The KDE Project has announced that Plasma 5.13.0 is now stable and ready for production machines. While KDE has traditionally been known for its bells and whistles in terms of features which resulted in higher memory usage, the team decided to focus on memory optimisations with this development cycle ensuring all the basic features “run smoothly on the lowest-end hardware.”
The release does also come with several new features and redesigns. Two of the redesigns users will notice very early on are the new login screen and lock screen. While the login screen shows the Plasma wallpaper, the lock screen displays the wallpaper but uses a fade-to-blur transition to show various controls allowing it to double as a screensaver.
One of the new features added in this update is Plasma Browser Integration. As you might have guessed from the name, KDE now has integrated features which allow the browser and desktop to work seamlessly. The KDE Project said:
“Downloads are now displayed in the Plasma notification popup just as when transferring files with Dolphin. The Media Controls Plasmoid can mute and skip videos and music playing from within the browser. You can send a link to your phone with KDE Connect. Browser tabs can be opened directly using KRunner via the Alt-Space keyboard shortcut. To enable Plasma Browser Integration, add the relevant plugin from the addon store of your favourite browser.”
The last major changes that end users will want to look out for are the changes to the Discover software store. Discover now has better looking lists and categories thanks to the Kirigami UI framework. Lists can be sorted for improved navigation and also leverage the new Kirigami Cards widget. In addition, bundled app formats such as Flatpak and Snap have also been improved.
To read the full list of changes head on over to the KDE Project’s announcement. While you won’t see Plasma 5.13 on your distribution for a few months (unless you use a rolling release distribution like Arch or Manjaro), you can test out a live image which you write to a USB and boot into on your computer - doing so will not make any changes to your installed operating system on your hard drive.
Source: KDE
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