A month after the previous 6.19 release, KDE announced the launch of Frameworks 6.20, expanding its collection of add-on libraries to Qt and enhancing functionality available to developers across various platforms.
Several foundational components receive significant updates in this release. Baloo, KDE’s file indexing subsystem, improves reliability during session management, updates its test infrastructure, and now avoids indexing excessively large mbox files. It also ensures configuration changes in balooctl are written before indexing is toggled, addressing long-standing user-reported issues.
KIO, the framework responsible for file management and remote access, gains a long list of fixes. These include better WebDAV redirect handling, safer QNetworkReply cleanup, improved error propagation, fixes for permission checks, and more reliable file operations with network file systems. Additionally, it received some smaller refinements, including corrected sorting behavior, typo fixes, and expanded unit tests.
Some from the core libraries, such as KConfig, KArchive, KCoreAddons, and KCompletion, also receive maintenance. KArchive, in particular, includes numerous safety fixes for malformed or corrupted 7z, IFF, TGA, and JP2 files, reducing the risk of crashes when handling untrusted data.
The Kirigami UI gets better RTL handling, safer passive notifications, corrected action-button focus behavior, and more consistent drawer and overlay animations. Several fixes improve accessibility and ensure dialogs behave as expected across different platforms.
Breeze Icons expands its set of right-to-left variants, introduces a 16-pixel version of the document-send RTL icon, and cleans up the generation pipeline to reduce unnecessary CMake dependencies. Multiple bugs related to symbolic icons and mirrored assets are also addressed.
Other user-facing libraries—KGuiAddons, KNotifications, KIconThemes, and QQC2 Desktop Style—see smaller updates, including improved clipboard handling on Wayland, better audio notification behavior, updated tooltip code, and the removal of deprecated Qt version checks now that Qt 6.8 is the minimum requirement.
For developers working on KDE software or Qt projects more broadly, Extra CMake Modules receives an unusually large batch of updates. These include:
- expanded FindFFmpeg components (AVFILTER, SWRESAMPLE)
- updated module policies to align with newer CMake guidelines
- cleaned-up Fastlane metadata handling
- improvements to QML rebuild logic
- code-generation tweaks for more reliable header creation
KContacts is one of the most heavily modified modules in this release. It introduces expanded vCard4 support, covering photo URIs, logos, sound fields, and improved import/export handling. The update also fixes email parsing issues, adjusts case sensitivity, enhances autotests, and resolves multiple long-standing bugs.
The Syntax Highlighting framework adds support for new languages, including D2 and Starlark, while also refining Qt-related rules and improving QFace highlighting behavior.
Finally, some smaller changes appear throughout the release:
- ThreadWeaver, KPackage, KXMLGUI, KJobWidgets, and others adopt consistent test and API conventions.
- KNewStuff improves widget behavior and fixes installation tests.
- KWallet utilizes modern randomization APIs and enhanced session management handling.
- KUserFeedback refines timer behavior and updates deprecated methods.
- Solid transitions its UDisks backend to DBus Object Manager.
- NetworkManagerQt introduces WifiP2P device support and improves documentation.
For those who prefer to build from source, the entire codebase for Frameworks 6.20 is available for download from KDE’s official website. On Linux, the recommended approach is to install binary packages from your distribution’s repositories.
Visit the official release announcement for detailed information on all the changes in KDE Frameworks 6.20, including a full list of updates and bug fixes.
