For context, this is the new Mosaic Tiling method that GNOME is experimenting on. i think it is decent although i highly doubt that the KDE team would adopt this but who knows? They did adopt the GNOME Activities overview after all! But if there is anyone in the community that can come up with at least a Kwin script, that would be cool! The following links are for reference:
I would really like to see a similar feature in KDE Plasma. It reminds me of the stage manager from macOS.
I think that that kind of feature where the windows you don’t use are miniaturized instead of completely hidden is really underrated.
I doubt whether mini-window is more recognizable than icon-and-text.
Some browsers (Vivaldi) tried replacing the tab bar with website thumbnails. Not getting popular, obviously. Modern websites tend to have very similar layouts, so it’s hard to tell them apart when zoomed out. More so for apps.
It’s already very evident in the demo. Surely you can tell Nautilus from a glance. But what differentiates the other two, besides icons? Mini-window serves only as noise to make the icon harder to recognize.
I used to be an all-Apple guy. I miss Stage Manager in MacOS (last I had it was ca. 2019). It frustrates me to no end that I can’t make multiple desktops in Kubuntu 26.04 and have a different wallpaper as a visual key as to which I’m working in. I think an AI suggested using Tasks to do that in Kubuntu, but my first foray into that ended up in frustration.
I don’t think we are talking about the same thing. Stage Manager is something that was introduced in 2023. I think you’re talking about virtual deskto/workspaces.
Here what I am talking about :
Instead of being minimized or getting stacked on the background, the windows are just put on the left. So they take minimum space while being visible in some ways.
I’d like to see a similar behavior on KDE Plasma. Not necessarily like macOS or GNOME, but something within the same philosophy.
Not sure I see the point.
This seems like an elaborate workaround for not having an always-visible window/app switcher. The window with focus is much smaller than it would be if it were simply maximized, wasting screen space. And once you open more than a few windows, it’s going to break down completely unless the unfocused windows become super duper tiny. And if that’s acceptable… then I think a traditional window/app switcher will do the job better.
If I have to give a name it would be “Always-visible windows thumnailer”.
It would work like this :
This could be great for people having lots of openend windows and having a hard time using the task manager or virtual desktop or want to combine theses to improve their workflow.
Implementation wise I think it can take the form of a plasma widget that can be placed anywhere by the user but this is up to debate.
I hope that adress your concerns.
Plasma has a similar visual via the kwin plugin “Thumbnail aside”. It’s not showing minimized windows, but minor modification should do.
