{"id":50404,"date":"2026-01-15T05:19:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T05:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=50404"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:31:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:31:32","slug":"kde-plasma-6-6-new-login-manager-custom-global-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/kde-plasma-6-6-new-login-manager-custom-global-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"KDE Plasma 6.6 Beta Released! New Login Manager & Custom Global Theme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

For KDE users, the new plasma desktop 6.6 is now in Beta stage for testing purpose.<\/p>\n

The new version of this free open-source Linux desktop environment introduced many new features and tons of improvements.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, in Colors & Themes<\/code> setting page, it now provides a “Save Current Theme<\/b>” button, allowing to save current settings (e.g., colors, window decoration, icons, cursors, desktop and window layout) as a custom global theme<\/b>\u00a0with unique name and thumbnail image. After that, it’s displayed as one of the global theme choices.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The desktop now features new plasma-login-manager<\/a>. It’s a fork of the previous SDDM display manager with no big visual difference, but features wallpaper plugin integration and System Settings module (KCM), and better out-of-box experience for multi-minitor, HDR and HiDPI setup.<\/p>\n

It as well introduced new plasma-keyboard<\/code> as a replacement for the Maliit virtual keyboard for better Wayland compatibility, and new plasma-setup<\/code> as a wizard for out-of-the-box or OEM setup.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The screenshot tool Spectacle has been updated with a “Cancel” button during screen capturing which is useful for touchscreen users. It features new OCR support<\/b> for extracting text from screenshots with multiple languages support, though you need to install tesseract<\/code> first. And, an option is added to skip automatic saving during OCR text extraction.<\/p>\n

And, for any app window, a new “Hide from Screencast” option is added into the window header right-click menu.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Spectacle now has OCR support<\/p><\/div>\n

Plasma 6.6 also re-implemented the “Tiled” wallpaper type. And, it added portrait orientation support for Bing Picture of the Day, which detects portrait displays (height > width) and fetches 1080×1920 images for them automatically. However, Vertical UHD images are unfortunately not available.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Window List widget has been updated with open on hover ability and option for window list item visibility. And, Lock\/Logout widget now supports changing the order of icons.<\/p>\n

For Wayland, the desktop added Slow keys support, per-DRM-plane color pipelines, custom screen mode, smoother animations on high refresh-rate screens, and improved screen mirroring support.<\/p>\n

Other changes include:<\/p>\n