KDE Plasma 5.14 enters beta with new features and improvements

Today, the KDE project announced the launch of the first beta version of the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.14 graphical environment, a major update that adds many features and improvements to many components.

Now that KDE Plasma 5.13 has reached the end of its cycle, it is time for a major update, KDE Plasma 5.14, which promises a host of new features, including a improved graphical Plasma Discover package manager which now includes the ability to update firmware, support for accessing Snaps channels, and the ability to view package dependencies for any application.

In addition, you can now view and sort applications by their release date, receive notifications when a package replaces an existing one, and install a Flatpak backend to install applications in this format.

Better support for Wayland and other new features

KDE plasma 5.14 comes with improved Wayland support as this release fixes copy and paste operations between GTK + and GTK + applications, unfocused task manager, and pointer restrictions. Two new interfaces are added, XdgOutput and XdgShel, to have more support for Wayland and to improve the desktop effects of the KWin window and the composer.

Among other features we can mention the support for SSH VPN tunnels in the network widget, better compatibility of the Task Manager with LibreOffice, a better switch between monitors, the ability to export existing encrypted files in the Plasma trunk and handling of user switching. on the lock screen for better security and usability.

KDE Plasma 5.14 too comes with a totally new screen settings widget which can be used to drive presentation screens, as well as an improved volume widget that brings a built-in speaker test.

The KDE Plasma 5.14 beta is now available for testing on the Official Site, the official launch has a tentative date on October 9, 2018.