One of my fave things about being a KDE Plasma user is how the community keeps everyone updated as to what we can expect in future patches. Every week, we get a "This Week in Plasma" blog post, where we get to peek inside the guts of KDE Plasma and see what people are working on. This includes both what to expect from the next minor update, alongside all the developments being worked on for the upcoming major update.

Well, it's "This Week in Plasma" day, and KDE has once again rounded up everything people have been working on. And it's good news for users who hate apps that keep their PC from sleeping or turning the screen off, as the 6.6.0 update will let you see what's messing around with your power plan.

KDE Plasma 6.6.0 will show more detailed power usage for your apps

Find out what's giving your PC insomnia

On the KDE Plasma blog, the community showed off what they've been working on. Some of the tweaks are scheduled for version 6.5.5, while others will come later in 6.6.0. Fortunately, KDE labelled each one with the expected version number, so we can tell when each feature is planned.

For example, version 6.6.0 will introduce a change to the Power and Battery widget. If you haven't noticed, opening the Power Management tool on the taskbar opens up a small box which will let you know if any apps you have open are keeping your PC awake. For example, if you're watching a video in your browser, there's a good chance it'll tell your PC not to go to sleep, and the Power Management tool will let you know this is happening.

The thing is, in the current version of KDE Plasma, the tool assumes that if an app is keeping your PC awake, it wants to prevent both sleep and screen lock. But that's not always the case. Fortunately, when 6.6.0 comes around, we'll have more control over that:

The Power and Battery widget now tells you what specific power management actions apps are blocking, instead of assuming that they’re all blocking both sleep and screen locking. (Jakob Petsovits, KDE Bug #418433)

Other upcoming features for 6.6.0 include saving themes you like for later use, alongside a new power screen that lets you know if you're about to restart into another distro. It seems version 6.5.5 didn't get a ton of love this week, as the biggest change is a bugfix that allows repeat keys to work in the Brave browser; however, given how it's meant to release in the next few days, these are likely quick fixes sliding into the patch before it goes out.