Plasma Desktop widget/launcher - How To Remove

Help
1

Hi!

I’ve installed KDE/Plasma on Debian 13.

On the desktop, right side there is an application launcher.

It’s the one which is animated when you mouse-over on it making it look like it’s zooming/rotating the icons in the launcher. (It contains a “config” icon on the top and 7 more icons like firefox, e-mail, image-viewer, etc, none of which I use :slight_smile:

I need to remove this from the desktop.

I tried left/center/right click, long/short click, with every keyboard modifier (ctrl/alt/“windows”) Ctrl-L, everything but not seeing any way to customize or remove it. I checked all the system config menus too but still no dice.

My apologies in advance for such a n00b question that has probably been asked before.

Really appreciate your help

Thanks!

2

I’m AFK, so typing on phone from memory.

Right-click on panel, edit mode for panel, hover (or right click?) over offending widget, click on the remove button.

3

that one is on the desktop itself, so panel edit mode wont touch it.

right click empty desktop, pick Enter Edit Mode (or Unlock Widgets on older plasma).
hover the launcher until the handle shows, then hit the remove / X.

if the handle never shows, press Meta+D once to clear focus, then right click the widget chrome and pick Remove this widget.

say which plasma version if it still sticks.

4

Thanks guys.

Version is 6.3.6 Debian trixie stable,now plasma-desktop 4:6.3.6-1

I was able to use the method you describe to add and remove other widgets successfully.

I see how the edge border is highlighted in Edit mode and a widget may be removed.

However this “side bar” launcher widget still won’t budge. yikes

What’s the name of that widget? Is there a text file/script I can edit which may delete it?

Thanks again

5

right click anywhere on the desktop and choose Edit mode from the menu

that puts you into the desktop editor where you can add/remove panels and widgets or resize them to your liking.

if none of that is working, then there is something borked with your install or most likely with your user space.

you can always create a new user to see if all the defaults work as expected, this would rule out a problem with your system and narrow your focus on your user files.

6

Screenshot_20260923_082946
Screenshot_20260923_082946203×666 28.1 KB
What is the name of this widget/plasmoid?

Thanks guys.

It must be a bug or misconfiguration in the platform/distro as I have installed Plasma on half-a-dozen systems and all users have the same problem.

I have been navigating the plasma configuration files in /usr/share/plasma and ~/.config/plasma* and learning some plasma commands - believe I can remove it manually..

Anyone know the name of this “icon launcher bar panel thing” in the picture? :slight_smile:

7

that looks like a task manager with some non-standard icon theme applied.

you should be able to pin/unpin items from it using the context menu

if you right click and enter into edit mode, then hover over it, the popup menu should tell you what it is.

8

Found it!

That menu thing is called “wbar”

It is a standalone menu bar app which has nothing to do with KDE/Plasma :slight_smile:

I was able to remove it:

apt remove wbar

Thanks everyone who jumped in to help.

FYI I found it by killing processes one-by-one, process of elimination until that thing disappeared from the desktop.