KDE PLASMA 5.27: the biggest, best KDE release yet!

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#kdeplasma #plasma #linux

00:00 Intro
00:42 Sponsor: 100$ free credit for your Linux or Gaming server
01:39 Plasma Welcome: good onboarding experience
03:26 Tiling Window Manager: good first step, but…
05:44 Plasma Desktop: usability improvements everywhere
08:54 Wayland Support improvements
10:04 Multi Monitor: finally fixed!
11:12 Settings: of course there are changes here
12:26 Discover: finally lives up to its name
13:26 Final thoughts: it’s wonderful!
14:18 Sponsor: Get a device that runs Linux perfectly
15:17 Support the channel

The new Welcome app will open after a fresh KDE install. It explains the basics, like how to connect to the internet or how to change settings, but it also presents a bunch of great features Plasma has and never really talked about before.

While Kwin won’t replace a full tiling window manager, it now has the ability to create tiling layouts, and then to place windows in the various tiles you created. To set up a tiling layout, you press Super + T, and you’ll get that overview, with a default layout, in 3 columns. And then, once your layout suits you, all you have to do is drag a window while holding Shift, and your window will automatically occupy the tiling zone it’s sitting above.

The widgets and tools have received so many improvements that even in this lengthy section, I can’t list them all. First, Krunner got a, update to surface more relevant search results. When hovering over widgets, they’ll tell you what you can expect if you middle click them. The tooltips have also been greatly improved.

The calendar widget now also supports the Hebrew calendar. The battery monitor shows the status of connected devices, the media applet now has 2 layouts, one for horizontal panels, and one for vertical panels, with the album art only.

The color picker can now show up to 9 colors, and clicking a color will automatically copy it to the clipboard, with a notification. The weather widget can now display the temperature in the task bar.

Folder view now lets you show hidden folders, pop up notes will make links clickable by default, and Kickoff now supports separators in the menu. The wallpaper list should be much faster, changing wallpapers now uses a transition animation.

Floating panels will be automatically de floated when a window touches them, and they’ll use less padding and less space in that defloated mode. The breeze theme now has an outline around windows in dark mode, which makes them more easy to parse at a glance, trying to use a VPN will prompt you to install the relevant plugin.

Plasma now supports high resolution scrolling under wayland, and they now support content types, which lets the compositor adjust the display’s refresh rate depending on what you’re doing.

Fractional scaling is also now natively supported under Wayland. When sharing your screen on wayland, the window picker will now have thumbnails to let you decide what you want to share.

And there’s also a new setting to let Xwayland application access global shortcuts.

Plasma revamped multi monitor support, so all panels, windows, wallpapers, and widgets are saved per monitor, and restored when a monitor is plugged back in.

Next are flatpak permissions. They have their own new settings page, that lets you review what applications have access to, and give them more permissions, or remove some.

Discover will now show more flatpak permissions on application pages. The homepage has received a new look. The “all applications” button is also now back in the sidebar, and when you’re searching for something, if nothing is available, you’ll get a message and a button to search the whole store.