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More than five months after the release of LXQt 1.0 as the first mature version of this lightweight Qt-based desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions, here comes the first major update, LXQt 1.1.
LXQt 1.1 is packed with lots of cool changes, starting with better integration of applications that aren’t written in Qt, such as GTK apps through the implementation of the xdg-desktop-portal-lxqt component. With this, apps like Firefox or Chromium will finally be able to use the native LXQt file dialog.
In addition, LXQt’s PCManFM-Qt file manager now supports the file manager DBus interface, which can be used by non-Qt apps like Firefox or Chromium to display files inside folders or do other jobs.
Talking about PCManFM-Qt, the file manager now features a “Recent Files” item in the File menu and an “Open in Terminal” item in the right-click context menu inside folders, better support for RTL (Right-to-Left) languages, better positioning of sticky desktop items, improved moving of bookmarks using the Bookmarks context menu, as well as better support for launching apps in certain terminal emulators.
On top of that, LXQt 1.1 introduces a simple option to the Session Settings panel to configure global screen scaling, enables Clearlooks as the default LXQt theme and Breeze as the default icon theme (as you can see in the screenshot above), adds a separate page for configuring GTK styles in the Appearance panel, adds matching Qt palettes to provide a more unified look and feel when using Qt widget styles like Fusion, and adds a new theme called Valendas.
Also improved in LXQt 1.1 is the LXQt Panel component, which now supports displaying legacy tray icons inside the Status Notifier when the System Tray plugin is enabled, supports resetting the System Statistics graph when the auto-hiding option for panels is enabled, and splits the panel config dialog into 3 sections.
Among other changes, the QTerminal terminal emulator received a new shortcut entry for the drop-down shortcut and fixes to the drop-down mode, as well as much-improved bookmark functionality. Also, the LXQt Power Management now features three tray icons with the battery charge percentage inside them, as well as support for circular or battery-shaped tray icons.
Last but not least, LXQt 1.1 improves the LXImage Qt image viewer to fix capturing of a screen area that isn’t positioned at the top left and to restore its maximized state when exiting the full-screen mode, improves the LXQt Archiver archive manager to allow users to change the view icon size and to sort items by any column, and improves the Screengrab screenshot utility by better integrate it with external image editors/viewers.
Under the hood, LXQt 1.1.0 is built against Qt 5.15. For more details about the changes implemented in this major update, check out the release announcement page. Meanwhile, if you’re using the LXQt desktop environment with your GNU/Linux distribution, keep an eye on the stable software repositories for the new release and update as soon as it’s available to enjoy all of these improvements and new features.
Last updated 2 years ago
