QTQuickControls controls (such as all Kirigami apps, for example) that was causing text to appear slightly too light and wispy at non-HiDPI and integer HiDPI scale factors (KDE bug 391780, fixed in KDE Frameworks 5.45, authored by me, Nate Graham):



Fixed a bug in Konsole causing custom tab titles to be reset when changing profile options (KDE bug 354403, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Ahmad Samir)

UI polish & improvements

The notifications widget now has a visible button to clear notifications (KDE bug 386068, fixed in Plasma 5.13.0, authored by Christian Fuchs):



The Audio Volume widget now presents a simplified display for the common use cases of one input and one output device and no apps recording audio (KDE Phabricator revision D11166, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, Authored by me, Nate Graham)



Plasma Folder View (AKA desktop icons) now provides a little bit more horizontal space for file and folder names (KDE Phabricator revision D11358, fixed in KDE Plasma 5.13.0, authored by me, Nate Graham)

To present a cleaner UI, Konsole now defaults to only showing the tab bar when there are multiple tabs (KDE Phabricator revision D11258, fixed in Konsole 18.04.0, authored by Kai Uwe Broulik):



It looks even better still with a global menu or the menu in a titlebar button:



It looks even better still with a global menu or the menu in a titlebar button: Gwenview’s middle-click-to-zoom feature now zooms into the mouse cursor’s position, rather then the center of the image (KDE bug 308335, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Peter Mühlenpfordt)

Gwenview’s advanced crop settings are now always displayed in the same order (KDE bug 391758, fixed in KDE Applications 18.04.0, authored by Gregory Legrain)

Finally, A notorious and longstanding bug has been fixed! The bug was this: in KDE environments where KWallet had not been set up (such as live sessions and barebones/DIY-style distros like Arch), you would be prompted for your password twice when connecting to a password-protected wifi network. This turned out to be a bug not in KDE software, but rather in the upstream FreeDesktop networkmanager software. It’s now been fixed as of networkmanager 1.10.6. If your distro doesn’t have that yet, please ask them to update or backport the fix.

Pretty awesome stuff, huh? Well there’s even more coming! We’re committed to making KDE Plasma the finest computing environment on planet earth, and I hope this kind of progress demonstrates the depth of that commitment. Want to hop on board and become a part of something big? Consider becoming a KDE contributor, particularly in development!

If my efforts to perform, guide, and document this work seem useful and you’d like to see more of them, then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, LiberaPay, or PayPal.