I like having menu bars in all my apps, like this:
But for every single app, I need to either enable it in the app by pressing Ctrl+M, or edit the rc file (dolphinrc, katerc, etc). Is there a single configuration option somewhere that can enable or disable showing menu bars in all apps?
Agreed, this would be very useful! I also think they should be visible by default. So many times I have installed KDE distros for customers, friends, etc and I get remarks on how the applications seem “simple” and “featureless”, but when I show how to display the menubars people go “Ok, nice!”.
you can use the global menu which puts it at the top of the screen like on a mac so it’s always there in every app.
some ppl like having the ability to decide if they want the menu on or not in any given situation.
there is no right answer for everyone.
I think there’s a fine balance… I really enjoyed Material window decoration, which gave the option to have the Menu IN the titlebar; either visible, or visible on mouseover - which was awesome…
Otherwise, I really like the way Firefox does this, not with Ctrl_M (which is something you need to learn) but with a touch of the Alt key… but for sure, I think having the menu in the titlebar was really cool, and having it appear on pressing an accelerator or fading in on mouseover was a real highlight.
Used to do that before switching to Wayland. Now non-KDE apps don’t work with global menu. It’s really annoying when some app uses a global menu, some app uses an in-app menu bar, some other app uses hamburger menus and yet some other app uses a weird custom menu/sidebar widget.
There is already the ability to decide that
If you want a global menu or in-titlebar menu, you have the option to enable application menus daemon in this kcm (enabled by default), then add the appropriate plasmoid or window button.
If you want to enable the menu bar in some apps only, you have the option to enable menus in those apps by pressing Ctrl+M and/or setting the appropriate option in rc files.
All of these have been mentioned in the original post just below the screenshot. There are already the options for these use cases. Where in my original post do I demand removing that ability to decide, or anything that triggered your statement?
The only option I want is an option in System Settings > General Behavior called “Show menu bar in apps”, where I can set the value to something like
This new option will address your concern of:
Having them in the titlebars is a nice and elegant solution. Would be nice if the option was available in Breeze, but I’ll give this material decoration a try. Thanks for the tip!
It is intended for plasma 6.5: Draft: kdecoration: Add support for locally integrated menus (!529) · Merge requests · Plasma / Plasma Breeze visual style · GitLab
It is Qt5-only. Don’t try this. If you try to build it, it fails. If you try to install a prebuilt version, KWin crashes so bad that you need to go to a tty and remove .cache & .config directories. This is coming from a KWin decoration packager, you have been warned.
Thanks for the info! I’ll wait for the Breeze implementation then - sounds great. Thanks for your work on this!
Sorry, development took a dive - I’m not sure if it’s even possible for Wayland anyway…
In-window menubars are already on by default.
If they’re not, it’s likely because you experimented with a global menu in the past, then later removed it, and all of this happened before there was a fix to the bug of in-window-menubars failing to re-enable themselves after you removed the global menu.
Today, if you try out a global menu and then remove it, in-window menubars should appear again after apps are restarted.
Clean install of Fedora KDE Spin in a VM shows in-window menubars in Kate, but not in Dolphin and Konsole. Where do I report this?
First some clarity - are you saying that you cannot show/hide in-window menubars?
With Kate and Dolphin, ctrl m should show/hide them.
With Konsole, then Ctrl Shift M should do the same.
For Fedora’s KDE Spin, it should be filed at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/
Include in your report:
Open Dolphin/Konsole.
Press Ctrl+M (Dolphin) or Ctrl+Shift+M (Konsole).
Kate targets document-editing workflows with frequently used menus… so I think it’s deliberate that they are not always consistent.
Dolphin and Konsole optimise screen space… so no action is needed unless the toggle fails.
No, lol
I’m the one who said this in the original post. What’s your point?
From my previous experience with the Matrix space of Fedora’s KDE Spin, they respect upstream and all upstream design choices should be reported to KDE. Here, one of the upstream KDE + Techpaladin developers said,
If it’s on by default, it should be shown in all apps without any manual intervention. Like, I’ll install Fedora KDE, open dolphin and get a menu bar below the title bar. This is not the case. The toolbar is shown without the menu bar. Is this the default then?
Only Kate shows the menu on a fresh install on Manjaro… the others need it toggled on. I think @ngraham made a confused statement that they’re ON by default, I think they’re available and toggle-able by default… then again, this might be the default for Neon, but not for another distribution…
Either way, I don’t think it rises to the status of ‘bug’.
I should have clarified my blanket statement!
In-window menubars are on by default at the system level, but individual apps can opt out and display a hamburger menu instead, and some do. Dolphin, Gwenview, and Ark spring to mind.
There’s currently no way to express a blanket systemwide preference for in-window menubars over hamburger menus on the toolbar, for apps that support both.
It should.
The new KDecoration API gives access to the D-Bus name and object path of the associated window.
The addition to the Breeze decoration is using this as well
