Plasma Browser Integration

Plasma Browser Integration 1.9

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.9 on the Chrome Web Store. This is a maintenance release shipping a couple of important changes as well as the usual translation updates. The extension now ships 46 different localizations and will of course continue working just fine under the upcoming Plasma 6!

Konqi surfing the world wide web

Plasma Browser Integration bridges the gap between your browser and the Plasma desktop. It lets you share links, find browser tabs and visited websites in KRunner, monitor download progress in the notification center, and control music and video playback anytime from within Plasma, or even from your phone using KDE Connect!

Testers Wanted: Plasma Browser Integration Manifest v3

A while ago Google announced a new API level for browser extensions, named Manifest v3. You might have heard it in the news that it will impact the ability for extensions to arbitrarily filter traffic. While this particular aspect does not affect Plasma Browser Integration, there’s still a large number of behavior and API changes that we need to adapt to, especially when it comes to tampering with a website’s content. It’s getting more urgent as Chrome will stop stop running extensions still using the old version 2 by the end of this year!

Yes, this is the font you think it is. — Konqi cheerfully waiving at the future

Luckily, most extension features, namely KDE Connect integration, tabs and history runner, and download monitoring could be ported quite easily. However, media controls and Share API integration needed a significant rewrite in order to work with the new restrictions imposed on us, notably it is no longer possible for an extension to inject arbitrary inline JavaScript into websites. Many thanks to Fabian Vogt for refactoring this part of the extension!

Please help test the upcoming release!

Plasma Browser Integration 1.8

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.8 on the Chrome Web Store as well as Firefox Add-Ons page. This release was originally intended to be just a bugfix update, but instead comes with new features, the usual slew of bug fixes and translation updates, but more importantly: it’s now available on the Microsoft Edge store (needs Plasma 5.21)!

Konqi surfing the world wide web

Plasma on the Edge

You probably have heard the news by now that Microsoft have released the Linux version of their new Chromium-based Edge web browser. Of course I’ve been waiting for this day ever since they announced the switcheroo to Chromium in order to bring Plasma Browser Integration to Edge users. It took Microsoft almost two decades to offer another web browser to a Unixoid desktop and this time around it’s based on KDE’s legacy – what a time to be alive!

Microsoft Edge Dev window with kde.org website and context menu opening, showcasing Plasma Browser Integration's "Share" and KDE Connect features from the context menu — Sending a link from Microsoft Edge to my phone using KDE Connect

Plasma Browser Integration 1.7.6

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.7.6 on the Chrome Web Store as well as Firefox Add-Ons page. This release comes with a few bug fixes, performance improvements, and translation updates.

Konqi surfing the world wide web

Plasma Browser Integration bridges the gap between your browser and the Plasma desktop. It lets you share links, find browser tabs in KRunner, monitor download progress in the notification center, and control music and video playback anytime from within Plasma, or even from your phone using KDE Connect!

Plasma Browser Integration 1.7.5

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.7.5 on the Chrome Web Store as well as Firefox Add-Ons page. I hope you’re all safe and well in these odd times. As you can tell from the version number this is a little more than just a maintenance release. It comes with an assortment of important bug fixes, refinements, and translation updates.

Konqi surfing the world wide web

Plasma Browser Integration Itinerary Integration

(or: “How to do your project a disservice by calling it names”)

For a change, this blog post isn’t about notifications but don’t worry: there’s enough thrilling stuff to come in this area soon. Anyway, during Akademy 2019 in Milan I began adding KDE Itinerary capabilities to my pet project Plasma Browser Integration. The idea was to provide at a glance information about the subject of a website the user is currently viewing. It’s been a while since I worked on it but that of course just means that I’ve been busy doing other awesome things. ;)

Plasma Browser Integration 1.7

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.7 on the Chrome Web Store as well as Firefox Add-Ons page. This release brings a slew of important bug fixes, translation updates, and exciting new features.

Konqi surfing the world wide web

Taking Itinerary to the Next Level

(also: KItinerary + Browser Integration = <3)

KDE Itinerary is a project to get your travel itinerary presented to you in a unified, well structured and always up to date fashion, by extracting structured data from emails, boarding passes, and other sources. I successfully traveled the world with it!

Step 1: The crazy idea, is it viable?

Since I’m always looking for new innovative features to add to Plasma Browser Integration, having KItinerary not only look at your emails but also websites seemed like a natural evolution. During the Nürnberg Megasprint™ in June I pitched the idea to Volker Krause and he talked me through how all of this structured data and boarding pass magic worked. I then wrote a quick and dirty browser extension that scanned your open tabs for any such annotations, so we got a sense of how common they actually are in the open web.

Plasma Browser Integration 1.6

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plasma Browser Integration version 1.6 on the Chrome Web Store as well as Firefox Add-Ons page.

Konqi surfing the world wide web