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This is a feed aggregator that collects what the contributors to the KDE community are writing on their respective blogs, in different languages

Saturday, 21 February 2026

Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma!

This week we released Plasma 6.6! So far it’s getting great reviews, even on Phoronix. 😁

As usual, this week the major focus was on triaging bug reports from people upgrading to the new release, and then fixing them. There were a couple of minor regressions as a result of the extensive work done to modernize Plasma widgets’ UI and code for Plasma 6.6, and we’ve already got almost all of them fixed.

In addition to that, feature work and UI improvements roared into focus for Plasma 6.7! Lots of neat stuff this week. Check it all out:

Notable new features

Plasma 6.7.0

While in the Overview effect, you can now switch between virtual desktops by scrolling or pressing the Page Up/Page Down keys! (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Bugzilla #453109 and kwin MR #8829)

On Wayland, you can optionally synchronize the stylus pointer with the mouse/touchpad pointer if this fits your stylus usage better. (Joshua Goins, KDE Bugzilla #505663)

The old print queue dialog has been replaced with a full-featured print queue viewer app, allowing you to visualize multiple queues of multiple printers connected locally or over the network! It still offers a good and normal experience for the common case of having one printer, but now also includes loads of enterprisey features relevant to environments with many printers. (Mike Noe, print-manager MR #280)

New print queue app

You can now exclude windows from screen recording using permanent window rules! (Kai Uwe Broulik, kwin MR #8828)

Added a new --release-capture command-line option to Spectacle that allows invoking it with its “accept screenshot on click-and-release” setting using automation tools. (Arimil, spectacle MR #479)

Notable UI improvements

Plasma 6.6.1

The Custom Tiling feature accessed with Meta+T no longer inappropriately respects key repeat, and therefore no longer becomes practically impossible to open with a very high key repeat rate. (Ritchie Frodomar, KDE Bugzilla #515940)

Close buttons on the default “Thumbnails” Alt+Tab task switcher are now more legible on top of the window thumbnails. (Nate Graham, kwin MR #8830)

The Networks widget now shows a more appropriate icon in the panel or System Tray when you disable Wi-Fi. (Nate Graham, plasma-nm MR #526)

Plasma 6.7.0

The System Monitor app and widgets now respect your chosen “binary unit” choice. This means for example if you’ve asked for file sizes to be expressed as “GB” (gigabyte, or one billion bytes) rather than “GiB” (gibibyte, or 2^30 bytes), the system monitoring tools now respect that. (David Redondo, KDE Bugzilla #453854)

If the auto-generated scale factor for a screen is very close to 100%, 200%, or 300%, it now gets rounded to that value, prioritizing performance and visual fidelity. (Kai Uwe Broulik, kwin MR #8742)

The Color Picker widget now displays more sensible tooltip and placeholder text when it hasn’t been used yet. (Joshua Goins, kdeplasma-addons MR #1010)

Various parts of Plasma now consistently use the term “UEFI Firmware Settings” to refer to UEFI-based setup tools. (Kai Uwe Broulik, plasma-workspace MR #6246 and plasma-desktop MR #3541)

The “Terminate this frozen window” dialog now shows a little spinner as it tries to terminate the window, so you don’t think it’s gotten stuck. (Kai Uwe Broulik, kwin MR #8818)

The Widget Explorer sidebar now appears on the screen with the pointer on it, rather than always appearing on the left-most screen. (Fushan Wen, plasma-workspace MR #6251)

Notable bug fixes

Plasma 6.6.1

Fixed a case where KWin could crash during intensive input method usage. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #506916)

Fixed a case where KWin could crash when waking up the system while using the Input Leap or Deskflow input-sharing apps. (David Redondo, KDE Bugzilla #515179)

Fixed a case where Discover could crash while trying to install updates. (Harald Sitter, KDE Bugzilla #515150)

Fixed a regression that broke drag-and-drop onto pinned Task Manager widget icons. (Kai Uwe Broulik, KDE Bugzilla #516242)

Fixed a regression that made certain popups from third-party software appear in the wrong place on the screen. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #516185)

Fixed a minor visual regression in the Zoom effect on rotated screens. (Vlad Zahorodnii, kwin MR #8817)

Fixed a layout regression that made the Task Manager widget’s tooltip close buttons get slightly cut off for multi-window apps while window thumbnails were manually disabled. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #516018)

Fixed a layout regression that slightly misaligned the search bar in the Kicker Application Menu widget. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #516196)

Fixed a layout regression that made some System Tray popups always show an unnecessary hamburger menu. (Arjen Hiemstra, KDE Bugzilla #516135)

Fixed a regression that made some GTK apps not notice system-wide changes to the color scheme and enter their dark mode. (Nicolas Fella, KDE Bugzilla #516303)

Fixed a button added to Plasma 6.6 not having translated text. (Albers Astals Cid, plasma-workspace MR #6305)

Fixed server-to-client clipboard syncing in Plasma’s remote desktop implementation. (realies, krdp MR #144)

The new Plasma Login Manager introduced in Plasma 6.6 no longer shows accounts on the system that a human can’t actually log into. (Matthew Snow, plasma-login-manager MR #109)

Fixed a layout issue that made a label in the panel configuration dialog disappear when using certain Plasma styles. (Filip Fila, KDE Bugzilla #515987)

Fixed a layout issue that made the notification dialog too tall for very short text-only notification messages. (Kai Uwe Broulik, plasma-workspace MR #6145)

Fixed an issue that set the screen brightness to too low a level on login in certain circumstances. (Xaver Hugl, KDE Bugzilla #504441)

Fixed a layout issue that made the song or artist names in the Media Player widget get cut off too early when the widget was placed in a panel in between two spacers. (Greeniac Green, KDE Bugzilla #501166)

Improved the Weather Report widget’s reliability with forecasts from the Environment Canada provider. (Eric Soltys, kdeplasma-addons MR #1008)

Made the progress indicator built into icons in the Task Manager widget move in the appropriate direction when using the system with a right-to-left language like Arabic or Hebrew. (Oliver Beard, KDE Bugzilla #516053)

Custom icons embedded in third-party widgets that appear in the Widget Explorer sidebar now also appear in those widgets’ “About this widget” pages. (Mark Capella, KDE Bugzilla #509896)

Plasma 6.7.0

Eliminated a source of visual glitchiness with certain fade transitions while using an ICC profile. (Xaver Hugl, KDE Bugzilla #515194)

Frameworks 6.24

Fixed a case where KDE’s desktop portal could crash when copying certain data over a remote desktop connection. (David Edmundson, KDE Bugzilla #515465)

Notable in performance & technical

Plasma 6.6.1

Improved animation performance throughout the system by leaning more heavily on the Wayland Presentation Time protocol. (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #516240)

How you can help

KDE has become important in the world, and your time and contributions have helped us get there. As we grow, we need your support to keep KDE sustainable.

Would you like to help put together this weekly report? Introduce yourself in the Matrix room and join the team!

Beyond that, you can help KDE by directly getting involved in any other projects. Donating time is actually more impactful than donating money. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE — you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to be a programmer, either; many other opportunities exist.

You can also help out by making a donation! This helps cover operational costs, salaries, travel expenses for contributors, and in general just keeps KDE bringing Free Software to the world.

To get a new Plasma feature or a bugfix mentioned here

Push a commit to the relevant merge request on invent.kde.org.

Friday, 20 February 2026

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-08.


I love the work of the ArchWiki maintainers

Tags: tech, linux, documentation

This is indeed an excellent technical documentation wiki for the Linux ecosystem.

https://k7r.eu/i-love-the-work-of-the-archwiki-maintainers/


Four Lessons From Civic Tech

Tags: tech, politics, commons, business

Interesting lessons indeed. Especially the first one: “Technology is inherently political, and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to hide their politics.” As tech people we too often forget this is all “sociotechnical”, no tech is designed and used in a vacuum.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A72%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D


Hold on to Your Hardware

Tags: tech, hardware, ai, machine-learning, gpt, economics

Are we on the verge to a push toward a mainframe based future? I really hope not, but for sure the hardware prices surging won’t make things easy.

https://xn–gckvb8fzb.com/hold-on-to-your-hardware/


The case for gatekeeping, or: why medieval guilds had it figured out

Tags: tech, foss, community, craftsmanship, ai, copilot, slop

Kind of resonate oddly with the string of talks I gave talking about craftsmanship a decade ago. Looks like FOSS communities at large have no choice but get inspired by such old practice.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-gatekeeping-or-why-medieval-guilds-had-it-figured-out/


Open-source game engine Godot is drowning in ‘AI slop’ code contributions

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, slop, github

Another example of how much of a problem this is for some projects. Of course it is compounded by having so many projects on GitHub, this pushes people to try to farm for activity to attempt to make their resume look good. This is sad.

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/open-source-game-engine-godot-is-drowning-in-ai-slop-code-contributions-i-dont-know-how-long-we-can-keep-it-up/


What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You

Tags: tech, bluetooth, security, privacy

Bluetooth might be convenient, clearly it leads to metadata leakage though.

https://blog.dmcc.io/journal/2026-bluetooth-privacy-bluehood/


Obfuscate data by hiding it in images

Tags: tech, security, cryptography, colors, graphics

I’ve always been fascinated by steganography. It’s a good reminder that the basics are fairly simple.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A172%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D


Self-hosting my websites using bootable containers

Tags: tech, linux, bootc, system, systemd, self-hosting

Interesting setup for self hosting on immutable infrastructure using bootc.

https://yorickpeterse.com/articles/self-hosting-my-websites-using-bootable-containers/


TIL: Docker log rotation

Tags: tech, docker, logging

I find surprising it’s not by default… But here we are.

https://ntietz.com/blog/til-docker-log-rotation/


Compendium

Tags: tech, system, observability, strace, linux

Still very young but it looks like it might become a nice and friendly alternative to strace.

https://pker.xyz/posts/compendium


Linux terminal emulator architecture

Tags: tech, linux, terminal, system

A good one page primer on how terminal emulators are designed.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A90%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D


Runtime validation in type annotations

Tags: tech, python, type-systems

Interesting new tricks with the introspection of Python type annotations.

https://blog.natfu.be/validation-in-type-annotations/


How bad can Python stop-the-world pauses get?

Tags: tech, python, memory, performance

Of course it’s a question of the amount of allocations you need.

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/02/15/how-bad-can-python-stop-the-world-pauses-get/


C++26: std::is_within_lifetime

Tags: tech, c++, type-systems

A small change in the standard, but it opens the door to interesting uses.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/02/18/cpp26-std_is_within_lifetime


spix: UI test automation library for QtQuick/QML Apps

Tags: tech, qt, tests, gui

Still young but looks like a nice option to write GUI tests for Qt based applications.

https://github.com/faaxm/spix?tab=readme-ov-file


Fast sorting, branchless by design

Tags: tech, algorithm, security

Didn’t know about sorting networks. They have interesting properties and are definitely good options on modern hardware.

https://00f.net/2026/02/17/sorting-without-leaking-secrets/


How Michael Abrash doubled Quake framerate

Tags: tech, game, optimisation, assembly, graphics

Interesting insights from optimisations done on the Quake engine almost thirty years ago.

https://fabiensanglard.net/quake_asm_optimizations/index.html


Font Rendering from First Principles

Tags: tech, fonts, graphics

We take font rendering for granted but this is more complex than one might think.

https://mccloskeybr.com/articles/font_rendering.html


Modern CSS Code Snippets

Tags: tech, web, frontend, css

Another nice resource to discover newer CSS idioms.

https://modern-css.com/


Stop Guessing Worker Counts

Tags: tech, distributed, messaging, performance

We got some math for that! No need to guess.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A118%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D


The 12-Factor App - 15 Years later. Does it Still Hold Up in 2026?

Tags: tech, services, infrastructure, cloud, devops

A bit buzzword oriented, still I think it’s true that most of those principles make sense.

https://lukasniessen.medium.com/the-12-factor-app-15-years-later-does-it-still-hold-up-in-2026-c8af494e8465


The only developer productivity metrics that matter

Tags: tech, agile, productivity, metrics

I agree with this very much. The only productivity metric in the end is the end-user satisfaction.

https://genehack.blog/2026/02/the-only-developer-productivity-metrics-that-matter/


You can code only 4 hours per day. Here’s why.

Tags: tech, engineering, cognition, organisation, communication, productivity

Quite some good tips in there. If you want to do deep work you need to arrange your organisation for it. Using asynchronous communication more is also key in my opinion.

https://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/p/you-can-code-only-4-hours-per-day


Poor Deming never stood a chance

Tags: management, leadership

Interesting comparison of Drucker’s and Deming’s approaches to management. One is easier while the other is clearly demanding but brings lasting improvements.

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2026/02/16/poor-deming-never-stood-a-chance/


In a blind test, audiophiles couldn’t tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud

Tags: audio, music, physics, funny

Can we stop with the audiophile snobbery now?

https://www.tomshardware.com/speakers/in-a-blind-test-audiophiles-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-audio-signals-sent-through-copper-wire-a-banana-or-wet-mud-the-mud-should-sound-perfectly-awful-but-it-doesnt-notes-the-experiment-creator



Bye for now!

To understand the code, you have to understand these four pillars: QXmppOmemoManager: This is the “Encryption Engine.” It handles the Double Ratchet algorithm, which constantly changes the encryption keys for every message so that even if one key is stolen, the rest of the conversation stays safe.

Today we're releasing the second beta of Krita 5.3.0 and Krita 6.0.0. Our thanks to all the people who have tested the first beta. We received 49 bug reports in total, of which we managed to resolve 14 for this release.

Note that 6.0.0-beta2 has more issues, especially on Linux and Wayland, than 5.3.0-beta2. If you want to combine beta testing with actual productive work, it's best to test 5.3.0-beta2, since 5.3.0 will remain the recommended version of Krita for now.

This release also has the new splash screen by Tyson Tan - "Kiki Paints Over the Waves"!

Kiki Paints Over the Waves

To learn about everything that has changed, check the release notes!

5.3.0-beta2 Download

Windows

If you're using the portable zip files, just open the zip file in Explorer and drag the folder somewhere convenient, then double-click on the Krita icon in the folder. This will not impact an installed version of Krita, though it will share your settings and custom resources with your regular installed version of Krita. For reporting crashes, also get the debug symbols folder.

[!NOTE] We are no longer making 32-bit Windows builds.

Linux

Note: starting with recent releases, the minimum supported distro versions may change.

[!WARNING] Starting with recent AppImage runtime updates, some AppImageLauncher versions may be incompatible. See AppImage runtime docs for troubleshooting.

MacOS

Note: minimum supported MacOS may change between releases.

Android

Krita on Android is still beta; tablets only.

Source code

You can build Krita 5.3 using the Krita 6.0.0.source archives. The difference is which version of Qt you build against.

md5sum

For all downloads, visit https://download.kde.org/unstable/krita/5.3.0-beta2/ and click on "Details" to get the hashes.

6.0.0-beta2 Download

Windows

If you're using the portable zip files, just open the zip file in Explorer and drag the folder somewhere convenient, then double-click on the Krita icon in the folder. This will not impact an installed version of Krita, though it will share your settings and custom resources with your regular installed version of Krita. For reporting crashes, also get the debug symbols folder.

[!NOTE] We are no longer making 32-bit Windows builds.

Linux

Note: starting with recent releases, the minimum supported distro versions may change.

[!WARNING] Starting with recent AppImage runtime updates, some AppImageLauncher versions may be incompatible. See AppImage runtime docs for troubleshooting.

MacOS

Note: minimum supported MacOS may change between releases.

Android

Due to issues with Qt6 and Android, we cannot make APK builds for Android of Krita 6.0.0-beta2.

Source code

md5sum

For all downloads, visit https://download.kde.org/unstable/krita/6.0.0-beta2/ and click on "Details" to get the hashes.

Key

The Linux AppImage and the source tarballs are signed. You can retrieve the public key here. The signatures are here (filenames ending in .sig).

Thursday, 19 February 2026

Automating Repetitive GUI Interactions in Embedded Development with Spix

2023-07-05-18-08-38-small_Blog_Christoph_Spix

As Embedded Software Developers, we all know the pain: you make a code change, rebuild your project, restart the application - and then spend precious seconds repeating the same five clicks just to reach the screen you want to test. Add a login dialog on top of it, and suddenly those seconds turn into minutes. Multiply that by a hundred iterations per day, and it’s clear: this workflow is frustrating, error-prone, and a waste of valuable development time.

In this article, we’ll look at how to automate these repetitive steps using Spix, an open-source tool for GUI automation in Qt/QML applications. We’ll cover setup, usage scenarios, and how Spix can be integrated into your workflow to save hours of clicking, typing, and waiting.

The Problem: Click Fatigue in GUI Testing

Imagine this:

  • You start your application.
  • The login screen appears.
  • You enter your username and password.
  • You click "Login".
  • Only then do you finally reach the UI where you can verify whether your code changes worked.

This is fine the first few times - but if you’re doing it 100+ times a day, it becomes a serious bottleneck. While features like hot reload can help in some cases, they aren’t always applicable - especially when structural changes are involved or when you must work with "real" production data.

So, what’s the alternative?

The Solution: Automating GUI Input with Spix

Spix allows you to control your Qt/QML applications programmatically. Using scripts (typically Python), you can automatically:

  • Insert text into input fields
  • Click buttons
  • Wait for UI elements to appear
  • Take and compare screenshots

This means you can automate login steps, set up UI states consistently, and even extend your CI pipeline with visual testing. Unlike manual hot reload tweaks or hardcoding start screens, Spix provides an external, scriptable solution without altering your application logic.

Setting up Spix in Your Project

Getting Spix integrated requires a few straightforward steps:

1. Add Spix as a dependency

  • Typically done via a Git submodule into your project’s third-party folder.
git subrepo add 3rdparty/spix git@github.com:faaxm/spix.git

2. Register Spix in CMake

  • Update your CMakeLists.txt with a find_package(Spix REQUIRED) call.
  • Because of CMake quirks, you may also need to manually specify the path to Spix’s CMake modules.
LIST(APPEND CMAKE_MODULE_PATH /home/christoph/KDAB/spix/cmake/modules)
find_package(Spix REQUIRED)
  • Add Spix to your target_link_libraries call.
target_link_libraries(myApp
  PRIVATE Qt6::Core
          Qt6::Quick 
          Qt6::SerialPort 
          Spix::Spix
)

4. Initialize Spix in your application

  • Include Spix headers in main.cpp.
  • Add some lines of boilerplate code:
    • Include the 2 Spix Headers (AnyRPCServer for Communication and QtQmlBot)
    • Start the Spix RPC server.
    • Create a Spix::QtQmlBot.
    • Run the test server on a specified port (e.g. 9000).
#include <Spix/AnyRpcServer.h>
#include <Spix/QtQmlBot.h>
[...]

//Start the actual Runner/Server
spix::AnyRpcServer server;
auto bot = new spix::QtQmlBot();
bot->runTestServer(server);

At this point, your application is "Spix-enabled". You can verify this by checking for the open port (e.g. localhost:9000).

Spix can be a Security Risk: Make sure to not expose Spix in any production environment, maybe only enable it for your Debug-builds.

Where Spix Shines

Once the setup is done, Spix can be used to automate repetitive tasks. Let’s look at two particularly useful examples:

1. Automating Logins with a Python Script

Instead of typing your credentials and clicking "Login" manually, you can write a simple Python script that:

  • Connects to the Spix server on localhost:9000
  • Inputs text into the userField and passwordField
  • Clicks the "Login" button (Items marked with "Quotes" are literal That-Specific-Text-Identifiers for Spix)
import xmlrpc.client

session = xmlrpc.client.ServerProxy('http://localhost:9000')

session.inputText('mainWindow/userField', 'christoph')
session.inputText('mainWindow/passwordField', 'secret') 
session.mouseClick('mainWindow/"Login"')

When executed, this script takes care of the entire login flow - no typing, no clicking, no wasted time. Better yet, you can check the script into your repository, so your whole team can reuse it.

For Development, Integration in Qt-Creator can be achieved with a Custom startup executable, that also starts this python script.

In a CI environment, this approach is particularly powerful, since you can ensure every test run starts from a clean state without relying on manual navigation.

2. Screenshot Comparison

Beyond input automation, Spix also supports taking screenshots. Combined with Python libraries like OpenCV or scikit-image, this opens up interesting possibilities for testing.

Example 1: Full-screen comparison

Take a screenshot of the main window and store it first:

import xmlrpc.client

session = xmlrpc.client.ServerProxy('http://localhost:9000')

[...]
session.takeScreenshot('mainWindow', '/tmp/screenshot.png')k

Now we can compare it with a reference image:

from skimage import io
from skimage.metrics import structural_similarity as ssim

screenshot1 = io.imread('/tmp/reference.png', as_gray=True)
screenshot2 = io.imread('/tmp/screenshot.png', as_gray=True)

ssim_index = ssim(screenshot1, screenshot2, data_range=screenshot1.max() - screenshot1.min())

threshold = 0.95

if ssim_index == 1.0: 
    print("The screenshots are a perfect match")
elif ssim_index >= threshold:
    print("The screenshots are similar, similarity: " + str(ssim_index * 100) + "%")
else:
    print("The screenshots are not similar at all, similarity: " + str(ssim_index * 100) + "%")

This is useful for catching unexpected regressions in visual layout.

Example 2: Finding differences in the same UI

Use OpenCV to highlight pixel-level differences between two screenshots—for instance, missing or misaligned elements:

import cv2

image1 = cv2.imread('/tmp/reference.png')
image2 = cv2.imread('/tmp/screenshot.png')

diff = cv2.absdiff(image1, image2)

# Convert the difference image to grayscale
gray = cv2.cvtColor(diff, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

# Threshold the grayscale image to get a binary image
_, thresh = cv2.threshold(gray, 30, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)

contours, _ = cv2.findContours(thresh, cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
cv2.drawContours(image1, contours, -1, (0, 0, 255), 2)

cv2.imshow('Difference Image', image1)
cv2.waitKey(0)

This form of visual regression testing can be integrated into your CI system. If the UI changes unintentionally, Spix can detect it and trigger an alert.

1024-637_Blog_Christoph_Spix

Defective Image

1024-639_Blog_Christoph_Spix

The script marked the defective parts of the image compared to the should-be image.

Recap

Spix is not a full-blown GUI testing framework like Squish, but it fills a useful niche for embedded developers who want to:

  • Save time on repetitive input (like logins).
  • Share reproducible setup scripts with colleagues.
  • Perform lightweight visual regression testing in CI.
  • Interact with their applications on embedded devices remotely.

While there are limitations (e.g. manual wait times, lack of deep synchronization with UI states), Spix provides a powerful and flexible way to automate everyday development tasks - without having to alter your application logic.

If you’re tired of clicking the same buttons all day, give Spix a try. It might just save you hours of time and frustration in your embedded development workflow.

The post Automating Repetitive GUI Interactions in Embedded Development with Spix appeared first on KDAB.

The Variables To start a handshake, we need two public numbers that everyone knows: Base (g): 2 Modulus (p): 19 Step 1: The Private Secrets Two parties, Alice and Shiva, choose secret numbers (Private Keys).

Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Hey all! I'm CJ and I'm checking in with a midterm update on the Season of KDE task of automating data collection for the KDE promotional team.

The first term of the two for this Season of KDE task has mostly been a learning experience of what does and doesn't work when it comes to scraping data from the web, laying down our toolset and approach to data collection.

Three subtasks have resulted:

  1. Create a script that collects follower and post counts from several websites housing KDE's social media accounts
  2. Create a script that processes information from the Reddit Insights page for the KDE subreddit
  3. Create a script automating the evaluation of articles discussing KDE tools

The first two of those are mostly completed while the last one is in its research and planning phase. Both finished subtasks came with their own sets of challenges, techniques and tools that I'll detail separately.

Follower and post counts scraper

This is a script I discussed in my first blog post that scrapes follower and post counts from X (formerly known as Twitter), Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. The major updates to this script made since then are that it employs a more user and server-friendly usage method and that we've tackled a few issues that came up outside of the script's scraping. On the usage side I've added command-line arguments and an expectation for a JSON file containing the links to scrub from. This makes swapping out social media links easy as well as adding options for scaling up configuration of the script if any further development is needed.

At the point of writing the logic of the script has held up well but the data format we were outputting to, Open Document Format (ODF), wasn't friendly for our specific usage, which is something I touched on in that first blog post. In the end we decided the tools that interface with ODF were too unwieldy to work with from an automation and programmatic standpoint so we're looking into alternatives at the moment. One promising solution is KDE's LabPlot which has a good looking (but experimental) Python API and is FOSS. For now I've set the script up to output to a user-friendly JSON file until we resolve what tool will be leveraged for data analysis in the end.

Another issue came from the input-side of the script in the X/Twitter scraping portion. Many public Nitter instances implement bot-prevention I was unaware of that triggered on an attempted headless server run of the script. With that making simpler scraping methods difficult and also paying respect to those instances' desire not to be botted, I've decided to spin up our own local Nitter instance on the server which is running the script. Now scraping X/Twitter comes much more easily and with a lot less risk of failure.

KDE subreddit Insights scraper

Since that first week we've added another task, being the creation of a script that can add up the weekly influx of new visitors, unique page views, and members of the KDE subreddit utilizing the subreddit's Insight page. This script mostly challenged our ability to automate the login process for Reddit as the usual methods are prevented by browser verification tools.

Reddit implements some version of reCAPTCHA that utilizes a form of invisible reCAPTCHA on their login page. The method of implementation changes based off which version they use, but in the end a score grading the likelihood of a user being a bot or a human is returned to the website upon login. This means that simple HTTP requests are likely not enough to get the job done and that a level of interaction supplied using a browser automation framework is needed to handle the login process.

To that end, we chose to leverage the long-standing Selenium web browser automation framework. Selenium, and many browser-automation frameworks like it, works by launching a full-featured web browser to run its automated tasks. This introduces problems in running these scripts on a headless server but greatly simplifies bot-prevention thwarting and the loading of any JavaScript-sensitive page elements.

With Selenium automating our login process, the only challenge left was to process the HTML data retrieved. Reddit Insights presents its information in the form of bar charts that visualize the daily page views, unique visitors, and subscribers to a subreddit. Some small analysis of the page source revealed that the daily data populating the bar charts are stored with millisecond UNIX timestamp representations of those days. Using BeautifulSoup, it was very easy for me to grab that daily data using those timestamps and sum up the totals needed for our script.

The main challenge this script presents now is how we can get it running on a weekly basis in a headless server. The UI component is non-negotiable so the solution will very likely come in the form of server configuration.

Smaller updates

  • Investigated automation of NextCloud data uploads
  • Researched how to schedule scripts to run on an interval using systemd unit files
  • Wrote technical documentation on the purpose and usage of both scripts developed at the point of writing
  • Researched various alternative packages for performing HTTP requests and browser automation tasks

Future

Since the last two subtasks are complete logic-wise outside of any future issues we run into, a new one has been assigned as part of the data collection automation task. The KDE promo team collects various articles about KDE and software related to it and evaluates the contents of those articles as they relate to KDE and how they view whichever KDE tool they discuss. This evaluation process is performed manually which takes up time, so I've been tasked with developing some method of analyzing these articles in an automated fashion.

Along with that new subtask, solving the issues of running browser automation software on a server and what data evaluation software we'll target will greatly benefit us by expanding our options for deploying scripts made in this task and making their data immediately useful for the KDE promo team.

Lessons learned

It's been a lot of fun to tackle the first two tasks. I've had to pull from past experience with APIs, HTML, and HTTP that have been rotting in deeper parts of my brain as well as learn much more about how modern, full-featured websites deploy those tools. I'm a bit anxious about the problem of server deployment since I want these scripts to be as useful and maintainable as possible for the KDE promotion team, but I'm confident we'll find a solution and I'm sure it will feel very rewarding to solve.

Concerning the new subtask, this assignment is a departure from the first two and it's very likely a light and local AI/machine learning method will be looped into this process. That makes it exciting to tackle since it's so different from the last couple of subtasks and incorporates an entirely separate emerging field. I'm very much looking forward to rounding my skills with the new challenges this subtask presents.

OSU logo

The UN Open Source Principles are comprised of eight guidelines and provide a framework to guide the use, development and sharing of open source software across the United Nations. This is part of the UN's Open Source United (OSU) initiative, which aims to coordinate and increase open source efforts across the United Nations system.

According to OSU:

"Across the UN, teams are building powerful digital tools, but much of this work is isolated. Open Source United breaks these silos, encourages collaboration, and makes innovation easier to share and reuse. By working together, we deliver solutions that are more transparent, sustainable, and cost-effective."

Alongside another 119 FLOSS organisations, KDE will support the effort to connect UN teams and their partners, as well as the global community, encouraging them to share, discover and reuse open-source solutions in their work to carry out the UN’s mission worldwide.

Tuesday, 17 February 2026

Qt for MCUs 2.11.2 LTS has been released and is available for download. This patch release provides bug fixes and other improvements while maintaining source compatibility with Qt for MCUs 2.11 (see Qt for MCUs 2.11 LTS released). This release does not add any new functionality.

Measuring activity is not about producing more metrics. It is about supporting better decisions and enabling continuous improvement. We restricted our analysis to main/master to observe validated flow and kept visualizations simple to promote adoption across the community.