This week in KDE: Plasma 5.19 beta and more

The KDE Plasma 5.19 beta has been released! We’re very proud of the work that’s gone into 5.19, but it is no doubt buggy and in need of QA. Please help us find all the bugs we missed! Go test it in your favorite distro; options include KDE Neon Testing or Unstable editions , openSUSE Krypton or KDE:Unstable repos , Arch’s kde-unstable repos , and probably many more I’m not familiar with (please tell me!).

But wait, there’s more…

New Features

• Konsole tabs can now be assigned colors! (Gustavo Carneiro, Konsole 20.08.0):
  
• Dolphin now has new actions to quickly move or copy the selected files in one pane of a split view into the folder in the other pane (Antonio Prcela, Dolphin 20.08.0):
  
• System Monitor widgets were completely redesigned and rewritten from scratch for greater functionality, versatility, and attractiveness (Marco Martin, David Edmundson, and Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 5.19):
  
• Windows can now-be-dragged-and-dropped onto items in the Activity switcher to quickly assign them to different Activities (Ivan Čukić, Plasma 5.19.0):
  
• The “Tools” button present on some laptop keyboard (e.g. ThinkPads) now launches System Settings when pressed (Yunhe Guo, Plasma 5.19.0)
• Plasma Vaults can now use GoCryptFS as an encryption backend (Martino Pilia, Plasma 5.19.0)

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

• KMail and other Kontact apps can once again connect to Google services, as Google has finally re-authorized access!
• When multiple Spectacle windows are open and set to “Active Window” mode, taking a screenshot in one of the windows no longer puts the screenshot in all of the open Spectacle windows (David Redondo, Spectacle 20.04.1)
• Fixed a bug that could cause file copies to SFTP servers to fail (Harald Sitter, Dolphin 20.04.2)
• Internal links in Markdown documents now work properly in Okular (Albert Astals Cid, Okular 1.11.0)
• Notification pop-ups are no longer partially visible on the lock screen on Wayland (Vlad Zagorodnii, Plasma 5.18.6)
• Apps whose desktop files end in .desktop (such as Telegram) now display their icons on Wayland (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.19)
• Copying files to a location accessed via a symlink now works again (Méven Car, Frameworks 5.71)
• Running executable script in Konsole from Dolphin and other apps now works again (Jonathan Marten, Frameworks 5.71)
• When copying files to remote locations, the amount of free space available is now checked before starting the transfer so it can’t run out of space and die in the middle (Ahmad Samir, Frameworks 5.71)
• Error messages displayed by the “Get new [thing]” windows are now readable with dark themes, and for that matter with any arbitrary color schemes (Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, Frameworks 5.71)

User Interface Improvements

• Okular now allows zooming in farther than 1600% (Yuri Chornoivan, Okular 1.11.0):
  
• The selection of available user avatars has been hugely improved to include a variety of attractive photographic images (Filip Fila, Plasma 5.19.0):
  If you’ve been thinking that this window is very ugly, you’re right. It’s getting completely replaced with something much nicer in Plasma 5.20, along with a totally new Users page!
• When opening System Settings pages from KRunner of the Kickoff Application Launcher (or other launchers), they now open in System Settings itself rather than in small isolated standalone windows (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.19.0)
• The “Battery is low” notification now automatically disappears when the “Battery is critically low!” notification appears (Kai Uwe Broulik, Plasma 5.19.0)
• When the Notifications applet has been pinned open, it no longer closes itself when you clear all notifications (Eugene Popov, Plasma 5.19.0)
• The clipboard applet now automatically closes itself (if it wasn’t pinned open) when you manually clear all items or delete the last item (Eugene Popov, Plasma 5.19.0)
• There are now 48px versions of Breeze theme Places icons , which means that folders now look pixel-perfect in Dolphin when using a 48px size (Manuel Jesús de la Fuente, Frameworks 5.71):
  

How You Can Help

Go test that Plasma 5.19 beta! Read the first paragraph of this post to see how.

More generally, have a look at https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover ways to help be part of a project that really matters. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE; you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to already be a programmer, either. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

Finally, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the KDE e.V. foundation .