My understanding of Linux programming is that it’s mostly done in a code editor, then compiled on the command line.

That's not really true. You can do that, but with most IDEs (and some text editors) you really don't need to do that. You can do everything from the IDE.

I’m aware that cmake exists, and I’ve used it a bit, but I don’t like it. VS lets me just drop a .h and .cpp file into the solution explorer and I’m good-to-go. Is there really no graphical alternative for Linux?

It depends on the IDE and how it handles project files. Nowadays Qt Creator for example can just create your source code files and automatically add them to the generated project CMake. I'm pretty sure other IDEs or text editors have this functionality when paired with CMake or Meson too.

It must be noted that if the IDE has some custom project file manager (like Visual Studio does with sln and vcproj files) and you use it exclusively, you'll likely restrict your project to one platform and one IDE. Using something like CMake or Meson will make it easier to do crossplatform development and will let your users build the project without needing that specific IDE.

Personally I like modern CMake, the problem is that you'll see a lot of projects in the wild doing old CMake style, which is awful. Meson is okay, although it feels very Pythonic to me and lacks some features I use for Qt stuff.

Everything. It doesn't accurately describe the issue (animation stutter when using an HDD or during heavy I/O) and it doesn't mention the solution (put the cache folder in tmpfs), plus it obviously follows the traditional sensationalist tone used in clickbait.

The point is to be deliberately vague to bait people into watching it.

It's small enough that we actually don't get many things to moderate either. I don't think I've even done any mod action so far. :D

I remember once researching when to use variant and any, and coming up with https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56303939/c-stdvariant-vs-stdany. The naïve summary being:

any is a dressed-up void*. variant is a dressed-up union.

So you'd use std::any for similar reasons to void* (that other commenters already mentioned) while getting some advantages. In that sense it's kinda similar to using a std::span for pointer arithmetic instead of actual C-style pointer arithmetic, it makes a necessary evil safer to do.

can I write modern C++ code using the newer standards and still compile with libraries from older standards?

Yes, but then your project ends up requiring that newer standard as minimum too (which can be fine if that's what you want).

how do I even organize a C++ project?

Well, one way that should be simple and scalable for beginners is leaving the root folder for project configuration/metadata/contribution guidelines/clang-format etc. and putting all source code inside src/.

If it's just an app, you can make smaller library targets in src/ in separate folders with meaningful names, like src/models/, src/settings/ etc. If it's a library, you typically put headers you intend to expose to your users in a src/include/ folder and use target_include_directories() to point to it, otherwise the same principle as apps applies.

It requires writing a few more, smaller CMakeLists, but it does mean you're never lost in your own code.

how do I install dependencies?

We added this recently to KDE's developer documentation, so at least for Linux it's a start: Installing build dependencies: Using build errors to find missing dependencies.

We're always open to doc contributions. Interested in any particular areas? 🐰

What’s the best or recommended way to test out Plasma 6 RC2?

See also: https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Plasma_6#How_to_use/test_it

without the need of the moc

I got a bit of a mind freeze reading that sentence since my first thought was "why would someone deliberately give up on Qt's reflection system" but only then realized they're still using QMetaObject (the thing that actually enables reflection and signals and slots), just building it with something else.

Afaik the reason why they're not using GitLab issues it's missing some features they need, which Bugzilla has.

Yeah.

https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Issue_Reporting/Why_not_GitLab_Issues

This was shared recently by a friend I follow: https://mastodon.social/@silvereagle/111484800732591545

Direct link: https://www.sofurry.com/forum/view/thread?id=58457&page=100000

That link has a few mentions of podcasts:

• 24/7 Chill Furry Lo-fi Radio https://www.youtube.com/@AquariusCrystalwave/streams
• Furry Refuge (Old streams) https://www.youtube.com/@furryrefuge3969/streams
• Catnip Radio https://www.mixcloud.com/CatnipRadio/stream/
• Furry Rave Crew https://www.mixcloud.com/FURRYRAVECREW/

Also, you should only use Layout attached properties when the object you're using it on is a child of a Layout, for example:

ApplicationWindow {
    ColumnLayout {
        anchors.fill: parent // Not a child of a layout, so you use anchors
        Controls.Button {
            Layout.fillWidth: true // It's a child of a layout, so you use Layout.fillWidth
        }
    }
}

So what you want to do is put a Kirigami.SearchField inside the global toolbar created by the Kirigami.Page. It's not a header.

In the first case you're putting it inside the page, and because it's a direct child of a Kirigami.Page, it is automatically laid out for you, which is fine, but not what you want.

In the second case you're putting it in the header of the ApplicationWindow, but you actually want to put in the global toolbar of the page, so it's not what you want.

In the third case you're just putting a SearchField before the initialPage, so it's loaded on the same level as the page, it's not what you want.

You can put it in the header property of the Kirigami.Page, but the header area of the page doesn't include the global toolbar, so they just happen to be close together by chance.

The way I'd have expected to do that would be to override the globalToolBarItem of the Kirigami.Page, but it's read only, so I don't really know how to help you with that. You should ask in the Kirigami Matrix room or in the Discuss forum.

I can't tell you why this is happening, but what is clearly happening is that your apps are being run under a nested kwin_wayland instance. It's as though you were running kwin_wayland krunner.

If anyone’s wondering, my main issue with Wayland was that it wasn’t setting the DISPLAY and WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variables for some reason, and this would cause all kinds of software like Steam and Firefox to not even launch. I tried setting them manually but that didn’t go do well either.

My guess is that whatever fix you attempted here caused this, so you'd need to be more specific about what you tried.

I was thinking, with the recent news of a contributor to GitLab adding support for forge federation, some time we could see that being enabled in the KDE instance as well, I hope.

It would be cool indeed. It would mean that people on KDE Invent could make issues and MRs directly to the Freedesktop Gitlab, for example, if both were federated.

If, instead, you won’t do it and prefer to keep Bugzilla as the main issue tracking platform, could you tell us why?

Here are the reasons why: https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Issue_Reporting/Why_not_GitLab_Issues

The tldr is that Gitlab Issues is limited for users, developers and triagers compared to current Bugzilla, given the current KDE infrastructure. These are just technical issues. The moment Gitlab solves those limitations, KDE would gladly use it.

[...] since they’re right there by the code base.

Note the section "Bugs need to be filed against individual repos". At it stands right now, if a non-technical user finds a plasmashell bug, they can just go to "File a bug":

and they're greeted with this:

And then they can choose Plasma and then plasmashell, both with very descriptive text mentioning what should be reported there. It's not too bad to find the right place to report things, to be honest. And there's an "I don't know" field, which is great. :)

Finding issues can be a bit finnicky, yeah. But you can click on the search field in the first page, type what you want to find, click on Quick Search and you get a list of results based on your keywords, and you can also click on the Search button and then click on Simple Search to look for some keyword in a specific product. Once you know it's pretty simple.

Maybe keep the Overview text and icon color as white for better contrast. The blue background color already conveys selection I think.