Link: https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.6.0/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43288310

In KDE Plasma 6.6 Spectacle can read texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keybord is available for testing, a first-time wizard was added, current theme can be saved as a new global theme, emoji selector got a new easier skin tone selection, you can now connect to a Wi-Fi network via a QR code, application sound volume can be changed by scrolling over a taskbar button via mouse, and there is much more.

Spectacle OCR is fantastic news. That is really going to simplify one of my current workflows.

As long as it can be turned off and does not use any non-local services for OCR it’s a good addition. As much as convenience is nice, privacy still has to come first.

Sounds like KDE is also doing a lot of work that will be helpful on phones, nice!

The OCR is offline, using Tesseract, there is nothing online about it.

It only activates when you press a button, so there is nothing to turn off either.

Nice. KDE is looking schmick. Congrats to the KDE team.

I am so happy we have such a good desktop option, they are constantly putting out great features :D

KDE absolutely ridiculing Windows yet again

Meanwhile Microsoft broke the fucking Notepad

How about Plasma Login Manager?

You can also filter windows out of a screencast by choosing a special option from the pop-up menu that appears when right-clicking a window’s title bar:

An option to hide windows from Spectacle, when recording a screencast. Admittedly I am not much of a screencast person, but its good to know in case I need it as I have some future plans. So I could have some notes or the web browser open in same virtual desktop I am recording from.

it's already available? CachyOS for example switched to using it as the default like a month or two ago. It's already out there.

The ability to have virtual desktops only on the primary screen

sigh. I guess. I think I just need to settle on the fact KDE is never going to allow dedicated virtual desktops per monitor. I really want to use Plasma but this is a deal breaker for me.

Seems like it's part of the 6.6.0 release. Arch has it in testing at version 6.6.0 at least.

I'm still sticking to Gnome but I love these features and how more polished KDE looks with every update (even though I still think they need to perfect some details). It makes me really happy to know we have these really important projects being libre.

I mean, this looks like a step towards that direction, no?

KDE is awesome. Congrats to all people involved with it.

The volume slider with a scroll wheel over the taskbar icons is such a clever little addition. It makes so much sense. I can’t believe nobody else thought of this.

Damn, I just love KDE, but my Linux Mint doesn’t support it anymore so I have to satisfy Cinnamon.

Just another reason not to use Mint.

Wait, do other DEs not have this? I believe even Windows has this.

What else should I use? It just works and I don’t want to mess with my computer anymore.

A distribution with first class KDE support, obviously 😛

CachyOS, Nobara, Bazzite, there’s a lot of good options.

Are you thinking of the volume icon in the systray? For that, it's pretty standard that scrolling changes the volume, yeah. @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works is talking about the volume of each individual application, though:

(I have hardly used Windows for the past decade, so no idea, if it has it.)

It's mentioned as the second point in "But that's not all...":

An optional new login manager for Plasma

I still wouldn't assume it to actually go further than that. It's a limitation of the EWMH standard, which is used for controlling the placement of windows.

I don't have in-depth knowledge of the standard, but I assume, it can only represent 1 desktop as the active desktop and stuff like that.
Maybe you could try to be clever by e.g. always reporting the active desktop of the active screen and stuff like that, but yeah, no idea if you can do that for all aspects of the standard, and whether applications will still behave as expected.

Oh boy, feature freeze for Ubuntu 26.04 is on Thursday. Hopefully, they still include this update.

My work laptop unfortunately comes with Kubuntu LTS and I desperately want the virtual-desktops-only-on-the-primary-screen feature on there. Currently, I'm the guy that actively disables all but one screen, because my workflow does not work at all with the secondary screen switching in sync with the primary screen.

fedora KDE has been pretty painless for me, and if you want something that’s still ubuntu based, kubuntu looks good too

I haven't updated to 6.6 yet, and I can definitely do that.

I'm on 6.5.5. Probably gonna update now

edit: nevermind, Just saw the video below. Def a new feature.

my workflow does not work at all with the secondary screen switching in sync with the primary screen

Same here. My workaround so far has been to put the windows that belong on the secondary to the "Keep Window on All Desktops" mode.

Yeah, I've done that occasionally, too, but it adds a load of friction for moving windows between screens, in particular also when un-/replugging the screen, so it's still painful enough that I don't bother with a second screen.

I guess, it also plays a role that I do use lots of workspaces, so it's 1) extra painful and 2) I don't have as big of a need for a second screen, since I can just switch out what first screen displays very quickly.

this is the way. They get nice stuff done without shoving AI in. Eat shit microslop!

Ohh wow! That is a great feature ^^