What’s new on KDE Plasma 5.17?

According to a recent blog post by KDE developer [1,2], Nate Graham, KDE Plasma 5.17 will provide client-side decoration for GTK3 applications, and headerbars using the Breeze GTK theme now respect the active KDE color scheme. KDE Plasma 5.17 will be launched this fall.

KDE Plasma 5.17 also supports the zwp_linux_dmabuf_v1 interface on Wayland in the KWin window manager, which should provide better performance and lower memory usage. “Notifications’ Do Not Disturb mode can now be optionally enabled automatically when screens are mirrored, such as when giving a presentation. The list of recent documents in the Kickoff Application launcher and other launchers now includes items that show up in GNOME’s Nautilus and the GTK file dialogs.”

The page environment of KDE Plasma 5.17 has been polished a lot, especially the various pages of the system settings, including screen lock, screen edges and touch screen. The Kickoff Application Launcher now displays the latest documentation from GNOME’s Nautilus File Manager and GTK File Dialogs, and now enables notifications from Do Not Disturb mode when mirroring the screen.

KDE Plasma 5.17 also brings a number of bug fixes to improve the layout and keyboard navigation of the Kickoff Application Launcher, the notification indicator unread notification counter in the system tray, the list title in the system settings, Wayland’s support for the Plasma Networks widget, and fixed various issues with right-clicking on System Tray icons

The final version of the KDE Plasma 5.17 desktop environment is expected to be available on October 15, 2019, and will begin public testing on September 19.