KDE released Plasma 5.11 beta version at 14 September 2017. The new star feature here is Plasma Vault, an ability to protect your folder with password. You can try it on the latest KDE neon before the Plasma finally released next October. Here is a quick look to the new things on KDE Plasma on neon dev-unstable.
1. New Wallpaper
Plasma 5.11 got new wallpaper named Opal. You can find the source here and its announcement on changelog.
2. New System Settings
The KDE System Settings got new layout named Sidebar! This is a redesigned appearance intended to be more user-friendly, easier for user to access the most frequently used settings. But as always, KDE keeps the old layouts (icons and tree) so you can switch the layout as you wish!
The new Sidebar layout:
Viewing a page of Settings (Desktop Effects):
Easy to switch to old layout (GIF animation):
3. New Vault
This is a new feature at 5.11! Plasma Vault made you able to lock your folder with strong password. You can mount and unmount that folder just like normal partition but with password known only to you. Sure, this is a must-have very handy feature of all desktop operating systems we should have and personally I’m waiting for this for a long time. Now it’s real thanks to KDE Plasma.
The Vault appearance as tray icon:
Animation below shows you how handy Plasma Vault is. See, the locked folder can be seen but the contents are not. When you unlock it, you must enter the password, then you can see the contents. Lock it again, enter the password, the contents disappeared again.
4. New Notification History
Now, Plasma has history of past notifications. It’s more handy now while you leave your computer running for a while, you won’t lost them again.
By default, you may not find Vault installed on your Plasma (even on neon dev-unstable!). So if your distro provides the latest Plasma, install Vault manually by the package plasma-vault:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install plasma-vault
Kubuntu PPA
Related to Plasma, Kubuntu now has the Plasma 5.11 beta on their PPA for 17.10 “Artful Aardvark” for testing. Yes, Kubuntu Developers planned to provide 5.11 stable available next October via PPA for Kubuntu Artful. Visit Kubuntu PPA here or just perform these commands on your Artful to install Plasma 5.11:
sudo add-apt-repository –yes ppa:kubuntu-ppa/beta
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
About Plasma & KDE
Plasma is a modern desktop user interface, simple by default and powerful when needed, for GNU/Linux operating systems. Plasma is one of many free software developed by KDE, an international technology community developing user-friendly computing experiences for all computer users. You can get involved in KDE development from the official page. You can donate to KDE here.