Available for testing a beta version of a custom Plasma 5.21 shell. You can test the new release via Live build from the openSUSE project and builds from the KDE Neon Testing edition . Packages for various distributions can be found at this page . Release expected February 16.
Key improvements:
- A new implementation of the Application Launcher has been proposed, with a three-pane layout – the left pane displays application categories, the right pane displays the category contents, and the bottom pane contains buttons for viewing a list of pinned directories (Places) and typical actions such as completion work, restart and go to sleep. The pane with categories additionally includes sections: “All Applications” with an alphabetically sorted list of installed applications and “Favorites” with an expanded list of thumbnails of frequently launched applications. The new menu also includes easier keyboard and mouse navigation, enhanced tools for people with disabilities, and added support for right-to-left (RTL) languages. The old Kickoff menu implementation is available for installation from the KDE Store directory under the name Legacy Kickoff .
- A new generic heading style and color scheme have been implemented for apps using the default skin.
- A new “Breeze Twilight” skin has been added, which combines a dark theme for the panel and Plasma desktop elements with a light light theme for applications.
- The interface of the application for monitoring system resources (Plasma System Monitor) has been completely redesigned. The program is redesigned using the Kirigami framework, which allows you to create universal interfaces for mobile and desktop systems. To obtain statistics on the parameters of the system operation, a separate service KSystemStats
/Media reports.