Bug 311991

*** Bug 314890 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Worth pointing out we already have System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Icons -> Panel it could follow.

*** Bug 315130 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 315792 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Eike's solution should work, but unfortunately those settings do absolutely nothing as far as I could tell (hopefully another bug report exists for this). In order to revert previous behavior, go to:

System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Icons -> Advanced -> All Icons

Changed the disabled icon to "No Effect".

I agree on the requesters statement. This new "feature" makes the taskbar nearly completely unusable for me and I gave it a chance for a few weeks. Even as I like the idea, the color of the icons just helps in huge screens to identify the application way faster. Especially if someone is working with lots of minimized windows, he is forced to frequently go throught the list.

I actually tried the settings provided by #5, but didn't disable it completely. Instead i deactivated the half-transparancy and set it manually to a value arround 50%. That way the icons of minimized windows are a little bit dimmed and grayed out, but still colorfull enough to idenfify them fastly. Maybe something like this might make a better default option and being a compromis. Tested it now with three people and all said, that its way better that way now.

Created attachment 78760 [details]
Patch to disable taskbar dimming

I've created a patch to make this "feature" configurable. Hopefully I didn't screw up creating and/or attaching it too badly.

*** Bug 315375 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Another config option isn't the way to go (it doesn't apply on the new tasks widget anyway). But I agree with phobeus, a wee bit more color by default wouldn't be too bad.

> we already have System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Icons -> Panel it could follow.

I just debugged this issue. PlasmaCore.IconItem requests the icon group "Desktop" instead of "Panel", regardless of where the icon is shown.

To workaround this issue, users can change the Disabled appearance for Desktop icons, instead of Panel icons. Changing All Icons (see comment #5) is not required. As far as I know, no icons on the Desktop use the Disabled state, so it should only affect the task bar.

See also this thread where this was discussed: http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2013-May/025243.html

Does the patch also disable or reduce the dimming of the text next to the task bar icon? Or is there a setting to disable text dimming?

*HIGHLY UNRECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - CAN LEAD TO BROKEN SYSTEM*

How to remove the dimming of minimized text behaviour:

Only for this version:
KDE version 4.11.5
OS: openSUSE 13.1

Library file: /usr/lib64/kde4/plasma_applet_tasks.so
Original md5: dd4529cd1e21905c47fd88c126b84105
md5 after NOPing: c56e2ce64544cf5d67f8956ce36ac9ba

Bytes to NOP (inclusive): 0x1603E to 0x16054

Procedure: Always back up the file!!
NOP with 90 (overwrite) in favorite hex editor
Make sure md5sums match before and after
Replace file with NOPed file. Enjoy

This will NOP out the color.setAlphaF(0.5); which is what
makes text harder to read for minimized windows.
NOPing this out will make it so that minimized
windows never have their text more faded out.

For icons you can use the workaround systemsettings | Application Appearance | Icons



*HIGHLY UNRECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - CAN LEAD TO BROKEN SYSTEM*

Here's a simpler way to achieve the same: Look for org.kde.plasma.tasks/contents/ui/Task.qml on your system, open it with a text editor and change line 219 ("enabled: !model.Minimized") into "enabled: true", or remove it altogether.

@Eike: Thanks, it works. To disable dimming of TextLabel and Icon I did the following:

$ kdesu kwrite /usr/share/kde4/apps/plasma/packages/org.kde.plasma.tasks/contents/ui/Task.qml

1. Find PlasmaCore.IconItem {
and change this:
enabled: !(model.Minimized && !tasks.showOnlyMinimized)
into this:
/* enabled: !(model.Minimized && !tasks.showOnlyMinimized) */

2. Find Tasks.TextLabel {
and change this:
enabled: !model.Minimized
into this:
/*enabled: !model.Minimized */ 

3. Save the file. Logout and relogin to apply the changed setting. 

Do you think it is possible to make this change also without root password? What about Veeti's patch?

> Do you think it is possible to make this change also without root password?

It might work to copy the plasmoid package into an installation prefix contained within a user's home dir that has higher precedence, by setting KDEDIRS inside the user session accordingly.

> What about Veeti's patch?

The patch isn't implemented very well (config state should be set on the QML scene as a prop, and evaluated in the QML side, consistent with how the rest of the config works), but aside from this - the real fix is to put the appearance under theme control rather than add more checkboxes for detail behaviors.

> copy the plasmoid package into an installation prefix

I'll try that.

> put the appearance under theme control rather than add more checkboxes for detail behaviors

Would that imply that "minimize appearance for the taskbar" would become configurable by the ("global") theme settings via a KDE control module or only by the selected theme itself which is controlled by the theme's author?

> by the selected theme itself which is controlled by the theme's author

^ This.

>> by the selected theme itself which is controlled by the theme's author

> ^ This.

Ok. I hope it will not be declined to add an option for this specific detail behaviour to the Taskbar applet since the dimming affects the usability negatively for some people. The theme author of the-really-great-looking theme maybe did not think about that this might be an issue at all (because it is only one detail).

Here is a temporary solution to quickly apply the patch mentioned in comment https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311991#c16 after a KDE upgrade when Task.qml gets restored:

1. Download Task.diff [1]
2. Download apply.sh [2] to the same directory
3. Goto this directory and run $ ./apply.sh

To undo the changes download restore.sh [3] to the same directory and run it.

[1] Task.diff http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=scratch%2Fgregormi%2Fcodestruct-patches.git&a=blob&f=usr_share_kde4_apps_plasma_packages_org.kde.plasma.tasks_contents_ui%2FTask.diff&o=plain
[2] apply.sh http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=scratch%2Fgregormi%2Fcodestruct-patches.git&a=blob&f=usr_share_kde4_apps_plasma_packages_org.kde.plasma.tasks_contents_ui%2Fapply.sh&o=plain
[3] restore.sh http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=scratch%2Fgregormi%2Fcodestruct-patches.git&a=blob&f=usr_share_kde4_apps_plasma_packages_org.kde.plasma.tasks_contents_ui%2Frestore.sh&o=plain

see also https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=121943&p=324950 for another novice user who has issues with the dimming.

Copying to plasmashell on request

*** Bug 344777 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

We now have some approaches of how a user with some technical insight can disable the graying-out behavour.

Can I derive that there is consent to change the default setting of the task manager not to dim the icons if the window is minimized? Then, one could work on a proper techncial solution. Or should the topic be disussed in more detail?

I agree: Please please don't fade out the minimized windows.  I minimize windows because they're cluttering up my screen space and I want to get rid of them temporarily only, and be able to recover them easily without hunting among hard-to-read tasks.

This was an issue in KDE 4 and it's still an issue in KDE 5.3 with Breeze theme.

@Gregor - given the bug is confirmed by the maintainer, I'd say go ahead and make a patch and put it up for review at http://git.reviewboard.kde.org

https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/124675/

The reasoning for greying them out a bit is so that you can easily spot which is minimized and which is not per the standards of traditionalistic/conservative desktop layouts. 

One idea would be as #6 suggests and decrease the effect to make colors more visible even on larger screens. Yet still have the feature present as it serves a relevant purpose. 
Removing it, or adding a frivolous setting to define it somehow beyond what is already possible seems unnecessary. 

There are very few clean alternatives to greying out, maybe adding some small icon showing that its lowered but that would just make the panel even more cluttered.

What about keeping the icon colored and the label as-is? That way the icon can still be spotted easily but minimized windows identified by their faint label?

@Kai: I personally have trouble to easily read the faded text. 

@Jens: I still wonder why one would need to see at one glance if a window is in the minimized state. I claim that for a regular user there is no difference between a minimized window and a window which is fully covered by other windows. And the second case is not reflected in the taskbar which could be interpreted as inconsistent. Or am I missing something?

As Gregor, I fail to see why one would need to know a window is minimized vs out of focus. To activate the window, you would still have to click on the icon.

What would it matter if the window is minimized or hidden?  Either way, if I'm not using a window, I look to the taskbar to easily find it.  Faded text and colours makes this difficult if I know I want (for example) the orange Firefox icon and I don't see it, or whatever the application may be.

To me, the main problem with how it is now is that it is an accessibility issue. People who are visually impaired will have a more difficult time navigating their computer. I think that that should be a primary concern above trying to distinguish which windows are maximized or just out of sight, etc. If we can do that as well, great. If not, I think for the benefit of those with visual impairments the text and icons should be left with full opacity and color saturation and another method should be used to distinguish between minimized windows, such as changing the border/background color (if it's even necessary).

Well here I have to sort of go against the grain a tad - for me finding different windows is first off all a "Present windows" thing, second its about just finding where an individual window is - meaning I tend to look for it, then look at the taskbar to see if it's minimized.

That said though - if eyesight and reading greyed out text is an issue, we might as well look it over again anyway AND if the greyed out color makes it tricky to see it to enough people we probably should fix it somehow.

It shouldn't be TOO tricky to solve all three problems (text to light, icon to grey and the ability to see what state a window is in) and still keep it clutter free. One idea would be to show it with the line underneath instead? 
The Blue line underneath means the window is in focus, grey line means it's not - and what if no line (transparent or something similar) means it's minimized? That would make the text easy to read, icons easy to spot AND would show what window is and isn't minimized without breaking conformity to the style.

> The Blue line underneath means the window is in focus, grey line means it's not - and what if no line (transparent or something similar) means it's minimized?

Please note, that there also might be eyesight problems: in case that the blue and the grey line are too similar in brightness and the line width too small. In my experience, it a thin light blue  (like the default in "breeze") line is very similar to a thin gray line. Instead, there could be some difference in shape, e.g. some kind of glow effect or bold text or pressed button effect for the active window. Or another color instead of light blue, e.g. orange, which contrasts better to a gray.

Considering how long this issue is open until now, and that some people - including me - consider this an accessibility issue, what about:
1. Disable the minimized effect right now to get the issue fixed.
2. Meanwhile think about better ways to show minimized windows without impairing accessibility
or make it an advanced user configurable setting which is off by default.

> Considering how long this issue is open until now, and that some people -
> including me - consider this an accessibility issue, what about:
> 1. Disable the minimized effect right now to get the issue fixed.
> 2. Meanwhile think about better ways to show minimized windows without
> impairing accessibility
> or make it an advanced user configurable setting which is off by default.

Sounds good to me. This bug is very frustrating.

> Sounds good to me. This bug is very frustrating.

The patch is ready: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311991#c28 We are waiting for a decision by the designers. Please feedback.

>Worth pointing out we already have System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Icons -> Panel it could follow.

FYI, we currently follow whatever "Desktop" is set to. (hardcoded to that in PlasmaFramework IconItem). 

*IF* we don't want to change the default, we could add a property in IconItem so that we can choose which icon effects to apply.

+1 for this change. The dimming makes it difficult to identify tasks.

Still an issue with Plasma 5.4.2, I sent a new ping to https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/124675/

Git commit 0b50e08a38865fac7912aa4c99c4472586b6f05c by Gregor Mi.
Committed on 18/11/2015 at 22:48.
Pushed by gregormi into branch 'master'.

Do not dim taskbutton when a window is minimized

REVIEW: 124675

M  +2    -2    applets/taskmanager/package/contents/ui/Task.qml

http://commits.kde.org/plasma-desktop/0b50e08a38865fac7912aa4c99c4472586b6f05c

*** Bug 355816 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

@Elike, thx you save my day this is simple and it works

Has a separate bug been spawned to display whether a window is minimised or not? As with the 5.5.0 update I have not lost that information.

I did not see any.

Actually, my mistake - sorry;  I see now, after taking another look, the information on whether a window is minimised or not has not been lost - there is a thin gray border surrounding non-minimised windows.

I installed a fresh openSUSE 42.1 with Plasma 5.4.3 and I wonder why the task buttons are again dimmed when minimized. I also tried with a new user.

Sorry for the spam, I mixed up the version numbers.