Budgie 10.5.2 comes with a wide range of new features and bug fixes

Budgie Menu has received several improvements for this Budgie desktop version:

- The Budgie menu introduces additional checks for an application's DesktopAppInfo
- The Budgie menu will no longer display empty categories, which is common when installing applications via WINE.
- The Budgie menu will now sort the names of the categories in alphabetical order

Applications that use pkexecin - desktop information will now generate an asynchronous process, pkexec being the command and passing the rest of the command line content as arguments.

The Icon Tasklist application saw new features and behavioral improvements in Budgie 10.5.2.

The Sound applet has seen a redesign and now has a dedicated button for mute switching.

The system tray has been completely rewritten from scratch, supporting tray icons using the XEmbed Protocol. This new implementation solves many problems such as:

- Background icons do not refresh, resulting in cases where it may appear that several icons overlap.
- Tray icons are not constantly hidden when a panel is hidden (in "smart" mode).
- Tray icons flash when panel transparency is set to "Dynamic"
- Tray icons hide when you switch icon themes.

Budgie Desktop View has been updated to provide a clearer distinction between removing a panel and removing an applet from a panel.

Budgie 10.5.2 is the first version of Budgie in which the new desktop icons are implemented.

Budgie Desktop View 1.0 is not the final form. Drag & Drop support will be added in 1.1, keyboard navigation with the arrow keys will be implemented 1.2 and, once GTK4 introduces its first stable version, move Budgie Desktop View on it to take advantage of all the improvements that the GNOME team has made for the latest generation of the toolkit.