KDE Plasma 5.22 Released with Better Stability and Usability Across the Board

The KDE Plasma developers have been incredibly busy this cycle, refactoring code, fixing bugs, and adding new features, all of which come together to bring even more performance to the desktop environment. The developers are so proud of this release (and the work they’ve achieved) that they created a showcase site to highlight everything found in KDE Plasma 5.22.

The latest release is all about general eye candy and usability. And it shows.

One of the most exciting new features to be found in KDE Plasma is called Adaptive Transparency, which will transition between translucent to opaque, depending on if there are any maximized windows. So when an app window is maximized, the panel will be opaque. If there are no maximized windows, the panel will be translucent. Of course, users can opt-out of this feature and make the panel always translucent or always opaque.

Other new features include a speed dial page for the System Settings app, which gives you direct access to your most commonly used settings. The System Tray will now house widgets that are much more consistent in appearance and a completely redesigned digital clock that improves the look of the widget and allows users to configure how the date/time is displayed. Users can also opt to disable offline updates, select audio device profiles from the volume widget, see all clipboard contents (using the Super+V keyboard shortcut), and KSysguard has been replaced by the new Plasma System Monitor.

If you’re interested in checking out the latest KDE Plasma desktop, it’s now available in KDE Neon.