A few days ago, the beta version of the Plasma 5.25 custom shell was released and is now available for testing.
This beta version features a redesigned page for configuring the overall theme in the configurator . You can selectively apply theme elements, such as app and desktop styles, fonts, colors, window frames, icons, and cursors, as well as apply separate themes to the home screen and lock screen interfaces.
It's also worth noting that the ability to apply the highlight (accent) color to active elements relative to the desktop background has been added, as well as the option to use an accent color for headings and change the overall color scheme. The Breeze Classic theme has built-in support for coloring headings with an accent color.
In addition, a setting has been added to control whether touchscreen control mode is enabled (on X11 systems, you can only enable or disable touchscreen mode by default, and when using Wayland, you can also automatically configure the desktop to touchscreen mode when a special event occurs on the device). When touchscreen mode is enabled, the indentation between icons in the taskbar automatically increases.
In the list of recently opened documents in the context menu of the task manager, the display of items not related to files is allowed , for example, recent connections to remote desktops can be shown.
KWin's window manager supports the use of shaders in scripts with effect implementation. KWin-scripts KCM have been translated to QML. A new blending effect has been added, and the shifting effects have been improved.
Improved support for on-screen gestures, including the ability to activate overview mode with gestures on the touchscreen or touchpad. The ability to use gestures anchored to screen edges in scripted effects has also been added.
On the system information page (Information Center), the general information in the "About this system" block has been expanded , and a new "Firmware Security" page has been added, which, for example, shows whether UEFI Secure Boot is enabled.
Other notable changes in this beta version include:
- In the Program Control Center (Discover), the display of permissions for applications in Flatpak format is provided. The sidebar shows all the subcategories of the selected app category.
- The page with information about the application has been completely redesigned.
- Added display of information about the selected desktop background (name, author) in the settings.
- Continuous improvement of the session based on the Wayland protocol.
- Support for floating panels is provided for layout themes.
- A fade effect has been added to smoothly switch between the old and new color schemes.
- Keyboard navigation is enabled in panels and in the system tray.
- Added a separate animation effect that is applied when an incorrect password is entered.
- Added a dialog for managing widget groups (Containment) on the screen in edit mode, which allows you to visually control the placement of panels and applets relative to different monitors.
- The position of the icons in Folder View mode is saved with reference to the screen resolution.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more, you can find the details at the following link.
Try the KDE Plasma 5.25 beta
For those interested in this new version, you can try it out using a live build from the openSUSE project and a build from the KDE Neon Testing project. Packages for various distributions can be found on this page.
As for the release of the stable version, it is mentioned that it is scheduled for June 14.