KDE developers never rest, and while The community is preparing for the launch. stable of KDE Plasma 6.6 on February 17th, the Developers have already started working on the next major iteration, Plasma 6.7, scheduled for June.
This overlap in development ensures a continuous evolution of the desktop environment, which in its latest versions has focused on modernizing legacy components and improving the user experience in Wayland.
KDE Plasma 6.6: A profound structural renewal
Version 6.6, currently in beta phaseIt's not a minor update. Introduce changes architectural significant components intended to replace Historical figures for the Linux desktop. The most notable is plasma-login-manager, A new login manager designed to replace SDDM. This component uses a simplified backend and shares Plasma's session boot mechanism, enabling seamless visual integration with the lock screen and unifying theme and wallpaper settings, eliminating the need for external QML files for customization.
At the same time, it plasma-keyboard debuts, a new virtual keyboard implementation This solution is based on the Qt Virtual Keyboard and aims to replace Maliit. It improves desktop integration and uses a new scaling algorithm to optimize performance on narrow or touchscreens. In addition, plasma-setup, an out-of-the-box (OOBE) setup wizard, guides the user after the initial installation through configuring accounts, networks, and regional preferences before reaching the desktop.
In the areas of productivity and safety, Plasma 6.6 integrates support for oo7 SecretService, compatible with the Secret Service API, and improves Wi-Fi password management, storing them globally in the system. This change simply alters how a connection is created so that it no longer specifies that it is restricted to a user, thus allowing the connection to be activated for any user, even before they log in. Furthermore, the capture tool Spectacle incorporates optical character recognition (OCR) based on Tesseract, allowing text to be extracted directly from captured images.
And sSupport for Wayland continues to mature with the implementation of the management protocol color-management-v2 in KWin and an improved XRandr emulation, This resolves display issues in legacy X11 full-screen applications. Screen mirroring and custom screen mode management using kscreen-doctor have also been improved.
KDE Plasma 6.7: First steps towards the future
Although the current focus is on version 6.6, Development of branch 6.7 has already begun to show their first cards. One of the most striking new features is the implementation of a global "Push to talk" mode for the microphone, a highly demanded feature by gamers and professionals that allows you to activate the audio input using only a key combination, regardless of the application in use.
The user interface also receives improvements: the Brightness and color widgets now include quick buttons To switch between light and dark mode, the Discover app manager has reorganized its gaming section to clearly separate launchers from utilities. Additionally, the system configurator is now smarter, hiding hardware configuration pages (such as touchscreens or game controllers) if those devices aren't connected, reducing visual clutter.
Ecosystem improvements
Both versions share an effort to improve accessibility and usability. They have unified the sizes of the sliders and margins Kirigami lists offer a more consistent aesthetic. Visual accessibility is enhanced with filters for color blindness and options to adjust the sharpness of on-screen content (on hardware compatible with the upcoming Linux 6.20 kernel).
Finally, Overall performance has been optimized: RAM consumption has been reduced More than 100 MB have been saved by better managing unused background images, and animations have been smoothed on high refresh rate monitors, eliminating annoying frame drops. With these updates, KDE Plasma reaffirms its commitment to being a powerful, flexible, and increasingly polished environment for all types of users.
Source: https://blogs.kde.org