A beta version of KDE Plasma 5.17 has been released today. Some highlights of KDE Plasma 5.17 include:
Do Not Disturb mode is automatically enabled when mirroring screens (e.g. when delivering a presentation)
The Notifications widget now uses an improved icon instead of displaying the number of unread notifications
Improved widget positioning UX, particularly for touch
Improved the Task Manager’s middle-click behavior: middle-clicking on an open app’s task opens a new instance, while middle-clicking on its thumbnail will close that instance
Slight RGB hinting is now the default font rendering mode
Plasma now starts even faster!
Conversion of fractional units into other units (e.g. 3/16″ == 4.76 mm) in KRunner and Kickoff
Wallpaper slideshows can now have user-chosen ordering rather than always being random
New Unsplash picture of the day wallpaper source with categories
Much better support for public WiFi login
Added the ability to set a maximum volume that’s lower than 100%
Pasting text into a sticky note strips the formatting by default
Kickoff’s recent documents section now works with GNOME/GTK apps
Fixed Kickoff tab appearance being broken with vertical panels
System Settings: Thunderbolt, X11 Night Color and Overhauled Interfaces
Night Color settings are now available on X11 tooThunderbolt device managementReorganized Appearance settings, consistent sidebars and headers
New settings panel for managing and configuring Thunderbolt devices
The Night Color settings are now available on X11 too. It gets a modernized and redesigned user interface, and the feature can be manually invoked in the settings or with a keyboard shortcut.
Overhauled the user interface for the Displays, Energy, Activities, Boot Splash, Desktop Effects, Screen Locking, Screen Edges, Touch Screen, and Window Behavior settings pages and the SDDM advanced settings tab
Reorganized and renamed some settings pages in the Appearance section
Basic system information is now available through System Settings
Added accessibility feature to move your cursor with the keyboard when using Libinput
You can now apply a user’s font, color scheme, icon theme, and other settings to the SDDM login screen to ensure visual continuity on single-user systems
New ‘sleep for a few hours and then hibernate’ feature
The Colors page now displays the color scheme’s titlebar colors
It is now possible to assign a global keyboard shortcut to turn off the screen
Standardized appearance for list headers
The ‘Automatically switch all running streams when a new output becomes available’ feature now works properly
