Bug 210166

Summary:	Task Manager Sorting: "By Desktop" also sorts alphabetically
Product:	[Plasma] plasma4	Reporter:	Cybjit
Component:	widget-taskbar	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	hein, keplicz, sntmail
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Attachments:	Removes sorting alphabetical in Sorting: By Desktop

Description Cybjit 2009-10-11 11:16:38 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.3.2)
Compiler:          gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu7) 
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages

When Task Manager is set to Sorting: By Desktop the taskbar items are also sorted alphabetically.
This is very annoying when a window title changes, as it causes its position on the taskbar to move. (For example when switching tabs in firefox)

I also prefer the taskbar items to be shown in the order I started them in.

Comment 1 Cybjit 2009-10-11 11:25:49 UTC

Created attachment 37506 [details]
Removes sorting alphabetical in Sorting: By Desktop

If the previous behavior is desired, perhaps it should be renamed "By Desktop and Name".

Comment 2 Philipp 2010-06-10 00:28:47 UTC

Problem confirmed, please change status of this bug report.

I'm still only guessing, but this one here could be triggering https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=229614

Problem seen here on Gentoo/X86_64 with KDE 4.4.4, persisting all the time
since 4.3.5 using the default "Task Manager" widget.

My task manager settings:
- 'Force row settings' checked, 'Maximum rows': 1
- Grouping: 'Do not group'
- Sorting: 'By Desktop'
- Filters: all ('Only show current desktop/current screen/minimized') unchecked

Observed behaviour: Although my task manager settings completely correlate to the old ones on my KDE 3.5 installation, and should (at least to my understanding) forbid any sorting order besides the desktop arrangement, taskbar entries still get sorted alphabetically, which they *didn't* in the 3.5 version.

This is especially annoing with windows that tend to change their captions, like web browsers or mail clients.

I'll try the proposed patch and see if it works or even has effect on the aforementioned bug #229614.

Hint for Gentoo users: You have to apply this patch to "kde-base/plasma-workspace" best done using "ebuild unpack, patch, ebuild merge".

Comment 3 Philipp 2010-06-10 01:04:29 UTC

So, back again. Patch applied and it does the proposed thing, suppressing the alphabetical sorting. Very nice, thanks to Cybjit@gmail.com!

Unfortunately it does not affect bug #229614 since I can still observe its effects here.

And a correction for the Gentoo thing: you'll have to patch "kde-base/libtaskmanager" and not "kde-base/plasma-workspace". The corresponding source file gets extracted for both these packages, but "libtaskmanager" needs to be compiled and merged for the patch to take effect. Sorry for that ;-)

Status for me: resolved.

Comment 4 Piotr Keplicz 2010-08-23 12:38:13 UTC

Looks like in KDE 4.5.0 tasks are no longer sorted alphabetically when "sorting by desktop" is selected.

Comment 5 Maarten De Meyer 2012-11-13 03:51:01 UTC

*** Bug 225031 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6 Eike Hein 2016-06-16 23:31:21 UTC

The new backend in Plasma 5.7 does alphabetical sorting more sensibly by app name before window title.