With version 5.27 of the Linux desktop KDE Plasma, the “Plasma Welcome” wizard now welcomes new users. He introduces KDE Plasma in several steps, allows the software management Discover to be started directly and queries basic settings. The latter include, among other things, the login data for Google, Nextcloud and other online accounts.
Plasma 5.27 offers a new welcome wizard, which Gnome and other desktop environments have offered for some time.
Tiled windows
Previously, if you dragged a window to the edge of the page or to a corner of the screen, it automatically took up half or a quarter of the screen. The Plasma developers have expanded this tiling function. Pressing the key combination [Meta]+[T], you can initially divide the screen into several areas as you wish. Plasma also proposes three typical standard layouts. If you then pull while holding down [Umschalt]-Click a window over the desktop, Plasma automatically puts it in the respective area. With the help of this quick tiling function, you can quickly position windows on the screen and use its space optimally.
First you define the areas in which Plasma mounts the windows. When pressed [Umschalt]button you then drop a window in an area. The distances between the windows can be regulated with pixel precision.
mini-program offensive
If you plug at least one additional monitor into a notebook, the “Display Setup” (aka Display Configuration) is activated in the system section of the control bar. This applet lets you quickly set a different screen layout and toggle presentation mode on and off. In the latter case, KDE Plasma prevents the screens and the computer from switching off automatically or going into power-saving mode.
The display device can also be found on desktop systems and computers with only one screen, but its functions are all switched off. In the background, the developers have fundamentally revised the code for multi-monitor operation. This should now work much more reliably.
The “Display Setup” applet helps with screen management, especially on notebooks.
There are also some minor innovations in other mini-programs (widgets). In the Media Player, for example, you can control the volume using swipe gestures, the color picker shows up to nine color circles, and when setting up a VPN, the network widget indicates missing, required packets. Especially useful on the go: If you move the mouse over the Bluetooth widget, it reports the battery level of the connected devices.
software management
Discover has been given a revised start page. In addition to applications recommended by the KDE team, it also shows software that is particularly popular or rated particularly highly by users. Discover dynamically updates the corresponding offers. On the Steam Deck games console, Discover updates the entire system directly from the desktop.
Discover offers a revised start page.
Applications installed via Flatpak packages run isolated from one another and are granted access to the network and other security-relevant components via a rights system. If a Flatpak application needs access, it must ask for permission. From now on, the KDE Plasma system settings not only reveal the rights required for each Flatpak application, you can also revoke them there at any time or, conversely, explicitly grant them in advance. The developers have further streamlined and subtly restructured the system settings. For example, the settings for the start animation of an application (“Start display”) have migrated to the mouse pointer settings.
The rights of Flatpak applications can be controlled and changed in the system settings.
the per [Alt]+[Leertaste] brought out search function KRunner should now always display the most relevant results at the top. For this purpose, the developers have optimized the algorithm in the background. Furthermore, KRunner provides the current time at any location on earth. For example, entering “time London” returns the local time in the English capital. Similarly, “define” returns a dictionary entry for any word.
News from Wayland
As with every Plasma release, the Wayland implementation is progressing. In order to be able to read the controls well on large screens, plasma automatically scales the desktop. Plasma 5.27 selects the scaling factor that is set a little more intelligently.
Furthermore, the developers have improved the input. For example, Plasma 5.27 can detect the tilt and rotation of pens on graphics tablets. Painters in particular benefit from this in drawing applications such as Krita. A Wayland session also supports the Global Shortcuts Portal. This allows applications to offer standardized settings that can be used to define global keyboard shortcuts.
KDE Plasma 5.27 is the last version before the next major release, KDE Plasma 6. The KDE developers want to maintain version 5.27 as part of long-term support at least until it appears Long term support. KDE Plasma 5.27 can be tried out without obligation with the Testing Edition of the distribution KDE Neon.
(axk)
