AUA: We are the Plasma dev team. Ask Us Anything about Plasma 6, gear 24.02, Frameworks 6 and everything else in the upcoming Megarelease.

David, Nate, Josh, Marco, Carl, and Niccolò are here ready to answer all your questions on Plasma (all versions), Gear, Frameworks, Wayland (and how it affects KDE’s software), and everything in between.

Fire away, Lemmy!

We were expecting to be done in an hour and we have past the 2-hour mark already! Time flies when you are having fun.

Thank you for all the questions and the welcoming and friendly atmosphere, but the devs must get back to making Plasma 6 great.

Please keep the conversation going and KDE contributors will continue to answer over the next days as time permits.

Thank you all!!

morrowind ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

There’s been an undercurrent of discussion I’ve noticed (and tend to agree) that C++ is not the most friendly language for new/outside contributors, even the newer standard you use. Is there an effort to bring first class support/documentation for another higher level language as well? e.g dart/ruby/lua/python/javascript/C#/go (whatever is most feasible)

PureTryOut ,
@PureTryOut@lemmy.kde.social avatar

I have some very, very, very, very WIP KDE widgets for Dart/Flutter in a project running. Currently it has almost nothing but it already automatically switches color theme when you switch color schemes in KDE for example 😄

Don’t expect too much of that though, it’s very unofficial and something I’m doing whenever I feel like it.

merthyr1831 ,

Amazing! Would love to have a nose at that when its mroe mature !

merthyr1831 ,

Some of the plasmoids are implemented in JavaScript I think, but personally I’d love to see Dart as a consideration for that “high level language” choice.

It already does a great job at gluing high level rendering abstractions with low level rendering libraries within the Flutter SDK, and supports a lot of useful paradigms in UI development such as first class functions, null safety, enhanced enumerators, etc.

I can see why it’s given a wide berth from FOSS since it’s associated with JavaScript AND Google (two controversial terms in programming to say the least…) but working with it daily really does remind me how well it lends itself to frontend development.

Pointedstick ,

Something that’s often not mentioned is that C++ with Qt is often a very different beast to use compared to C++ with the stdlib and other GUI frameworks. IMO Qt takes a lot of the pain out of C++, such that the criticism becomes blunted and mostly articulated by people looking in from outside who haven’t tried it yet.

morrowind ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

that suggests if nothing else, that point needs to be articulated more. But also then, C++ with QT is a very specific skill people now have to learn to help out, as opposed to stuff that would be more universally useful

Pointedstick ,

Sure, but Qt is the largest C++ toolkit in the world with millions of developers, so it’s not exactly a small niche thing that someone who knows C++ hasn’t heard of. :)

LunchEnjoyer ,

If it isn’t too late, What are your personal favourite features from Plasma 6?

azvasKvklenko ,

Are there any big things that you couldn’t squeeze in time for the mega release, but can’t wait to have them implemented in Plasma 6.1 later this year?

Pointedstick ,

Accent-colored tinted window headers, touchpad gesture configurability

merthyr1831 ,

I’m so hyped for configurable touchpad gestures!!!

soupermkc ,

Wouldn’t that be changing the corresponding color entries in the colorscheme? At least all of Plasma 5’s window decorations seem to respect those. Stuff like selection color’s already changed so it doesn’t seem too difficult?

jwr1 ,
@jwr1@kbin.earth avatar

Thanks for the AUA and all the work on KDE, especially with plasma 6.

It's not really a question, more of a request, but is it possible you all could make the kwrite/kate situation less complicated? I don't mind having options, but from what I understand, you can only have them both installed (or none), not one or the other. Also, if I want Kwrite to be the default editor, I have to go into every supported mime type (file association) and switch the default (instead of just once for all of them).

My preference would be that there's only one text editor (to cause less confusion; maybe just have a toggle button to switch between basic and advanced modes), and to make it easier to change file associations for common file types (like text files, video files, music, images, etc.); even if it's technically a different file format, e.g. .mp4 vs .mkv for videos, I should only have to set the default app once.

Pointedstick ,

from what I understand, you can only have them both installed (or none), not one or the other

You can have only one installed, and Fedora KDE ships this way. If your distro doesn’t offer that, it seems like a distro packaging issue.

make it easier to change file associations for common file types

That’s in Plasma 6. :)

jwr1 ,
@jwr1@kbin.earth avatar

You can have only one installed, and Fedora KDE ships this way. If your distro doesn’t offer that, it seems like a distro packaging issue.

Thanks for the info; it does look like that's how my distro packages it.

make it easier to change file associations for common file types
That’s in Plasma 6. :)

That's awesome to hear! It's a problem I've had for a while, so I'm glad it's being worked on.

Anyway, I just want to say I really appreciate all the work y'all have done over the years; I've been using plasma for the past 6-7 years, and it's a desktop environment like no other.

Pointedstick ,

You’re very welcome! I’m happy you’re enjoying it.

csolisr ,
@csolisr@hub.azkware.net avatar

In regards to theming, there's one thing that sticks like a sore thumb, and it's the fact that most if not all themes for Qt currently use the Kvantum engine ( github.com/tsujan/Kvantum ), which sadly is not well integrated with KDE in things as basic as supporting Plasma's color schemes and dynamic icons. Do you have any plans to collaborate directly with Kvantum, or with any other particular theming team other than Breeze's?

Pointedstick ,

A challenge for integrating with Kvantum is that it isn’t great for theming QtQuick due to bugs in our existing creaky theming infrastructure, as well as development direction preferences on the part of Kvantum’s maintainer.

One thing we have planned and want to work on during the Plasma 6 lifecycle is a new unified theming system that can apply to all KDE and Qt apps, GTK apps, and Plasma. The idea is to have a new theme that can be directly consumed by Qt’s Qstyle (for QtWidgets apps), KDE’s QtQuick desktop style (for desktop QtQuick apps), KDE’s Plasma style (for Plasma), as well as KDE’s GTK theme. Essentially we would end up with a new theming engine and each of the existing themes we have would consume those themes. This would replace the current approach where the C++ QStyle is the central source of truth and our QtQuick desktop style pulls content from it, while our Plasma and GTK themes are totally separate and have to be changed manually.

The new proposal is in fact not unlike how Kvantum already works, but it’s not rally made for easy upstreaming and it also uses SVG as the basis for its themes. We’d like to build our own thing and investigate using CSS as the basis for themes.

Needless to say, this is not happening for Plasma 6.0. :) But I’m hoping we can get it done sometime in the next year or three.

constancies ,
@constancies@metalhead.club avatar

@Bro666 With the transition from QT5 to 6 and Plasma 5.27's implementation of wp-fractional-scale-v1, will most KDE apps now be able to fractionally scale without using the upscale-downscale method? (Or in other words, how QT apps fractionally scale under X11)

davidre ,

That’s correct!

constancies ,
@constancies@metalhead.club avatar

@davidre While KDE doesn't oversee LibreOffice development, since they also have a QT6 backend for their UI, might they also benefit from this? Currently fractional scaled LibreOffice under Wayland with the QT5 backend is extremely laggy, presumably due to the upscale-downscale method.

leopold ,

LibreOffice uses its own toolkit called VCL which uses a number back-ends to render using native toolkits on all platforms, similar in concept to WxWidgets. I don’t know if the way VCL works allows Qt6 fractional scaling to just work, but a Qt6/KF6 back-end already exists and can be forced by setting SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=qt6 or SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kf6, so you should be able to try it out right now.

RegalPotoo ,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

What is the plan for rolling the mega release out to Neon users?

Are there plans for updating Neon once the 22.04 lts is released?

Thanks

davidre ,

Neon unstable/testing already contains the relevant branches. Neon user edition should receive it as normal when it releases. When Neon will update its Ubuntnu base is a question for Neon developers.

RegalPotoo ,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

Thank you! Will switch my laptop over to testing tonight and see how it goes

ericjmorey ,
@ericjmorey@programming.dev avatar

I haven’t used KDE in a long time because I’ve been keeping things simple and just accepting most defaults on Pop!_OS.

What would be the most compelling reason, in your opinion, to make the effort to try out KDE?

davidre ,

I think everyone has different preferences on how they use their machine. However I would invite to just try Plasma out. One thing where it stands out is in my opinion that you can tailor it to your wishes and use case.

Pointedstick , (edited )

In addition to the obvious answer of “because our software is really good!”, IMO an under-appreciated reason is that KDE truly is an anarchic and largely volunteer-run community. As long as there are passionate volunteers, there will be KDE; you don’t have to worry about it just dying one day should some big corporation pull the plug for some reason. We’ve all become so accustomed these days to software being disposable, but KDE really does give you a measure of longevity and continuity that you’re unlikely to get elsewhere, especially without paying a lot of money for it.

KRAW ,
@KRAW@linux.community avatar

I’m someone that uses sway because I really like to keep my workflow as keyboard driven as possible. However, I do not necessarily need the minimalism of sway and sometimes miss the more polished experience of a full DE. Are there ways to configure Plasma to give me a sway-like keyboard-driven flow while still getting some of the other benefits of Plasma?

linucs ,

Thanks for the AUA! Really excited about the Mega Release and even more for the future after!

My question is regarding Nate’s original proposal for the KDE goals “Professionalise KDE” if I remember well. Now, I know that the goal was changed and the scope reduced to “Automatization and Systematization” but I truly believe the original proposal’s spirit could have a huge impact on the whole ecosystem.

For example I remember the proposal contained the plan to hire a person working “full time” on actively finding fundings and grants and applying to them. We got the Mega Release fundraiser but for example on the forum I found discuss.kde.org/t/…/9916 and it looks like a waste of potential to not apply for grants because no one has the time to do so.

Is there anyone at KDE, maybe among the Board, who is still trying to make the “Professionalise KDE” happen?

P.S. I know you guys just want to reach the biggest amount of people but maybe we could start having the AUAs/AMAs and similar, only on Lemmy and a post on Reddit saying that the event will be hosted on Lemmy. This would make the Lemmy community the official one and could convince people to make the switch for the “exclusive content”. It’s not a critic, just want to see Lemmy prosper.

Pointedstick , (edited )

As a Board member now, I’ll answer this one. To a certain extent I ran for a seat on the Board because I realized that proposing this via a Goal was the wrong place to do it, and the more effective way to push for that change was by being on the Board. And now that I’ve been elected there, yes I do still want to do it and push for it internally where possible. However now that I have a fuller picture of the e.V.'s situation, I realize that there are budgetary concerns that must be met before we do more hiring, and KDE e.V. operates under extremely strict German nonprofit rules that make it not as simple as it might appear. Now, in an ideal world this person would be effectively self-funding, but we need to make sure we can afford them in the first place! It’s a bit of a chicken-egg situation, really.

Note that we’ve already done a certain amount of professionalizing KDE inasmuch as it means “KDE e.V. hires professionals to work on KDE.” KDE e.V. does indeed now employ multiple technical engineers to work on various areas of the software stack, and I want to see this grow even more. But, we need more money to make it happen, and until we do have that employed professional fundraiser, it’s up to existing members of the Board and the community to improve the revenue side of the equation so that it becomes possible! That’s why I’m so happy with the progress of the current fundraiser. 700 new members means at least 70,000€ of new recurring yearly income, which is enormous for KDE e.V. If we can keep up this kind of fundraising performance, we can do so much cool stuff in the next few years.

linucs ,

Thanks for the thorough answer Nate, can’t wait for KDE world domination!

Kalcifer ,
@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works avatar

Is there a plan to allow KDE Discover to update flatpaks automatically?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • All magazines
    •