Sunday, 31 May 2026
tomazBack in March at FOSSASIA in Bangkok, I got invited to visit the OpenKylin team in Shanghai. I mentioned it briefly at the end of that report, and here we are — the follow-up post.
Saturday, 30 May 2026
So... progress continues on Oxygen 
Over the last few weeks me and Pravin Kumar have been filling in some of the gaps in the icon set. There are still quite a few missing icons around the place, but slowly Oxygen is becoming a bit more complete again.
Its fun revisiting this old project after all these years. Sometimes I find myself looking at old icons wondering what younger me was thinking. Sometimes the answer is "not much"or, the answer is "way too much"..
Either way, Oxygen continues to grow.
Talking about fun...
I've also been spending some time investigating QML styling and themeing. And in this case not because i have immediate plans do this, but mostly because i am curious about what is possible and where the limitations actually are.
One thing I learned over the years is that there is often a large gap between what a toolkit "officially" allows and what a sufficiently stubborn designer can get away with 
Some of the ideas are probably completely unreasonable. Some not so much
Which usually means they are worth exploring.
I've been experimenting with possible directions for O² and thinking about how a future visual language could work. And this that im doing now is more of an exploration on the range rgther than what it actualy look slike
Nothing concrete yet.
Mostly experiments.
Questions.
Terrible ideas.
Possibly a few good ones hidden among them.
If things continue to move forward we (via KDAB) probably make a video showing some of these investigations, experiments and concepts. Sometimes its easier to explain visual ideas by showing them instead of writing walls of text about them.
So stay tuned
And as always... if you are using Oxygen, thank you.
Its nice seeing that this old project still has a few new stories to tell.
@vkrause:kde.orgSince the previous report two month ago, Itinerary got support for booking URLs, a newer foundation for its Android packages, and more detailed shared vehicle information.
New Features
Booking URLs
Some public transport services provide booking deep links together with their journey search results. That is, you can directly book the journey you have just searched in Itinerary or KTrip on the provider website, without having to search for the same journey again there. Both apps provide that option when available now.
Infrastructure Work
GBFS v3 support
The handling of shared vehicles in KPublicTransport recevied a rework to properly support the much more detailed modelling of vehicle types in newer GBFS versions. Since the early versions of GBFS this has evolved from a simple enum to a complex type describing all kinds of properties of the available vehicles.
As practically all systems supporting rental vehicles for first/last mile routing (OpenTripPlanner, MOTIS, etc) are based on the GBFS datamodel, being limited to an oversimplified set of fixed types was increasingly getting into the way and prevented using newer features of those backends.
Qt 6.11 upgrade for Android
There has been a long overdue update of the Qt version used for KDE’s Android apps. As noted previously this unfortunately means losing support for Android versions 8 and below. ARM32 builds have been discontinued in the process as well, assuming that devices capable of running Android 9 or higher would also be able to run ARM64 code.
There have also been various other fixes related to the Android platform integration:
- Notification interaction works properly again.
- Notification icons are now handled more in line of what Android does.
- Several issues related to safe area margins (ie. rounded screen corners and display cutouts) in Kirigami haven been fixed.
All of this also benefits all of KDE’s Android apps.
IATA SSIM flight schedules
Air France/KLM published their current flight schedule as open data, in IATA SSIM format. A newly built tool allows to convert that into a GTFS feed that Transitous can then consume, using Wikidata to provide translated airport and airline information.
Flight data isn’t new in Transitous, but this dataset is particularly interesting given its size. It’s not limited to Air France/KLM themselves, but also includes all (?) flights from their partner airlines. In total it’s nearly 400.000 flight patterns to almost 1.000 different airports. That essentially connects all currently disconnected public transport “islands” we have in Transitous.
The good news is that it’s holding up to that without a loss in performance, and door-to-door routing from e.g. Berlin to Tokyo actually works.
However, there’s a couple of reasons this isn’t rolled out yet and only available on the test instance:
- As with the already existing flight data, connectivity between flights and ground transportation is tricky. I’ve written about this years ago already, applying the same approach helps here as well. Additionally, we get terminal information in the SSIM data in some cases, which further improves this, especially at very large airports.
- We have no way yet to model check-in times in MOTIS, resulting in unrealistic transfer times from ground transportation to flights. It’s on the roadmap there, and also needed for services like Eurostar, or to model security checks at e.g. the Barcelona Sants station.
- As a side-effect of that the router also finds clever tricks to bypass minimum transfer times between flights.
- Inter-terminal transfers don’t seem to work reliably, probably because OSM routing doesn’t yield viable connections there. Unlike for railway stations in many countries, airport internals are unfortunately rarely mapped in detail in OSM yet.
For more details see also the discussion in PR 2090.
Events
Registration for this year’s Open Transport Community Conference in October in Bern, Switzerland, opened a few days ago. That’s as close as it gets to an Itinerary conference. If you are interested in attending better sign up quickly, many tickets were already gone after the first day.
Fixes & Improvements
Travel document extractor
- Added or improved travel document extractors for Condor and monbus.es.
This has been made possible thanks to your travel document donations!
Public transport data
- Improved parsing of trip and route names in OpenTripPlanner responses (bug 519906).
- Adapted to Deutsche Bahn journey query API changes, fixing missing departure and arrival times there.
- Added support for wheelchair accessibility information from MOTIS.
- Added support for querying free-floating rental vehicles from Entur.
- Removed accidental apostrophe in front of flags in the country selector.
All of this also directly benefits KTrip.
Itinerary app
- Fixed Itinerary showing an empty page when opening a file with it on a fresh installation.
- Fixed barcode scan mode on Android.
- Added support for Matrix SSO login.
- Fixed arrival platform display in journey search results.
- Show calendar icons/colors when available.
- Don’t load all reservation data when initializing the grouped statistics model. This improved performance of the first access to the My Data page.
- Be slightly more clever when to clear seat reservation from alternatives.
How you can help
Feedback and travel document samples are very much welcome, as are all other forms of contributions. Feel free to join us in the KDE Itinerary Matrix channel.
Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma!
This week the team continued getting Plasma 6.7 in great shape for release. So there was lots of focus on bug-fixing and UI polishing.
We’ve released the second beta of Plasma 6.7, jam-packed with the latest fixes. If you can, please install it and test everything! There are many options for doing so.
Notable UI improvements
Plasma 6.7
Made it impossible to accidentally drag a window so far off a screen edge that it couldn’t be moved back. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #495635)
Uninstalling an application now removes it from the history section of all the various launcher widgets. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #437303)
Made auto-hide panels compatible with the “Switch desktop on edge > Always enabled” setting. (Francesco Panarese, KDE Bugzilla #370964)
The Application Launcher’s “All Applications” view now groups apps case-insensitively, so apps whose first letter is lowercase no longer get pushed into their own group. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #501788)
Clarified how the option to create a virtual screen works in the screen chooser dialog. (David Redondo, KDE Bugzilla #517296)
Plasma 6.8
The lock screen now fully respects the timeout value set by PAM on the underlying system, instead of adding its own mandatory delay on top of it. This means on systems with the delay set to 0, you can re-type your password immediately after getting it wrong. (Tobias Fella, plasma-desktop MR #3702 and plasma-workspace MR #322)
The lock screen now notifies you when the “Slow Keys” accessibility feature is turned on, just in case you’re failing to type your password and don’t know why. (Martin Riethmayer, plasma-desktop #3726 and plasma-workspace MR #6626)
Discover’s dialog about a Flatpak app being replaced by another one now reassures you that your data will be automatically transferred, and also warns you that favorites/shortcuts/etc. to the old app will have to be re-made manually. (Nate Graham, discover MR #1342 and discover MR #1343)
Reduced the amount of visual flickering when Discover checks for updates. (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, KDE Bugzilla #513220)
Notable bug fixes
Plasma 6.6.6
Fixed a case where KWin could crash when a monitor was rapidly power-cycled or some of its settings were rapidly changed. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #520145)
Fixed a case where the kactivitymanagerd service could crash in the background. (Marco Martin, KDE Bugzilla #520595)
Fixed a clipboard-related issue that could make XWayland-using apps lag or freeze right after locking the screen. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #520674)
Fixed an issue that could make the large text of the digital clock displayed on the lock and login screens look kind of jagged with certain specific fonts. (Filip Fila, KDE Bugzilla #516314)
Plasma 6.7
Worked around an oddly-specific issue in Qt that could make widgets break when enabled in the System Tray after having previously disabled them and then restarted the computer. (Tobias Fella, KDE Bugzilla #520144)
Worked around an issue with the hardware or firmware on specific laptops that could trigger an infinite stream of keyboard brightness OSDs after closing the lid. (Vitaly Repin, powerdevil MR #632)
Fixed an issue that could make a renamed file on the desktop visually disappear (it still existed, and could be accessed through Dolphin) while multiple Activities were in use, or move to another location when there was only one Activity. (Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #520633 and KDE Bugzilla #511920)
Fixed an issue that made it impossible to use a hardware key to authenticate to an 802.1x-protected network. (Katharina Bogad, KDE Bugzilla #520449)
Fixed an issue that made the Networks widget show the wrong icon for an OVS bridge network. (Ivan Perevalov, KDE Bugzilla #517384)
Fixed an issue that could make Plasma’s built-in remote desktop server lag or freeze when copying certain specific things in certain specific apps. (Paul Hoskinson, KDE Bugzilla #520175)
Fixed an issue that made it impossible to focus the Network Widget’s search field using Ctrl+F. (Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #515280)
Fixed an issue that made the buttons on the fingerprint enrollment dialog get misplaced. (Harald Sitter, KDE Bugzilla #515824)
Fixed an issue with the Breeze theming of GTK apps that made sidebar separator lines turn bright white with dark color schemes. (Levi Leal, KDE Bugzilla #484383)
Plasma 6.8
Fixed two issues that could make KWin crash or fail to evaluate mathematical calculations from the Overview effect. (Alexander Lohnau, KDE Bugzilla #519923 and KDE Bugzilla #483147)
Fixed an issue that made it impossible to open the panel context menu while already in edit mode. (Tobias Fella, libplasma MR #1468)
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.
After a few months of development, Marknote 1.6.0 is out!
This release is packed with new features. First of all, sub-folders are finally supported. This allows you to better organize your notes. This feature is still very new and at the moment, we don’t support creating these sub-folders in Marknote and you will need to create them in Dolphin or your preferred file manager. But we are planning to improve this further in future releases. Each notebook now also displays how many notes are stored inside.
Another big new change is that the command bar exposed by Marknote, now allows you to search for notes across all your notebooks.
If you feel fancy, we also added an optional background blur effect for the editor similar to what is also available in other KDE apps like NeoChat.
Finally, we made it easier to add emojis to your notes by adding emoji completions to the text editor.
This release also fixes various minor bugs; contains small refactoring and improves the state of the translations.
Packager section
You can find the package on download.kde.org (kirigami addons) and it has been signed with my GPG key.
Friday, 29 May 2026
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-22.
What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat
Tags: business, politics, culture, ethics
Wondering how those very rich people think and perceive the world? Here is an explanation. I felt unease reading through this.
Secure Boot and Microsoft CA Rollover - a heads-up for distributions
Tags: tech, microsoft, linux, security
Microsoft has been deploying new CA certificates late… Now distros have to wake up and prepare new signatures for their shims quickly.
https://blog.einval.com/2026/05/22#secure_boot_ca_rollover
Big Tech’s Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come for Wikipedia
Tags: tech, wikipedia, community, business, work, ethics
This is very concerning. We don’t need Wikipedia to fall prey to this kind of tactics… On the contrary!
https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943
Google, I Dump Your Ass!
Tags: tech, google, web
I guess it’s time we realise Google doesn’t send much traffic on the open web / small web / indie web (call it as you please) and so there’s no need to let them harvest.
https://jaredwhite.com/20260522/google-i-dump-your-ass
The AI Gold Rush Is Eating Its Own
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, wikipedia, cognition, business
This is clearly the Ouroboros moment in our industry. People pushing for such restructuring and layoffs are drinking the kool-aid and will ultimately be responsible for killing what put them there in the first place.
https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-ai-gold-rush-is-eating-its-own
The Community is the Achievement; the Achievement is the Community
Tags: tech, knowledge, commons, community, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, ethics, diversity
Very interesting take. This gives very valid ground on why tech communities should reject AI based contributions. Not doing so will indeed hinder the commons communities rely on to exist and improve. This is a path to prevent getting better at inclusivity and diversity (which is really needed).
https://linguacelta.com/blog/2026/05/LLMs.html
Affordances for me, but not for thee
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics, politics, accessibility
This is a fact I don’t get… people are going their way to satisfy the need of a LLM but not the ones of fellow humans. I guess it’s the conclusion which is somewhat right, it’s about who has power. This is sad if true… also I doubt it’s the single explanation.
https://werd.io/affordances-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
The price of humans
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, marketing
Interesting point… Didn’t think about it this way. We’ll see I guess. Maybe human made services will actually get a premium rate indeed. Wouldn’t be a bad outcome I guess?
https://blog.umangsurana.com/blog/price_of_humans/
Can we have the day off?
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, work, culture, productivity
I mean, with the announced productivity gains of generative AI… It doesn’t feel like a big ask. 😜
https://mlsu.io/posts/day-off/
BitWarden selling out? Self hosting a password vault?
Tags: tech, self-hosting, security
With Bitwarden sinking, it’s maybe time to look at alternatives? This AliasVault option looks like an interesting contender even though a not young.
https://firesphere.dev/articles/bitwarden-selling-out-self-hosting-a-password-vault
A cheap VPS is a good front
Tags: tech, self-hosting, security, vpn, wireguard
Sounds like a good solution to self host things at home while having some protection.
https://ergaster.org/thoughts/front-server/
The mysterious XF86AudioPlay issue
Tags: tech, audio, hardware
This is an odd and unexpected one! Funny after the facts bit clearly annoying otherwise.
https://michael-prokop.at/blog/2026/05/20/the-mysterious-xf86audioplay-issue/
Serving files over HTTP three ways: synchronous, epoll, and io_uring
Tags: tech, linux, io, asynchronous
Good post to have an idea of the modern IO APIs available.
https://theconsensus.dev/p/2026/05/18/serving-files-three-ways.html
Rust Patterns & Engineering How-Tos
Tags: tech, rust
The writing isn’t perfect, but it covers quite a few important topics in Rust. Seems to be a nice resource even though it’s still work in progress.
https://microsoft.github.io/RustTraining/rust-patterns-book/
How Virtual Tables Work in the Itanium C++ ABI | File Descriptor Two
Tags: tech, c++, type-systems, memory
Wondering about the memory layout emitted by the compiler when a virtual table exists for a type? This is a good summary.
https://peter0x44.github.io/posts/vtables-itanium-abi/
The worst job interview I ever had
Tags: hr, interviews
Urgh… indeed this sounds like a very bad experience. Don’t do this to applicants!
https://www.oliverio.dev/blog/the-worst-job-interview-i-had
What is a harmonic? An interactive comic about additive synthesis
Tags: physics
Need a refresher on harmonics? This is a quick and fun way to do so.
https://melatonin.dev/additive-synth-comic/what-is-a-harmonic/
Why Japanese companies do so many different things
Tags: japan, business, culture
Interesting exploration of the Japanese business culture and why it’s so different to most companies found in Western countries.
https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
Bye for now!
Here are the new CMake changes in Qt Creator 20:
Thursday, 28 May 2026
The SPDX Cryptographic Algorithm List keeps growing. New cryptoClass values, a structured docs folder, PQC as a new property, and SCANOSS as our first user-contributor. Here is what happened in the past months.
GSoCThe community bonding period is over, and coding started, so this feels like the right moment for a first blog post. I'm contributing to KeepSecret this summer as part of GSoC 2026, working on single-wallet UX and page navigation architecture.
What I did during community bonding:
->Close/dismiss button for entry detail panel
Before the Community Bonding Period:
Resolving three issues:
- !17 (focus the search field when the Search action is triggered),
- !18 (fix the "New Entry" dialog title, which was incorrectly saying "Create New Item") and
- !20 (hides the sidebar when only one wallet exists, worked on the five layout states and cover edge cases like narrow windows with multiple wallets, single-wallet with an item open, and all three pages visible at once).
Week 1 plan:
This week, I'm working on Import/export: study existing wallet data structures in KeepSecret. Define file format and design the export flow.
Port KeepSecret's actions to the new org.kde.kirigami.actioncollection API from kirigami-app-components. This wasn't in the original proposal but it's a good addition, suggested by my mentor, notmart (Marco Martin) — it means users will be able to configure keyboard shortcuts for actions like "New Wallet" and "New Entry" through a standard KDE dialog.
More updates next week. The code is at invent.kde.org/utilities/keepsecret
GSoC 2026 KDE KeepSecret Kirigami Qt / QML
Writing unit tests can be one of the most time-consuming and least creative phases of software development. For every QML component a developer writes, an equivalent volume of test code must follow - covering properties, signals, mouse and key interactions, state transitions, and edge cases.
