KDE Plasma 4

KDE Plasma 4 Workspaces is the "umbrella" term for the fourth generation of graphical environments developed by KDE. This term applies to three environments; Plasma Desktop for traditional desktop and notebook computers, Plasma Netbook for Netbooks, and Plasma Active for tablet interfaces.

KDE Plasma Workspaces was released as the Desktop component of KDE Software Compilation 4.

With the release of KDE SC 4.11 in 14 August 2013 KDE Plasma 4 was put into "feature freeze" and turned into an long-time stable package until August 2015. On 15 July 2014 KDE Plasma Workspaces 4’s successor, KDE Plasma 5, was released.

This article will focus on the "Plasma Desktop" workspace, as it is the most popular and most widely used of the three workspaces, and has the most historical significance.

General
KDE Plasma 4 brought many changes to the KDE desktop. One of the most prominent features was the port to Qt4.

Another prominent change involved the use of "Widgets" to extend the functionality of the desktop. Though widgets were available in earlier versions of KDE, KDE Plasma 4 brought a unified system of widgets, allowing for extensive themeing and customization.

Another major change was the introduction of the Oxygen theme, characterized by dark tones. Oxygen was used as the default theme from version 4.0 until 4.3, when it was replaced by Air, a theme similar in nature, but with a decisively white tone, and superfluous transparency.