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KDE Plasma 6.7, expected in mid-June, is shaping up with a variety of desktop enhancements and refinements.
One of the most notable additions is support for the “Background apps” portal. This allows applications—particularly newer GNOME apps—to run in the background and show up in Plasma’s System Tray. As a result, portal-based background apps now integrate more naturally, similar to those using traditional tray icons.
KWin’s Zoom effect has also been improved with a new optional upscaling feature. When enabled, it sharpens magnified content, reducing the blocky appearance that can occur at higher zoom levels.
The Printers widget is getting a practical upgrade too, now displaying a badge that shows the number of active and queued print jobs directly in the System Tray.
Several interface elements have been polished. Qt’s generic MessageDialog now adopts KDE styling, fixing visual inconsistencies in components like the Sticky Notes widget. Discover has been improved to handle offline launches more gracefully and now gives clearer feedback when a firmware update is pending for the next reboot.
Other UI tweaks include fixing the double back button issue in the Networks widget when showing a network QR code, improving automatic brightness adjustments by using more data points, and making Widget Explorer sidebar buttons easier to reach at screen edges. The Color Picker widget has also been updated to allow unlimited time for selecting a color.
On the bug-fixing side, Plasma 6.7 resolves a KWin crash that could occur when activating items on a hidden panel while using the Vulkan backend. Accessibility has been improved on the Quick Settings page, ensuring certain controls are properly announced by the Orca screen reader. Additionally, disabling KRunner plugins globally will now correctly disable them in the Kicker Application Menu as well.
For a deeper look at ongoing changes, the “This Week in Plasma” posts on KDE’s blogs provide regular updates.
