So I was coming up with this idea to clean up Kickoff and make it compact, and more modern.
So I looked in Get New.. and found “Kickoff Menu Concept”, and then made it customized to make up well; “Kickoff “Convergence” Redesign”
I will get a 1920x1080 screenshot of it soon, but here are the concepts for the menu.
This was taken on my main system with my name replaced to the KDE mascot’s name for “convergence with real mockups”
It’s better then regular as “3 seconds with Convergence opening Welcome Center and 3 seconds with Stock Plasma 6 opening the same app!”
I used AI to benchmark the timing and "Concept Update: Empirical Benchmarking & Accessibility Verification
To move this “Convergence” cleanup concept past a simple aesthetic mockup, I performed a battery of empirical tests comparing the customized layout (built on top of the Kickoff Menu Concept plugin framework) against the stock KDE Plasma 6 Kickoff launcher.
Here are the hard numbers and usability results from real-world testing scenarios:
Performance & Usability Metrics
Accessibility & Focus Tracking
Meta and cycling focus using Tab / Arrow Keys successfully shifts focus logically between the category bar, application workspace, and session targets without trapping keyboard input.
Conclusion / Next StepsThe data demonstrates that a touch-friendly, padded grid-convergence layout does not slow down desktop workflow. Instead, it actively reduces physical target-acquisition fatigue and accelerates cognitive app discovery.
I would love to get the VDG’s thoughts on implementing a toggle for this grid layout style into the default Kickoff menu settings panel!"
Don’t not like me for using AI, it was for timing it.
What’s to hate?
The ‘Fitts Law’ part made me grin - a human, moving a mouse to click a large grid icon vs a thin text row, doesn’t take five to eight seconds at all… the difference might be a few milliseconds at best… but really, who’s interested in flicking around the menu?
Now you do a ‘cold path hunt’… interesting, with a blank memory??? woah.
How about 'hit menu and type ‘kf’ and see it at the top of the list?
Now do a scientific test at how long it takes you, with both hands on the keyboard and your fingers on the home keys (assuming you know what that is) to press kf⏎ Enter
Not having a clue where it’s located in the menu, it takes me less than a second to open the menu and get the application window open and focused ready to go.
ben2talk NAILED it perfectly. By the way we rightfully hate on AI. Read the news. AI creating code. Humanes having to fix that code taking longer them if the human had done it themselves. AI data centers stealing MILLIONS of gallons of fresh water from area that can’t afford to have it taken. AI data centers driving up the cost of power. A AI escaping to finish a task cause it couldn’t perform the given task in its confinement (deleting all data on a remote system), where as a normal program would have given up, locked up the program, or simple crash the test environment.
I wouldn’t rightfully hate on AI, though your comments about the news for the Big AI installations is certainly true… I do think it is a plague that’s driving up hardware costs like crazy with no end in sight. I’d dearly love to invest in doubling up my RAM so that I could run a good size AI model myself (though then without a GPU - also priced out of my range - it wouldn’t be optimal). For many basic tasks, AI is really quite spectacular.
Quite a few people are using it more economically, locally, and learning to use it wisely - but that’s not the case above. Indeed, it’s hard to fathom the actual motivation - unless someone’s just bored and just needs to find something to do, anything, whatever…
Even ignoring the backend resources wasted there, the big issue with the OP is that AI’s aim is primarily to generate ‘plausible sounding text’. Just as they suggested they ‘only’ used AI to ‘time the experiment’.
As such, if we hadn’t spotted it already, we might waste our time seriously reading and trying to figure out what it meant.
And that resource, for me personally, is even more valuable.
well, everyone needs a hobby, i guess.
there are a million kickoff menus, use the one that you like the best.
Unless I’m missing something that just looks like normal Kickoff
I was trying to make Kickoff more cleaned up, less buttons, and faster to open apps.
To make it better. Like you have to wait 10 seconds after waiting 8 seconds to open an app with accessibility issues
so ummm… 5 seconds typing kf with Convergence, and 7 with stock kickoff
My goal was to make Kickoff a more, cleaned up app menu with faster times to open apps. That – failed. So ummmmmmmmmmmm yeah.
Confused. The Kickoff Menu already opens apps nearly immediately. And aside from a larger user image in your screenshot, the standard Kickoff Menu is fine as is. At least IMHO.
How can an application have accessibility issues?
Or are you suggesting catering for a USER with a specific accessibility issue?
I’ve experienced in the past a user who became angry because their ‘issue’ was deemed irrelevant… and only after severe criticism they then actually stated that they had only one usable hand with only three good fingers.
If you personally have accessibility issues, then this should be stated clearly, not hidden behind a wall of AI slop.
You are aware, I hope, that you can pin as few as ONE icon to the Favourites panel.
How many fewer icons can you want?
No it’s not when the work has to be rechecked by humans and most of the time it’s full of errors that have to be fixed by humans.
Personally I think the OP’s time would have and would be better spent figuring out what on their system is causing the slowdown instead of blaming an app that works just fine as is.
Right, so any tool that requires checking or has any errors is worthless.
Also you’re stating as fact that AI is ONLY used for generative or open-ended tasks, right? and the volume of work doesn’t matter?
As I said, you have a point for some instances of ‘Generative AI’ - writing essays and such. But your Generalisation is just plain wrong.
The best spam filters are AI classification/detection.
Results for medical imaging are absolutely stunning, and bring minimal errors and simple outputs (not long text outputs).
There’s no proofreading.
Then you can judge that even if 20% of AI generated code needs fixing, doing 80% of the grunt work can save massive human hours.
Humans make lots of those errors too - so AI can speed up the drafting phase, give you ideas how to go about things.
Finally - tell me how you’d go about protien folding, weather prediction, or analysing petabytes of telescope data?
Finally, how about the new Grammar tools? I never needed to recheck those.
So you’re dogmatic in sticking to an offensively bigoted ANTI-AI stance - unreasoning predjudice against a whole category of users (including many in this forum I’d guess).
Maybe you simply don’t understand that not all AI are generative chatbots… but I did state that we’re talking about limited or restricted uses of AI. Overall you’re just refusing to acknowledge basic facts - like a flat earther on concorde.
Sorry but you points are truly pointless and you know it. As long as AI is causing damage and it is I will be against it like most people, So stop with you bs. This kind of CRAP is exactly why I blocked you in the first place.
I run a local AI on my system sometimes, how is that causing damage?
Please, block me again because your arguments are ridiculous.
