I have been using KDE Connect for a long time now, and its one of the most useful software on the system, while using it, I keep having some ideas for more features and enhancements.
So I’m putting some of the better ideas I’ve had for it in this topic.
My Approach to this - I am learning coding, as a student, and I can slowly work towards just prototyping these features on my own, it’ll be slow as I’ve to learn as I go and it’ll have a side hobby like limited time.
So I’m putting these out here, as I like to make the Goal first, then learn how to make it happen.
At the same point, this is not a ‘my personal project’ like scene, its a core KDE software, so having these ideas presented to the community presents one more good thing that if anyone else likes any of the ideas, they have better experience than me in development, they can complete a feature in a week and merge to the core project.
Next up I don’t think all these ideas can be merged into the core KDE Connect Project, so maybe these could be like plugins or similar type of addons that could be distributed through KDE Store.
That said, a system to support plugins would need to be added to the core project, hopefully that already exists, as I’ve seen KDE connect Sms utility as a separate desktop entry.
The Ideas
- A Yakuake like drop down window : This would be the quick access to all the connected devices. I had this idea when I just wanted to quickly enter remote input for connected device. In addition to that, this can also have one click run command icons/buttons.
- Better support for ‘Move Cursor beyond edge to enter remote input of connected device’ : This is a feature I tried using, but was very buggy for me, would like to hear if others have it working flawlessly.
Basically taking cursor beyond selected edge of the screen would enter the remote input, this is very nice, but I’d want it a little different, rather than taking cursor off the screen, we just press a global shortcut. And here is something more advanced, what about multiple shortcuts, for multiple connected devices?
- The Standalone KDE Connect Applet and Improvements : The Current KDE Connect Applet seems to be only bundled with system tray, I wanted it on other panel than system tray, I couldn’t find it, so I had to put second system tray and disable other entries.
In addition, I have some more improvement ideas - The Applet body area can have more functionailty like dragging a file to connected device names would share that file to that device, I first thought the blank body of the applet is a remote input touchpad or something, that would be good, but it’s better to implement in a way of idea no 1 above
- KDE Connect track Battery of BT devices/peripherals? : It would be a nice addition, it can show each device’s battery percentage in the drop down window, and there can be a setting which can send desktop notifocation when a peripheral is low on battery, like what KDE Connect does with smartphones.
- A Plugin/Complimentary-Utility for Run Commands for remote devices with Global Shortcuts : Like how we can run any command via global shortcut on the main system, We can run commands on connected device.
That would be a precise system, particular device selected for each shortcut, not just run this command on currently connected device.
This is nice because I have lock/unlock session commands for other devices that I can just trigger via KDE Connect.
So imagine with a keyboard short being able to lock/unlock your PC from laptop, or connecting/disconnecting a BT device from the PC but controlled from your laptop/smartphone, I already do that with my phone. Hence having dedicated button for selected command in drop down window in idea 1 is also super handy. This utility could also have standard terminal command
Those are the most useful ones I came up with.
Would like to know if they would be of any help to others, some of these are just like limited ssh session but with UI.