KDE Quicklauncher: Essential user-friendly improvements to have in the future

Brainstorm
1

Thanks to another community user who’s been helping me set things up on Linux as I’m still figuring out how stuff normally goes within the Linuxverse, I’ve learned the yet bugged on point-release distros (considered fixed on rolling releases - one has to confirm if so, I’m using Fedora 44 which isn’t one…) you can make the Popup option work through doing some config work. Detailed steps on how to circumvent the “panel is empty and I can’t add anything to it” I’ve explained in the bug report page.

So far I’ve played around with the features of the widget itself and found it to be far quite basic, in contrast to the deep customization Plasma offers. Seems as if this exact widget was throw in and forever forgotten, given you have almost no control of how apps appear. Yes, can’t even drag & drop move them in the popup itself. Not even that, given Windows XP had it way back in 2002. Indeed it does seem the most underdeveloped official KDE widget of all.

Maybe some day, someone will seriously take over the development of it and actually do it justice.. Until then, here is a list of things which are pretty common across quick launchers and should be considered if a complete rewrite happens:

Main widget:

  • [Essential] An ability to manage apps through dedicated window, say for example how the KDE Menu Editor is: add single or multiple apps at once, remove and reorder their position either by interface buttons or drag and drop. Everything happens in one window. Saves the need to use contextual menu. Things are easier this way.
  • [Kinda essential] An Ability to nest apps in custom named categories - take for example how apps are structured by default in the Kickoff menu. Have different folders for different types of apps, instead of putting everything into one massive block.
  • [Optional] An ability to add separators

Popup feature only:

  • [Essential] Ability to set fixed size of the panel (width-height)
  • [Essential] Ability to control the size of the icons

All I can think off the top of my head for the moment.

2

I understand that it seems there’s not activity for it, but did you create feature requests in bugs.kde.org for this widget?

3

For you first point it try Appgrid. It can replace you start menu, and it can also be placed on the desktop.

For your second point what I’d like to see adopted by Plassma panels / docks is the fan out that you can add to other docks. One mouses over a icon on a dock and a grid view of app shortcuts pops up, or fans out.

on another note I wish they would finally finish fixing grid lines and having windows stay where you last placed them when an app is relaunched.

4

Nope. I thought its strictly for bug reports, not for feature requests as well. Haven’t used the bugtracker much. Will check it out.

5

Yep, you should use “Whishlist” as severity. This way KDE developers can receive your suggestions in a more reliable way

6

Already did and was suggested to go to the KDE Visual Design Group server. Seems throwing in suggestions to the devs isn’t as easy as it used to be 10-15 years ago. Its fine though. Will see where this goes (likely nowhere, provided very few people seem to use this exact widget).

Thanks for helping, Sam.

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