Dear digiKam fans and users,

After three months of active development, bug triage, and feature integration, the digiKam team is proud to announce the stable release of digiKam 9.1.0. This version builds on the foundation of 9.0.0, introducing new features, performance improvements, and a significant number of bug fixes to enhance stability, usability, and workflow efficiency. This release focuses on database migration, preview enhancements, advanced search, and usability improvements across the board.

So… more Oxygen icons

This weekend I been filling some of the more obvious holes in the icon set and recently these 2 landed.

The first one is for KeepSecret, the application that is replacing the old KWallet.

Security icons are funny. There are only so many ways to draw "keep your stuff safe" before you end up with another lock icon. Or a key. Or a lock pretending not to be a lock.

I ended up going with a small vault door. Which is basically also a lock pretending not to be a lock but at least it looks kinda cool, and more important I think it looks as smart as our users are...

The other one is for generic package managers.

And apparently software still arrives in wooden crates.

I dont know who started this visual convention but after all these years I kinda stopped questioning it. Software packages are boxes. Everybody understands boxes. Lets move on, and debate the real important things such as the relevance of the save icon as a flopy device

One thing that I love about icon design is how different the process becomes depending on size.

At large sizes you can spend hours messing around with materials, reflections, shadows and tiny details.

At small sizes all that disappears and suddenly you are fighting for every pixel. trying to keep the meanigfull details and creating a source svg monster in Oxygen repo

I think icon design is really just the art of deciding what can be removed before the whole thing falls apart.

Talking about things that may or may not fall apart…

I've also been spending some time exploring styling in QML and thinking about possible future directions for O².

Nothing concrete yet.

Mostly experiments.

Some ideas are sensible.

Some ideas are absolutely not sensible. On propose

The main goal is realy to show range of things I would ike to see available on Union.

Those are usually the interesting ones.

Right now I'm more interested in exploring the range of possibilities than deciding what a final result should look like. There are some surprisingly fun things hidden in there.

If all goes well we will soonish publish a video with KDAB showing some of these experiments and crazy ideas.

Or at least the ones that dont completely explode before then

So stay tuned.

And as always, thanks for using Oxygen.

This old project still finding new excuses to keep going.

The second maintenance release of the 26.04 series is out with the usual batch of bug fixes and improvements for workflow and stability. This update comes with fixes to rendering, timeline editing, project file handling, and Windows, MacOS, AppImage and Flatpak packaging.

One noteworthy bug closed in this version is a fix on Windows to finally allow exporting your videos to a network drive, closing a 4-year-old bug.

Head to our download section to get the latest binaries, or check the updates from your package manager. Please note that for Linux only AppImage and Flatpak are supported by the Kdenlive team.

For the full changelog continue reading on kdenlive.org.

Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma!

This week the team continued polishing Plasma 6.7 for its release later in the month. As such, this week saw mostly bug fixing.

Notable UI improvements

Plasma 6.7

Hovering over a partially-visible item in the Kickoff Application Launcher widget no longer unexpectedly automatically scrolls the view to show the entire item. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #426015)

Spectacle’s feature to automatically copy the screenshot to the clipboard is now temporarily turned off while extracting text via OCR, so that the extracted text makes it onto the clipboard instead. (Tobias Fella, KDE Bugzilla #520758)

When launching an app from a terminal window, the animated launch feedback effect now ends after the app launches, as expected. (Nicolas Fella, Vlad Zahorodnii, and Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #459986)

Plasma 6.8

Notifications about connected devices having low battery power are now shown in full-screen apps so you won’t miss them, just like notifications for the internal battery being low. (Jan Bidler, plasma-workspace MR #6623)

The Peek at Desktop and Window Aperture effects now respect the system-wide animation speed setting. (Sudip Datta, KDE Bugzilla #490531)

Frameworks 6.27

KRunner now assumes you mean US pints rather than Imperial pints when you convert to or from them, since pints are still official in the USA. (Nate Graham, kunitconversion MR #86)

After

Before

Disk sizes displayed in various places now fully respect your preference regarding storage units. (Tobias Fella, KDE Bugzilla #518493)

Notable bug fixes

Plasma 6.6.6

Fixed a case where Plasma could crash while refreshing the list of nearby wireless networks. (David Edmundson, KDE Bugzilla #519739)

Fixed an issue that reset custom tiling layouts on portrait-rotated monitors after restarting the system. (Hynek Schlindenbuch, KDE Bugzilla #514355)

Searching for an app in the Kicker Application Menu widget and launching one that isn’t the first item in the search results list no longer launches it twice. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #521001)

Plasma 6.7

Fixed a regression in VNC-based screen sharing that prevented the Ctrl and Alt modifier from being sent to the machine being controlled. (David Edmundson, KDE Bugzilla #519690)

Fixed an issue that could make Plasma freeze if you quickly switch months in the Digital Clock widget by dragging on the calendar view multiple times in quick succession. (Sander Wolswijk, KDE Bugzilla #511028)

Made the Task Manager Widget’s “Move to Desktop” feature work on grouped tasks. (Hynek Schlindenbuch, KDE Bugzilla #520777)

Fixed two issues with the Grouping widget: not re-appearing instantly after undoing deleting it, and a phantom header remaining visible after removing the last app from it. (Tobias Fella, KDE Bugzilla #517044 and KDE Bugzilla #517043)

Fixed a variety of issues with icons or list items not properly reversing themselves when using a right-to-left language like Arabic or Hebrew. (Tobias Fella and Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #518932, KDE Bugzilla #518909, KDE Bugzilla #518935, KDE Bugzilla #518835, and KDE Bugzilla #518837)

Made System Settings raise and focus its window as expected when launched using a higher-than-default level of focus stealing prevention. (Kai Uwe Broulik, systemsettings MR #408)

Frameworks 6.27

Switching between light and dark Global Themes no longer sometimes results in various UI elements in Plasma only changing their colors halfway. (Marco Martin, KDE Bugzilla #503671)

Fixed an issue saving and retrieving config data in cases where a setting has been given a system-wide default value by the OS vendor that differs from KDE’s own default value. (Nicolas Fella, KDE Bugzilla #509416)

Fixed various related issues with network shares auto-mounted using systemd, including the trash not working properly, and appearing strangely in GUI apps. (Oliver Schramm, KDE Bugzilla #518012)

Fixed an issue that made it impossible to rename files on the desktop via the “Suggest new name” feature in the overwrite dialog. (Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #509461)

How you can help

KDE has become important in the world, and your time and contributions have helped us get there. As we grow, we need your support to keep KDE sustainable.

Would you like to help put together this weekly report? Introduce yourself in the Matrix room and join the team!

Beyond that, you can help KDE by directly getting involved in any other projects. Donating time is actually more impactful than donating money. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE — you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to be a programmer, either; many other opportunities exist.

You can also help out by making a donation! This helps cover operational costs, salaries, travel expenses for contributors, and in general just keeps KDE bringing Free Software to the world.

To get a new Plasma feature or a bug fix mentioned here

Push a commit to the relevant merge request on invent.kde.org.

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-23.

“But it happened.”

Tags: tech, google, attention-economy, business

Good point, the booing on Eric Schimidt’s commencement speech is likely not just about him talking about AI at some point. You see, the man has very heavy baggage… He’s one of the architects of the current dystopia but won’t acknowledge it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlQ7EoJDTQY

AI didn’t break the web. The dotcons did – AI just turned up the volume

Tags: tech, copyright, commons, web, ai, machine-learning, gpt, enclosure

Indeed the trend wasn’t new. It’s “just” the icing on the cake from the enclosure point of view.

https://hamishcampbell.com/ai-didnt-break-the-web-the-dotcons-did-ai-just-turned-up-the-volume/

Unlawful by design: Exposing the human rights costs of generative AI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics, law

When Amnesty International feels like it has to publish a 44 pages briefing pointing out what’s wrong with your approach and business… it’d be nice to pay attention.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol40/0996/2026/en/

About rsync slopocalypse

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, quality

Indeed, if the rsync maintainer can’t handle a coding assistant properly… who can?

https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo/116659545246426837

When Other Games Chased Polygons, Blade Runner Chased Atmosphere

Tags: tech, game, graphics, 2d, 3d

There was an era of hybrid techniques in video games before it mostly went full real-time 3D. It gave interesting results, here is an example.

https://gardinerbryant.com/when-other-games-chased-polygons/

Avoid using "<![CDATA[ ... ]]>" in RSS

Tags: tech, blog, rss

Good point indeed, need to review my own feed next time I get the chance.

https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-05-11/avoid-using-cdata-in-rss

You Don’t Love systemd Timers Enough

Tags: tech, linux, systemd, time

Good primer on systemd timers. Indeed it’s really one of the nice systemd features.

https://blog.tjll.net/you-dont-love-systemd-timers-enough/

5 PostgreSQL locking behaviors that trip people up

Tags: tech, postgresql, databases, distributed

Mind those traps when dealing with such a database. There are locks you don’t necessarily expect.

https://dev.to/shinyakato_/5-postgresql-locking-behaviors-that-trip-people-up-4k7n

You probably don’t need Yocto, and that’s fine

Tags: tech, linux, embedded, yocto, debian

Indeed, teams reach out to Yocto by default a bit too much. It’s good to have an idea on when you really needed and when you can go for simpler options.

https://sigma-star.at/blog/2026/05/you-probably-dont-need-yocto-and-thats-fine/

Nine Ways to Do Inheritance in Rust, a Language Without Inheritance

Tags: tech, rust, type-systems, object-oriented

Some of the examples lean on macro trickery. Still this gives a good example of the flexibility you get with the trait system.

https://medium.com/@carlmkadie/nine-ways-to-do-inheritance-in-rust-a-language-without-inheritance-14825bf1e215

The C++ Standard Library Has Been Walking Itself Back for Fifteen Years, and the Receipts Are Public

Tags: tech, c++, standard, culture

Cold and harsh look at how the C++ standard library evolves. There’s indeed a problem in the fact that nothing gets removed ever.

https://hftuniversity.com/post/the-c-standard-library-has-been-walking-itself-back-for-fifteen-years-and-the-receipts-are-public

You Must Fix Your Asserts

Tags: tech, reliability, failure, debugging

Good point, disabling asserts in production is not the best default position to have.

https://kristoff.it/blog/fix-your-asserts/

What (almost) Everyone Gets Wrong About TDD & BDD

Tags: tech, tdd, atdd, history

Good summary of how the terms evolved. They are more tied to each other than most people think.

https://antonymarcano.substack.com/p/what-almost-everyone-gets-wrong-about-c05

normalize patience

Tags: tech, culture, patience, time, productivity, attention-economy

Things which matter take time. The calls to productivity and technology pushing us toward faster response on everything is killing what makes our humanity.

https://rnotte.art/normalize-patience/

Bye for now!

This week, I completed the port of KeepSecret's actions to the new org.kde.kirigami.actioncollection API from kirigami-app-components, a recently introduced library developed by Marco Martin (notmart).

Before working on this task, actions were defined separately throughout the UI. With ActionCollection, I could define each action once in a central place and then reuse it wherever it was needed. This makes the code easier to maintain and also integrates KeepSecret with KDE's standard shortcut system, allowing users to configure shortcuts through the usual KDE interface.

The main change was creating a dedicated Actions.qml file with AC.ActionCollectionManager as the root element. Inside it, actions are now centrally defined across three collections — one for the wallet list, one for wallet contents, and one for item details. These include actions such as New Wallet, New Entry, Search, Lock, Unlock, Copy Password, Save, Revert, and Delete.

During review, additional actions were added, dependencies were simplified, and Flatpak build issues were addressed. Since kirigami-app-components is still very new, some CI and packaging adjustments were needed before everything built correctly.

The merge request !29 has now been reviewed, approved, and merged into KeepSecret.

Next up is the Import/Export feature — I'll be studying KeepSecret's wallet data structures and designing the file format this week.

Hello Reader!

In case you don't know me (quite likely 😆), I am Ojas Maheshwari (@the_epicman:matrix.org) and I am currently working in the Google Summer of Code program for the KDE community on a project about Font Subsetting in Poppler under my mentor Albert Astals Cid.

Community Bonding

If I am being honest, I had already bonded with the Poppler community before GSoC started 😅

I had a lot of conversations with Albert, Sune, lbaudin and ats, and they already helped me a lot with my technical problems with my contributions prior to GSoC :D

However, I also managed to bond with other fellow GSoC contributors this summer so it's a win in my book :D

Week 1

I learnt a lot about how PDF files work this week.

Technical terms like Indirect Objects, Default Appearance, Appearance Streams which used to sound confusing to me before finally clicked.

I got more comfortable with traversing and using PDF data structures such as Objects, Arrays, Dicts, Streams etc.

The Happy News is that I got the Font Subsetting to work for FreeText Annotations.

I have raised a Draft MR which should be ready-to-review by end of this week and my plan is to get it fully correct and merged first and then move on to doing the same thing for forms.

Code screenshot to make the blog look cooler

How it works

If you are interested to know what my current approach is:

• The whole subsetting runs only when the user saves the document.

• We go over all resources (for now, just FreeText annotations) that were modified, and call a subsetFonts method on them.

• This is a method implemented by every class that needs subsetting, and inside this method we pass the data on what "font" renders what part of the "text" to our FontSubsetter::getSubsetFonts.

std::map<Ref, Ref> FontSubsetter::getSubsetFonts(const std::map<std::shared_ptr<const GfxFont>, std::string> &fontMappings) const

• The function generates the subset font objects and adds them to the PDF and returns mappings of old font refs and newer font refs. The subsetting happens using a library called "Harfbuzz".

• Then the subsetFonts function simply replaces the older refs with the newer ones inside the font subdictionary of the appearance stream of the annotation.

Thanks for reading

Although this blog might look small, it took me more than 1.5 hours to write this because I kept writing and deleting things. I am hoping I get better at writing blogs in the future.

But anyways, thanks for reading!
And have a great day !
Byee 😃!

How long does it take for an Item to become visible?

Frames skipped counter in application

#include <QQuickItem>
#include <QQuickWindow>

class TimedItem : public QQuickItem
{
    Q_OBJECT
    QML_ELEMENT

    Q_PROPERTY(qint64 timeToDisplay READ timeToDisplay NOTIFY timeToDisplayChanged FINAL)

public:
    TimedItem(QQuickItem* parent = nullptr) : QQuickItem(parent),
              m_elapsedTimer(new QElapsedTimer())
{
    setVisible(false);
    // When made visible, measure time to display
    QObject::connect(this, &QQuickItem::visibleChanged, this, &TimedItem::startMeasuringTimeToDisplay, Qt::DirectConnection);
};

qint64 timeToDisplay() {
    return m_timeToDisplay;
};

signals:
    void timeToDisplayChanged();

private:
    void startMeasuringTimeToDisplay()
    {
        if (isVisible())
        {
            // Reset
            m_frameReady = false;
            // Attempt to take measurement after frame swaps
            QObject::connect(window(), &QQuickWindow::afterFrameEnd, this, &TimedItem::measure,
            static_cast<Qt::ConnectionType>(Qt::DirectConnection | Qt::UniqueConnection));
            // Force polish, ensuring elapsed measurement is taken on the right frame
            ensurePolished();
            // Take initial measurement
            m_elapsedTimer->start();
        }
    }

    void updatePolish()
    {
        // The frame for this component will be rendered after this
        m_frameReady = true;
    }

    void measure()
    {
        // This will be called for every frame until the right frame has been rendered
        if (m_frameReady)
        {
            // Measure elapsed time
            m_timeToDisplay = m_elapsedTimer->elapsed();
            // Prevent measuring further frame
            QObject::disconnect(window(), &QQuickWindow::afterFrameEnd, this, &TimedItem::measure);
            // Propagate measured time
            emit timeToDisplayChanged();
        }
    }

private:
    qint64 m_timeToDisplay = 0;
    QElapsedTimer *m_elapsedTimer;
    bool m_frameReady = false;
};

The post How long does it take for an Item to become visible? appeared first on KDAB.

We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 20 RC!