KDE Developers Take On UI Scaling Issues, Automatically Adjust Subtle Scaling Factors on Wayland
The latest edition of “This Week in Plasma” has just been released, bringing a solid mix of bug fixes for the recently launched Plasma 6.4, early previews of what’s coming in Plasma 6.5, and some clever under-the-hood improvements that make the desktop experience smoother than ever.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s new.
🔍 Fixing Blurry Displays in Plasma 6.4.3
One of the most notable updates comes with Plasma 6.4.3 , scheduled for release on the 15th of this month . This update will address a long-standing issue related to display scaling on Wayland — particularly how the system calculates scale factors.
As KDE developer Nate Graham explained, when the auto-detected scale factor is just slightly above 1x , it can cause noticeable blurriness on screen elements like text and icons. To solve this, the new logic will now snap those values back down to exactly 1x if they’re only slightly over.
This means a much crisper display in many cases — even if it does result in slightly smaller UI elements. The trade-off? Sharp visuals over perfect sizing.
🎨 Quality-of-Life Improvements Coming to Plasma 6.5
Looking ahead to Plasma 6.5 , which is expected later this year, the team has introduced several small but meaningful enhancements aimed at improving everyday usability.
For example, hovering over an empty folder on the desktop now shows a helpful placeholder message — such as “Folder is empty” — instead of just displaying a blank popup box. It’s a minor change, but one that adds clarity and improves user experience.
Another handy tweak involves screencasting : when capturing a specific window, any pop-up windows it generates will now be included in the recording — making tutorials and demos much more accurate.
🔊 Better Audio Control
In terms of audio handling, there’s also a welcome change. Previously, unmuting volume would only affect the currently active playback device . In Plasma 6.5, unmuting will now restore sound across all connected devices , reducing confusion and unnecessary toggling.
⌨ A New Virtual Keyboard on the Horizon
KDE is also working on its own on-screen virtual keyboard , aiming to eventually replace the older Maliit-based solution. While still in development, the new keyboard is already showing promise:
- Clean design
- Improved touch support
- Integration into the Plasma environment
That said, there are still a few kinks to work out — such as limited input support in Electron-based apps — but the KDE team is actively addressing these issues.
🐛 Bug Fixes Across Plasma Versions
Of course, no KDE update would be complete without a round of important bug fixes:
- Plasma 6.3.6 fixed a flickering issue that occurred when returning to full-screen games after switching focus.
- Plasma 6.4.2 brought stability improvements, including preventing KWin crashes caused by Task Switcher shortcuts and restoring functionality to the Global Menu widget’s “Single button” mode.
- Plasma 6.4.3 will include fixes for:
- Orca screen reader compatibility in Learn mode
- Crashes in the built-in RDP server during unstable connections
- An issue where the screen might turn itself back on after being manually disabled
Also, in Frameworks 6.16 , users can expect improvements like:
- Better sorting in file open/save dialogs
- Enhanced GPU detection on systems with multiple graphics cards
🔐 Small But Useful: WireGuard Escape Key Fix
Lastly, Plasma 6.5 will fix a quirky bug where pressing Esc in the properties dialog of a WireGuard connection could break the interface — a small detail, but one that matters for advanced users managing secure networks.