Here is my quick and dirty mock up how this could be translated to already available launcher menu
Before
After
the existing app menu work pretty well for my needs…
it’s uncluttered, free of visual redundancies, very configurable, and has a favorites tray for things i don’t necessarily want to pin to the taskbar, but still want easy access to (nice touch).
and best of all, everything is in a predictable place, right where i left it.
menus that keep moving things around and changing themselves based on whatever random criteria are an anathema to good UX… i do not need this in my life, and is one of the reasons i left windows behind and abhor the over googlefucation of every UI i come across.
if there were an argument to be made for more prominently displaying recent/often things, it would be the files, rather than the apps.
i already know how to find the apps i want to use… but sometimes finding the file i was working on could use a little more help, and having quicker access to that would at least be a change i could get behind.
In that case a fork/mod would be enough. We already have 3 types of START menu in KDE so an extra one which works like in windows 7 would not hurt anybody.
I personally do not care about those categories (Development / Education and so on).
It is weird that we do not have an option to show all apps in this type of start menu.
I support this!
Such a menu would drive me nuts. In the case of a kicker type menu, I find it easier and better to just make a custom layout.
…with rightclick to look for recent stuff:
On a sidenote. Back in 5-ish Cupnoodle’s menu had an option to launch with recent things. Maybe there’s something alike for 6-ish. Still rightclicking recent apps though.
We have most of that already.
We have a lot more than 3 available.
You can find more menus here.
Plasma 6
Plasma 5
But it does not work like in windows 7 start menu. Current implementation is not optimal. Adds unnecessary extra clicks. Windows Vista/7 almost 20 years ago did it much better. No wonder that projects like StartIsBack or OpenShell are so extremely popular among windows 10/11 users.
Couldn’t care less 'bout windows this&that users. I simply fail to see how that windowz menu is superior to any existing plasma menu. Let’s say I have an image file which has been modified with, say, gwenview. Gwenview will show in the most recent apps. But I don’t WANT to see that file in gwenview. I want to see it in a far lesser used app. What good are those arrow clicked recent files in gwenview to me? What if I need to find that lesser used app? Unless there’s a rightclick option on that recent I’ll have to click the “all programs” button first since there are no favorites. So clickedieclickedieclick. Where are your unecessary clicks now? What if I simply want to open an app I haven’t used in a while? Click the all applications first and scroll through an alphabetical list? There’s a reason why the Gates groupies ditched that menu in favor for something that has both favs and recent. But hey, if you like it, you like it. I don’t. Makes no sense to me.
This does:
Actually the Windows 7 applications menu was one of the best done. That said there is one that at least worked with Plasma 5 that is almost exactly the same but I have had a hard time finding it again to see if it will play nice with Plasma 6.
I don’t have to click for a menu to pop out. It’s a setting. I just click the menu button then go up and the menus open, no need to click to open a sub menu.
I’m pretty sure Windows stoled the idea from the Linux Homerun Kicker Menu.
We had KDEconnect before they had phone link. There’s been many “there they go again” articles about features MS took from Linux.
We had overview first too.
We need something like this ASAP.
Plain and simple. No idea why would be against that layout…
No. Have you ever used windows 7 start menu for once? My prototype is self explanatory.
Besides where is ALL APPLICATIONs section?
all my applications are right there on the first menu, with the search bar, and if i want recent applications, i just hover over the top line and there they are.
what you are suggesting is simply swap the roles of Recent Applications with All Applications and keep it always open, instead of needing to hover.
while that might be a option that could be added to the existing menu, it’s not all that different that what we already have in terms of use case.
seems more like a solution in search of a problem to me.
