New KDE Plasma 6.5 Feature Alerts You to Low Printer Ink Levels

ByHazem Yasser

New KDE Plasma 6.5 Feature Alerts You to Low Printer Ink Levels

This week, the KDE development team made significant progress on both the upcoming Plasma 6.5.0 release and the fourth maintenance update for Plasma 6.4, version 6.4.4. Both releases bring various user interface refinements, bug fixes, and performance enhancements. Here are the key highlights from this week’s development updates.

Printer Ink Level Monitoring in Plasma 6.5

One of the standout new features coming to Plasma 6.5 is automatic printer ink level monitoring. This practical addition will notify users when their printer’s ink supply is running low, helping prevent the frustration of discovering empty cartridges mid-print job.

The system works by checking the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) for marker levels after print jobs are created or completed. CUPS stores attributes like marker-levels in its printers.conf configuration file. When ink levels drop below the threshold, CUPS triggers a marker-supply-low-warning that Plasma will now utilize to inform users through desktop notifications.

Additional UI Improvements in Plasma 6.5

Several other user interface enhancements are coming to Plasma 6.5:

  • Improved Global Shortcuts: Key repeat has been disabled for certain global shortcuts, such as toggling the Overview feature, to prevent rapid screen flashing that could pose risks for users with photosensitive conditions.
  • Enhanced Screen Sharing Notifications: The “Someone started sharing this screen” notification now appears only after a connection is fully established, providing more accurate feedback.
  • Consistent Dialog Styling: The “Confirm deleting network connection” dialog now follows standard KDE design patterns, and the Global Menu widget features more consistent spacing.

Bug Fixes in Plasma 6.5

The upcoming release also addresses several important bugs:

  • Resolved a layout issue that caused visual overflow on the printer setup page
  • Fixed virtual keyboard functionality in the Application Dashboard search field
  • Enabled XDG portal-using applications to request screencasts of new virtual outputs
  • Moved clipboard configuration window size and position data from the state config file to the settings file for better organization

Plasma 6.4.4 Maintenance Release

The latest point release for Plasma 6.4 brings several important fixes:

  • Improved Desktop Item Selection: Hitboxes for desktop items now properly match their visual styling, eliminating accidental selection of invisible areas around files.
  • Notification Priority Handling: Low-priority notifications that arrive during Do Not Disturb mode now correctly appear in notification history instead of disappearing entirely.
  • Virtual Machine Stability: A fix is on the way for KWin crashes that occurred during login, particularly affecting QEMU virtual machine users.

Additional Bug Fixes in 6.4.4

Other resolved issues in the maintenance release include:

  • Fixed Global Menu widget’s single-button mode for X11 users
  • Restored search field functionality in the Wayland version of the Global Menu widget
  • Resolved an issue in the Global Shortcuts XDG portal that incorrectly reported empty shortcut lists to applications
  • Repaired the built-in Share feature in Plasma Browser Integration

These updates demonstrate KDE’s continued commitment to refining the Plasma desktop experience with both new features and essential stability improvements.

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