KDE Plasma 6.6 has been released, featuring several enhancements including text extraction from screenshots, per-app volume control in the task manager, and the ability to save custom themes. This update marks the seventh major release since KDE Plasma 6.0 debuted in February 2024.
Key Features in KDE Plasma 6.6
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Screenshot OCR: The built-in screenshot tool, Spectacle, now incorporates optical character recognition (OCR), allowing users to extract text from images and copy it to the clipboard. This feature supports multiple languages and is suitable for capturing text from web pages and documents.
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Custom Theme Saving: Users can now save their personalized themes within the KDE Plasma environment, allowing for easy reuse of color, font, and decoration settings. This includes the ability to have themes that adapt to day/night settings.
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Improved Performance: Plasma 6.6 addresses a longstanding issue where animations were capped at 60Hz on high-refresh-rate displays, resulting in smoother animations. Additional performance enhancements include reduced idle memory usage and various improvements for Wayland.
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QR Code Wi-Fi Access: Users can now connect to Wi-Fi networks by scanning QR codes with their device’s camera, enhancing accessibility.
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Per-App Volume Control: By scrolling over an application’s icon in the task manager, users can adjust its volume without needing to navigate through other menus. The update also introduces global keyboard shortcuts for skipping forward or backward in media.
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Increased Virtual Desktop Limit: The number of virtual desktops has been expanded from 20 to 25, allowing for improved multitasking capabilities.
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Accessibility Improvements: New features like a grayscale color filter and enhanced zoom capabilities have been added to make the desktop more accessible to users with visual impairments.
Additional Improvements
KDE Plasma 6.6 introduces several new components, including an on-screen keyboard, an alternative login manager, and an OEM setup wizard aimed at new users.
For those interested, KDE Plasma 6.6 is immediately available for users of KDE Neon and other rolling-release distributions. Users of Kubuntu can expect packages to be available through the Kubuntu Backports PPA in the coming weeks.
For the full changelog and more details, visit the KDE website.