KDE Frameworks 6.28 has been released as the latest monthly update to the collection of libraries that power KDE applications and large parts of the Plasma desktop.
In this release, KIO receives several fixes around file workers, directory creation, cancellation behavior, permissions, ownership handling, and job cleanup.
For example, recursive deletion and directory listing jobs now stop more promptly when canceled, while directory creation has fixes related to requested modes and overwrite behavior. There are also improvements for preserving POSIX ACLs when copying files, setting copied file permissions and ownership through a descriptor, and allowing MkdirJob to set UID/GID ownership.
Another change is that KIO now avoids reading .directory files on slow filesystems when determining icon names. Additionally, the release includes fixes around worker thread lifecycle handling, pending jobs during scheduler shutdown, plugin loader leaks, and worker-related deadlock regressions.
Kirigami, KDE’s framework for building modern convergent Qt/QML interfaces, receives several fixes in Frameworks 6.28. These include fixes for a binding loop in FormEntry, avoiding fractional positioning in forms, improving header handling in applications, and correcting icon node sizing behavior.
There is also a solid set of updates for KTextEditor, the text editing component used by apps such as Kate and KWrite. The focus here is Vi mode, which gets fixes for reversed mouse selection ranges, command ranges for mouse selection, registers for last inserted text, and support for counts with multiple undo/redo operations.
Beyond Vi mode, KTextEditor now shows preview icons for editor color themes, making theme selection a bit more visual in configuration pages.
KWindowSystem improves handling of Xwayland restarts, manages atoms with shared pointers, restores a null-window guard in exportWindow, and adds a future-based API for exporting a window.
On top of that, KXMLGUI gains support for modifier-only shortcuts in KShortcutsEditor, along with internal refactoring for shortcut patterns and a fix for invalid shortcut source handling.
As always, there are plenty of smaller updates across the stack. KImageFormats improves EXR metadata support, HEIF handling, AVIF behavior, JP2 channel limits, and buffer memory management. KUnitConversion adds watt-hour energy conversion support. Prison, KDE’s barcode framework, adds rendering support for ITF and Codabar barcodes.
KCalendarCore adds an Android platform calendar plugin and improves how custom properties are written. KCoreAddons receives basic GNU/Hurd support in some areas, while KHolidays updates holiday data, including Croatian holidays as of 2026 and Ethiopian holiday additions.
For more details, see the release announcement. KDE Frameworks 6.28 should start reaching rolling-release distributions first, followed by regular updates in other distros according to their own packaging schedules.
For those who prefer to build from source, the entire codebase for Frameworks 6.28 (requires Qt 6.9) is available for download from KDE’s official website.
