KDE announced the full release of Plasma 6.5 on Monday night. This major update to the desktop environment for Linux distributions and BSDs comes with several new features and improvements, including fuzzy search functions and programmable theme transitions.

When I wrote about the Plasma 6.5 beta back in September, one of my favorite new features was the fuzzy application search. Now, when you type a search term in KRunner, you’ll see apps that are close in spelling even if they’re off by a character or two. That makes the search more resilient against typos, and more useful if you don’t remember precisely how to spell an app’s name.

There are some big visual updates coming too. Namely, Plasma can now transition between light and dark versions of a desktop theme automatically. You can set the time at which you want these transitions to happen. Wallpapers that have light and dark versions are included in this function too, so the change will feel very immersive.

Another eye-catching new feature is a change to the zoom function’s ability to jump around based on typing. If you’ve zoomed in using the Meta+Plus shortcut, and you start typing in a text box, Plasma can shift its focus over to the text box regardless of where the mouse is. If the feature is annoying to you, it can be disabled, but this will overall make Plasma more accessible.

Plasma’s clipboard manager, which is one of my favorite features to talk up, is also seeing some big improvements. You’re now able to pin items to the clipboard, meaning content you repeatedly copy and paste you can keep at hand for easy access. You simply click the star icon on that item in the clipboard history, and it will stay at the top of the list until you remove it. Starred items even persist through clipboard clearing.

There are a ton more improvements and fixes in this release, which you can read about in the official blog post. Don’t sleep on the improved game controller settings page or the overhauled Flatpak permissions manager, to name a couple.

If you want to get KDE Plasma 6.5, one of the simplest ways is to download KDE Neon User Edition and boot it up. You’ll likely also find it trying out the KDE Linux beta, which showcases the latest in Plasma and other KDE software. If you’re using a rolling release distro like CachyOS or another that keeps packages up-to-date like Fedora, you can expect it to arrive as part of your regular update process over the course of the next couple of weeks.

Source: KDE Community