Summary
I’d like to sort the “Window List” widget (a default widget in Plasma 6) by App Name then by Window Title.
Why / Use Case
I have multiple monitors, each with a taskbar that only shows the windows on that monitor. It works very well for my typical work flows, but sometimes I juggle a lot of windows back and forth between monitors and it becomes difficult to track down particular windows.
My use case for “Window List” is finding windows in that situation. I want to see the full titles of my windows for each app across all of my monitors so I can easily find the one I need.
Implementation Levels
There are many ways to approach a sort feature. The first two options would satisfy my use case, while the others might serve other use cases. Examples ordered by complexity/implementation effort:
- Sort the list by App Name then Window Title (only reasonable if no-one relies on the current behavior)
- A “Sort List” checkbox in Settings that enables sort by App Name then Window Title. Choose a resonable defualt, enabled? Bonus points for a tool tip.
- A “Sort By:” dropdown in settings with various options like: Default, Unsorted, Window Title, App Name then Window Title, PID, Start Time (ascending), Start Time (descending). Set the default behavior. I think any of these are good defaults: Start Time (ascending), Window Title, and App Name then Window Title
- Three dropdowns in settings paired with their own ascending/descending toggles. Label them: Sort By, Then By, and Then By. Include all reasonable sort fields.
- Same as 4 but add a Group By dropdown with an ascending/descending toggle and maybe remove the 3rd sort by dropdown. Update the list UI to display group headers and sort within each header by the SortBy selection(s)
- etc…
For the truely ambitios ask users who change the default sort settings for permission to log the chosen sort order, and use the log to improve the defaults and maybe simplify the options.