KDE Plasma 5.10 brings Folder View which is the the new default Desktop. It brings some icons by default and allows users to put whatever files or folders they want easy access to. New media controls has been included on lock screen which pauses music on suspend. Software Centre Plasma Search (KRunner) now suggests to install non-installed apps. Not only this KDE Plasma 5.10 brings an improved touch screen support. It enables virtual keyboard in lock screen and in the login screen. A new System Settings module lets you download and select boot time splashes.
Folder View
Many improvements have been made to the Folder View include:
- Spring Loading in Folder View making drag and drop of files powerful and quick
- More space-saving/tighter icon grid in Folder View based on much user feedback
- Improved mouse behavior / ergonomics in Folder View for icon dnd (less surprising drop/insert location), rectangle selection (easier, less fiddly) and hover (same)
- Revamped rename user interface in Folder View (better keyboard and mouse behavior e.g. closing the editor by clicking outside, RTL fixed, etc.)
- Massively improved performance in Folder View for initial listing and scrolling large folders, reduced memory usage
- Many other bug fixes and UI improvements in Folder View, e.g. better back button history, Undo shortcut support, clickable location in the headings, etc.
- Unified drop menu in Folder View, showing both file (Copy/Move/Link) and widget (creating a Picture widget from an image drop, etc.) drop actions
- It is now possible to resize widgets in the desktop by dragging on their edges and moving them with Alt+left-click, just like regular windows
Task Manager Improvements
Task Manager, the list of applications in the panel, has gained options for middle mouse click such as grouping and ungrouping applications.
Several other improvements here include:
- Places jump list actions in File manager launchers (e.g. pinned Dolphin in Task Manager now lists user places)
- The icon size in vertical Task Managers is now configurable to support more common vertical panel usage patterns
- Improved app identification and pinning in Task Manager for apps that rely on StartupWMClass, perl-SDL-based apps and more
Improved Touch Screen Support
Touch Screen Support has improved in several ways:
- Virtual Keyboard in lock screen
- Virtual Keyboard in the login screen
- Touch screen edge swipe gestures
- Left screen edge defaults to window switching
- Show auto-hiding panels through edge swipe gesture
There are so many other improvements throughout the desktop, here’s a sample:
- Media controls on lock screen
- Pause music on suspend
- Software Centre Plasma Search (KRunner) suggests to install non-installed apps
- File copying notifications have a context menu on previews giving access to actions such as open containing folder, copy, open with etc
- Improved plasma-windowed (enforces applet default/minimum sizes etc)
- ‘desktop edit mode’, when opening toolbox reveals applet handles
- Performance optimizations in Pager and Task Manager
- ‘Often used’ docs and apps in app launchers in addition to ‘Recently used’
- Panel icons (buttons for popup applets, launcher applets) now follow the Icons -> Advanced -> Panel size setting in System Settings again, so they won’t take up too much space, particularly useful for wide vertical panels
- Revamped password dialogs for network authentication
- The security of the lock screen architecture got reworked and simplified to ensure that your system is secured when the screen is locked. On Linux systems the lock screen is put into a sandbox through the seccomp technology.
- Plasma’s window manager support for hung processes got improved. When a window is not responding any more it gets darkened to indicate that one cannot interact with it any more.
- Support for locking and unlocking the shell from the startup script, useful especially for distributions and enterprise setups
- Audio Volume applet has a handy menu on each device which you can use to set is as default or switch output to headphones.
Download KDE Plasma 5.10
Live Images
The easiest way to try it out is with a live image booted off a USB disk. Docker images also provide a quick and easy way to test Plasma.
Download live images with Plasma 5
Package Downloads
Distributions have created, or are in the process of creating, packages listed on our wiki page.
KDE Plasma 5.10 Released – Download & Install KDE Plasma 5.10 originally posted on Source Digit – Latest Technology, Gadgets & Gizmos.