This week in Usability & Productivity, part 43

Get ready for the flood, because have loads of amazing stuff for you in this week’s Usability & Productivity update! There are a ton of pictures today, so hold onto your hats and be glad you don’t have to access the internet over a 56k modem (unless you do have to access the internet with a 56k modem, in which case, my condolences):

New Features

• Breeze emblem icons have been entirely redesigned , resulting in a more consistent visual style and better contrast against the icon they’re drawn on top of –and they’re much better-looking, too (Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.52):
  
• Also re-did the package-related icons in a similar style (Noah Davis, KDE Frameworks 5.52):
  
• On Discover’s Updates page, it’s now possible to uncheck and re-check all available updates to make it easier to pick and choose the ones you want to apply (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)

Bugfixes

• KWin once again saves custom application/window settings (Vlad Zagorodniy, KDE Plasma 5.14.3)
• Discover no longer freezes for a moment when you view an app that’s available from distro repositories as well as a Flatpak version and then click on the “Sources” dropdown menu Flatpak repo (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Plasma 5.14.3
• The System Tray configuration page now displays correct icons for the Audio Volume and Networks entries (Kai Uwe Broulik and me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.14.3)
• Global keyboard shortcuts now work properly when using a non-US keyboard layout (Fabian Vogt, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The Workspace System Settings Page now looks good when using a fractional scale factor (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• In System Settings, the category name for KWin’s global shortcuts no longer changes semi-randomly (David Edmundson, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• Turning on NumLock at boot now works on Wayland (Martin Flöser, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• More Samba shares are now recognized and made browsable (Stefan Brüns, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• In KMail, HTML emails are now readable when using a dark color theme (Laurent Montel, KDE PIM 5.10.0)

UI Polish & Improvement

• The Cuttlefish icon viewer tool now opens with keyboard focus on the search field and quits when you press Ctrl+q (Chris Holland, KDE Plasma 5.12.8)
• Fixed a wide variety of issues with the Breeze-GTK theme –including many inconsistencies between the light and dark variants–and made it more maintainable so future improvements will be much easier (Matthias Groß, KDE Plasma 5.15.0)
• The Kickoff Application Menu now has subtle lines separating the content view from the header and tab bar (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• Re-worked the layout of several of the Folder View settings pages to better match the common style (me: nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0):
  
• Tweaked many System Settings pages to standardize the icons , wording , and placement of the bottom buttons, most notably the “Get New [thing]…” buttons (me: Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.15.0). For example:
  
• The Baloo file indexer is now able to read tags from .asf files , read ape tags from .ape and .wavpack files , and read ID3 tags from .wav and .aiff files (Alexander Stippich, KDE Frameworks 5.52)
• Konsole now changes the icon of an inactive tab when it receives a bell signal so you can tell which tab received the signal (Andrew Smith, KDE Applications 18.12.0):
  
• In Konsole, when using default word-character settings, you can now double-click on a path that has a colon on the end of it without getting the trailing colon selected (me: Nate Graham, KDE Applications 18.12.0)
• Kate can now be optionally configured to quit itself when the last tab is closed , just like Dolphin now does (Thomas Surrel, KDE Applications 18.12.0)

Next week, your name could be in this list! Not sure how? Just ask! I’ve helped mentor a number of new contributors recently and I’d love to help you, too! You can also check out https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved , and find out how you can help be a part of something that really matters. You don’t have to already be a programmer. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

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 . Also consider making a donation to the KDE e.V. foundation .