KDE Plasma 6 to Ship with Floating Panel by Default

[Beerislife]

Very interesting! I've been using the floating Panel and have slowly got to like it! I always set files and folders to open on double-click too.

I see they are planning to go Wayland! I hope X11 will be a choice. I don't think X-Plane will be happy with Wayland...

https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-6-t...-opening-files

[Montmorency]

I'd much prefer if they'd give more options to customize panel/menu, like Xfce does.

[claydoh]

I'd much prefer if they'd give more options to customize panel/menu, like Xfce does.

Plasma has a much more themeable/customizable panel(s) than xfce's. The floating part is just one that already exists, being made the default.
I will admit that Plasma's transparency relies too much on the specific Plasma Style used, though.

Plasma 6 is still early days, and mostly deciding on where things go at this stage.


On the desktop side, they will also go with double-click as the default , seemingly catering to those pesky complaining Windows users.

[oshunluvr]

On the desktop side, they will also go with double-click as the default , seemingly catering to those pesky complaining Windows users.

Right? Good thing we can change it back...

[claydoh]

Right? Good thing we can change it back...

But so can they

Discoverability, seeing different ways of doing things, and all that jazz.




fwiw I have hated double-clicking since my first computer (win95).

[Montmorency]

Plasma has a much more themeable/customizable panel(s) than xfce's.

Under Xfce you can configure the panel independently of the menu and the theme, including transparency.
So you can have a dark panel with transparency and a light menu without transparency, and all is done with a few clicks.

[claydoh]

Under Xfce you can configure the panel independently of the menu and the theme, including transparency.
So you can have a dark panel with transparency and a light menu without transparency, and all is done with a few clicks.

But that does not make Xfce's panel more configurable overall. Just in this one spot. The sheer number of widgets alone outdoes Xfce.


For comparison:
I can't move an icon on the desktop to be in the same 'plane' or row as a partial-width panel. I can't center-align panel items without effing around with at least two separators and their settings, and I can't automatically align a panel, either. I have to hope a centered partial-width panel is actually centered, as far as I can tell.

But it is mostly just different goals and design parameters, tbh.

[Montmorency]

Yes, it's more configurable overall, but there are some irritating limitations.

[Schwarzer Kater]

1. I think the floating panels urgently need proper shadows.
The missing shadows have irritated me every time when a window of similar color was overlapped by a floating panel…

2. The second (but more important) thing I really miss is proper auto-hiding of the panels - like many other major DE provide: Xfce, Cinnamon, LXQt - even GNOME with the Dash to Dock extension…

Because of those two things I finally moved back to Latte Dock in Plasma 5.27.x - which has since worked flawlessly, at least with the Latte Dock version in openSUSE TW KDE.

But I am curious what will have happened to the Plasma panels in the meantime when Kubuntu 24.04 LTS is released!

[…]
On the desktop side, they will also go with double-click as the default , seemingly catering to those pesky complaining Windows users.

I think that this is a good thing if you want to win over users from other DEs.
It's not only Windows users who might have complained - it's macOS users, Xfce users, Cinnamon users, GNOME users, LXQt users, [insert DE] users as well!
Every (or nearly every) other DE than KDE Plasma has double-click as the default.

Personally I don't mind as long as the option to switch back and forth remains.
The single-click workflow can be very effective for people who like to work this way (I still prefer the double-click since my first - very limited - mouse on an 8-Bit computer in the mid-1980s ).

[claydoh]

I think that this is a good thing if you want to win over users from other DEs.
It's not only Windows users who might have complained - it's macOS users, Xfce users, Cinnamon users, GNOME users, LXQt users, [insert DE] users as well!
Every (or nearly every) other DE than KDE Plasma has double-click as the default.

So ?

Having something different is not a bad thing, and this isn't a 'poor' option, just a 'different' one.

Basically, I get annoyed by people being annoyed by this

[Schwarzer Kater]

Oh, I did not call it bad per se (or "poor" at all!), but (probably) bad for the purpose of winning people over from elsewhere (of course I don't know if there even have been "complaints" ).
And many of the major "KDE Plasma distributions" have set double-click as the default already anyways, I think, Kubuntu being one of them .

As said: Personally I don't care as long as I can change it.

[claydoh]

My half-a***d point is that making everything act like something else, or whatever is considered the norm, is not necessarily what converts people.
leave some things for the user to change, to explore the settings and options, at least a little.
The new Welcome Wizard would be a good place to add something, similar to System Setting's home page "Quick Settings" thing, as a starting point.


And changing defaults actually may annoy more people than new users having to change a setting. Especially if that setting isn't physically set in config files. Currently, NOT having a setting in the user's kdeglobals defaults to single-click, which is Plasma's default (and many distros stick to). Unless they change this behavior (and they probably will), a new default setting will change *everyone* who uses single-click to double-click, without warning. There is no global kdeglobals config, unless a distro creates one to change the defaults.

There are a number of things like this in places, and it is known, so it probably will be addressed, as well as the whiny single-click fans making sure to whine about it


aaaaand I have run out of steam on the topic, my small towel has been thrown.

[jlittle]

fwiw I have hated double-clicking since my first computer (win95).

So, how do you select a file, not and not open it?

[oshunluvr]

So, how do you select a file, not and not open it?

In Dolphin:

1. Hovering over the filename then clicking on the plus sign that appears.
2. Dragging the mouse cursor over the file icon.
3. Click and hold the filename, then move the mouse cursor a bit.

[claydoh]

I am going to guess that I usually know what I want to do before I touch a file or directory, so I am having a hard time playing around to see when I need to select just one file.
I right-click on it, to perform actions. Shift-click/ctrl-click, if I am feeling 1337. Or left-click-drag to move it. There is the "+" marker on the top left corner of files, to single-click select. This is probably mainly how I do it.
Left-click-drag to select multiple items, and use that "+" button to de-select.