General KDE feedback from a new user

Community
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KDE Plasma 6 spin of Fedora 40

It is a nice DE but I have found some issues, this is not a complaint but my honest feedback from someone who never used KDE before:

No idea how to make custom time format? There is only choice between region locales for time and C, I wanted to make long format include seconds by making a custom time format for long/short.

I want to automatically login but there was a warning that KDE Wallet can’t automatically login, this seems like an issue.

I go to log in, and it shows the password entry field on both of my monitors, yet the input is independent.

On lock screen this doesn’t happen, there is only one password entry field.

The password remains in the original user password field after pressing another user (which shows field to enter username and empty password field), but when returning to login as previous user, the password remains there, I think this is privacy issue, password remains even though it was hidden from view, it should be removed when the password field is no longer shown on the screen.

Virtual keyboard doesn’t do anything when pressed on lock screen (maybe on log in screen too).

The pop-up windows are independent of the parent window, this is amazing over Gnome, like Windows.

Sometimes when I go to type something in KDE panel settings, it doesn’t type. When I drag a widget it gets stuck in the panel and is unintuitive to get out, and the the colour settings are lost, and I have to change and unchange the colour to get it back.

Pressing the configure panel buttons when it edit mode presses the hidden peek desktop button and exits edit mode.

It is too easy to accidentally drag something in the wrong place and have everything deleted. There is no undo. I have to press ESC to exit panel edit mode

I drag a widget that popped out of my panel into the desktop, back into the panel, and it disappears, I press ESC, it doesn’t exit panel edit mode, I press right click then exit panel mode, and then it doesn’t exit but shows the panel edit location popup, and then the widget reappears at the top of the screen and I have no idea how to put it back in because dragging it towards the panel doesn’t do anything.

Now the system tray is in the top right corner and I press notification and it hides the button to minimise the system tray popup and ESC doesn’t minimise it again, nor does clicking elsewhere on the screen.

I have to log out and log back in to get the system tray and task manager back into the panel, I have no idea why. Now everything is not centered as before.

I am trying to edit Panel, I see visibility, opacity, style, but color setting is not obvious to me. Also, icon-only task bar popup keeps popping up when I move my cursor too low and is getting in the way of panel settings. So edit panel color, it seems I need to go to Settings, Colors & Themes, Global Theme, Plasma Style, but I can only change theme but not edit it? I would like to edit theme in GUI.

No option to not show logged in user’s icon in Application Menu in Application Menu configuration.

If I disable recent applications and files, how come the option is still there buy greyed out in Application Menu mode for Application Launcher, why not just not show the button to save space?

Copy button doesn’t copy screenshot to clipboard after making rectangular selection, I need to press it again.

How I can type “Lo” into search and it shows “Login Screen (SDDM)” first, then press enter as I enter ‘g’ to make it “Log” then changes to Problem Reporting and I end up accidentally opening that is confusing default behaviour for me.

I can’t find a way to hide media controls from lock screen in settings app.

Laptop touchpad device was disabled by default? Maybe I did it by accident.

Changing the DNS server took me 15 minutes, I put the two DNS addresses followed by a space, didn’t work, I thought I selected Automatic, but I only wanted to change DNS not the search domain and other, that I need to select Automatic (manual) but it didn’t work, I try setting it in lo interface not the specific wifi network name, still doesn’t work, turns out it is invalid to separate the DNS servers by a space, it should be a comma, but no error was ever shown? In Gnome or Windows it shows in red or says it can’t be applied. KDE had no issue applying invalid settings.

There is no option to re-arrange system tray icons in the system tray configuration? Also confusing that I need to first go to panel edit mode to see the system tray configuration. Having arrows to move items up and down and a revert to default would be useful for this. I don’t like having to install third party extensions. In windows you can click and drag easily. I would like click and drag, also between hidden icons and main system tray bar.

The screen edges shortcut should be able to be set optionally per monitor because I have two monitors that are offset, so there is a corner of one which I can’t move my cursor beyond, that I would like to use to open overview, like Gnome 46, but I don’t think this is possible.

When I type the mouse speed, it keeps on autofilling as I type which is extremely annoying, I want to fill in my number -0.54 without having to
-0 goes to 0.00 then I type -0.5 which goes to -0.50 which I need to delete to -0.54 then I press enter to unfocus but it doesn’t do anything, ESC also does nothing, I have to click another checkbox or other to remove focus from the pointer speed number entry field.

I don’t want to set a default application for Map, phone numbers, why can’t I just put none? I don’t want to accidentally ping Google Maps.

I didn’t understand the KDE Wallet popups, do I put another password other than the user password? This happened mostly when booting from live USB and connecting to network, constant popup, asking for GPG key, then saying there is none, so confusing.

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Thanks for using our software!

However I’m afraid that in general, steam of consciousness descriptions of issues encountered are not particularly useful.

I do have one specific question about something though:

Can you tell me what exactly about this message was confusing? Maybe you can read it again and see if it makes more sense the second time? If not, I’d appreciate it if you could maybe try to propose a change that would make it more helpful.

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I was hoping that I would be able to be automatically logged in and all when I boot up, but if the KDE wallet doesn’t unlock it would mean I still have to input my password. I don’t know what the KDE wallet is needed for, for example in live usb mode I was able to connect to a wifi network even though I pressed X on the KDE wallet creation prompt.

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I thought the feedback would be useful for anyone familiar with KDE with free time and interested in making the new user experience smoother.

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There was a MR for this, but everyone lost track I think. Ill try to follow up on this.

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lots of good input there, and i remember being frustrated with some of those too about a year ago when i installed kubuntu.

but thankfully many of them are able to be resolved once you know how… KDE does have a rather steep learning curve.

the best general advice i can give you is using the search feature of the desktop to find the settings page you are looking for.

just click on the desktop, start typing your search term, and a list of results will appear with settings being one of the categories

for instance if you type color you will find a colors settings page where you can edit many aspects of your global themes

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How to set global screen brightness lower than display minimum?

In Gnome I can adjust brightness under accessibility and zoom option.

Is there a way to easily toggle this in GUI on KDE 6?
Ideally it would be in brightness settings, like f.lux. Next to night light, adjusting gamma.

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System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Screen Locking > Appearance: [Configure]

Second option to untick.

As for night shift vs brightness, on X11/Nvidia I always found I could use one or the other, not both together, but never looked it up tbh. It should work as of 5.27.something, but is not for my multi monitor setup.

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Every time I set the /home/id folder (my username) to Indexed and press apply then change tab and go back, it creates a new entry where it’s not indexed.

dupliate index folders
dupliate index folders1002×662 65.5 KB

It does end up indexing the whole folder. Maybe this is a bug because the default is to show it as not indexed?

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If you enter NO password for KDE Wallet, then it will not request a password.

It seems pretty pointless setting a password and having everything unlock automatically from an automatic desktop login.

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I put my reply to KWallet autologin into a separate post.

This is very complex. You discovered quite some issues that are for sure there and I know them.

Report them on bugs.kde.org or add a comment under existing bugs, stating the version of the component and if and how it is still occuring.

Only then the correct people can see the issues and try to fix them.

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i think that first entry is always going to be there as like a template or something… i wouldn’t stress over it.

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I have encrypted file system so I must enter a password anyway on boot, which is when the automatic login happens.

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Perhaps, but it shouldn’t duplicate, or create new ones if there already is an entry.

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I also noticed that the icons on the panel are blurry after boot (maybe after login too) until I hover over them when they become clear, with normal resolution

1440p monitor. The panel is on the primary display, which is not the laptop’s own display.

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I was not aware that I wouldn’t be able to edit my original post… Anyway I believe the disabling touchpad was my error by pressing one of the extended function keys, and that it is not actually disabled by default.

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It would be nice to be able to change the location of the on-screen display (OSD), I think there is a way to do it Is there a way to change the position of the volume change popup/osd? - #6 by jake3 - KDE Plasma - Manjaro Linux Forum but using GUI would be very nice, like dragging it to drag the centre, or adjusting position like how you can adjust which side of screen notifications will pop up, and also on which screens the OSD shows (any perhaps the position on each monitor for each, but I don’t really need the function for having the OSD on not just the display where cursor currently is, or for it to always be on the primary monitor).

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When I get a notification, it would be nice to be able to click on it to open the parent app (when I click on a signal notification, it doesn’t open the Signal app. If Signal is open, then it should focus it, bringing the window to the front). I think Gnome does this, I was using Gnome before.

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Some application icons I press in the task bar opens the appliaction and closes it (or moves it to background?) when I click on them. I like this. However for some, it brings it to the front when I click, but doesn’t minimize/close/move to background when I click again. I don’t know if this is managed by the application, or by global system tray interaction behavior configuration. I would like for clicking on the system tray application icon to toggle between relevant window states. Maybe this is hard to implement if the behavior is as mentioned above - determined by the app itself.

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Then enter NO password for KWallet - problem solved.