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KDE Plasma 5.9 Released (softpedia.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the come-and-get-it dept.

KDE has announced the release and general availability of the KDE Plasma 5.9 desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems. While it only took a few months to develop and isn't a long-term supported (LTS) version like KDE Plasma 5.8, the update does have several new features and improving Wayland support. Softpedia reports: Probably the most important one, which will make many KDE users upgrade from KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS or previous versions, is the return of Global Menus, a feature that was available in the KDE 4 series of the desktop environment. Only now, after numerous requests from users, did the KDE developers manage to implement Global Menus again in KDE Plasma 5.9. Quite a multitude of improvements have landed in the KDE Plasma 5.9 desktop environment for those who use the next-generation Wayland display server. These include the ability to take screenshots, support for using the color picker, implementation of borderless maximized windows for full-screen support, and support for dragging apps by clicking on an empty area of the user interface using the Breeze style. KDE Plasma Wayland support allows users to set color schemes for windows, which may come in handy for accessibility, implements auto-hide support for panels, and properly displays the window icon on the panel when using X11 apps. Moreover, there's now a new settings tool for configuring touchpads, which you can see in action in the second video attached below. Wayland users can also set up gestures and relative motions. KDE Plasma 5.9 also adds several cool new tools that promise to enhance your productivity. For example, you'll be able to drag a screenshot taken with the Spectacle utility from the notification pop-up straight into a web browser form, chat window, or email composer. There's also a brand-new drag and drop functionality that lets you add widgets directly to the system tray area, and it's now possible to add widgets directly from the full-screen Application Dashboard launcher. KRunner actions like "Open containing folder" and "Run in Terminal" are now displayed in the application launchers for search results powered by KRunner, of course, and there's now a new applet that lets users group multiple widgets together in a single one. You can read the announcement and download KDE Plasma 5.9 via their website.

13 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Link to announcement by colin_faber · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.kde.org/announceme...

  2. Background per desktop? by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone know if this feature is back yet? I stopped upgrading KDE because I like having different background images per-desktop and this feature was dropped in favor of the somewhat clunky activities system.

    1. Re:Background per desktop? by negRo_slim · · Score: 2

      Are you kidding me? You're willing tosacrifice your precious VRAM and GPU cycles in such a way?I am flabbergasted!

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    2. Re:Background per desktop? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Everything on linux desktops was more configurable 15 years ago than today, unfortunately. It's the apple effect, people believe that to make something user friendly means to eliminate all the choices.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    3. Re: Background per desktop? by subk · · Score: 2
      You need a decently up-to-date Linux distribution to start with.. Read: Rolling Release. For that matter, if you're running Linux on a desktop, and you're not using a rolling release distro, you're doing it wrong. All of these things people bitch about like EFI booting, Systemd, FOSS graphics drivers, etc work *so* much better if you're using the freshest versions of everything in the system. The old-style monolithic distros like Debian are great for servers, but are not a good environment for using anything cutting edge.

      In my experience on Arch, Enlightenment is as simple as installing the package(s), which are in mainline. It's been a long time since I experienced any difficulty or glitches with anything in the Elementary suite of applications.

      --
      Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    4. Re:Background per desktop? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      I loved E16 back in 1999 (I used it as a window manager for GNOME though which gave me the best of both worlds). Tried E17 maybe 5 years ago and wasn't impressed with it as a standalone desktop. I though probably give it another try though, thanks for the reminder.

      Think about it this way - it's so configurable, it became a mobile OS.

      (Tizen is heavily based on Enlightenment, apps generally use the Enlightenment Foundation LIbraries).

  3. Gobal menus? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    "Global Menus have returned. KDE's pioneering feature to separate the menu bar from the application window allows for new user interface paradigm with either a Plasma Widget showing the menu or neatly tucked away in the window bar,"

    You mean stuff that other DEs have had for ages? Same with clicking on an empty area to drag a window - which KDE had back (ISTR) in the days of Mandrake Linux ... must be a lot of work taking stuff out and putting it back in again all the time. They must be taking notes from Microsoft ...

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:Gobal menus? by Eluan · · Score: 2

      The release announcement is almost entirely comprised of stuff that was standard back in the early 90's. This reimplementation madness, along with slowness to implement basic stuff, is going out of control! Almost all "modern" user interfaces lack basic stuff.

  4. Flamebait by puddingebola · · Score: 2, Informative

    It still can't hold a candle to Gnome 3.

    1. Re:Flamebait by snookiex · · Score: 2

      FYI, KDE vs GNOME war is over. XFCE won.

      --
      Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
  5. Re:Yawn by kayoshiii · · Score: 2

    Yeah that's pretty much a standard feature across most X11 desktops including KDE. The good ones allow you to move those bindings from 'alt' to 'meta' for aplications that use alt.

  6. Re:Yawn by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    The point is that Wayland and KDE are only now catching up (sort of) to where X and KDE were 20 years ago. Takes real courage to boast about that.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  7. Re:KDE Alpha by Trongy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's hard to erase something that never existed. The original announcement mentions using windows design features, but not the goal of a perfect clone.

    There was another Linux desktop whose name escapes me at that time that had that stated goal, not KDE. Most open source projects in the 90's wanted to avoid being sued by Microsoft.

    KDE took ideas from many desktop environments, with a strong influence of Windows. The screenshots of KDE1 show a strong visual similarity. The goal was to make it easy for Windows users to switch. KDE had a start menu and task bar which were the biggest innovations in Windows 95. Even apple eventually copied the taskbar. KDE also had the minimise/maximise/close widgets in the same place as MS Windows, and unlike most other graphical environments at that time. However KDE was never limited to copying Windows and even those early versions had features that were better than Windows 95.