Bug 338534

Summary:	Dashboard should always be above all windows, even if windows are checked "always on top"
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	kdeuser56
Component:	general	Assignee:	Sebastian Kügler <sebas>
Status:	RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Severity:	normal	CC:	aleixpol, bhush94, gaantonio, kde, kdeuser56, notmart, simonandric5, thomas.pfeiffer
Priority:	NOR	Flags:	aleixpol: Usability+
Version:	5.2.90
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description kdeuser56 2014-08-24 22:30:25 UTC

The dashboard is meant to present plasma widgets etc. and is therefore supposed to stack the plasma shell layer above all windows etc. This is initially the case (if no windows is marked "keep above others"), but as soon as you alt-tab (or click an opened application in the task manager) the window get on top of the plasma shell layer.

This is demonstrated in here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-ihXi2hkCPfeG5zYnVYNFJqT00/edit?usp=sharing

I tried to workaround that issue by forcing the dashboard "window/layer" always "above", but that does not seem to work using kwin window rules (forcing "keep above" does not prevent the application from being covered by another "keep above" application).

Expected Behavior:

The dashboard should always be on top, even on top of windows that are marked "keep above others". If one clicks an application in the task manager, the application should stay below the dashboard (the focused application can still be on top of the other windows, but just below the dashboard).
Alt-tabbing should be prevented while the dashboard is active as it does not make a lot of sense to me, especially not if dashboard is always forced on top.

However reading Marco Martin's opinion in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=332691 lets me think there are different opinions on what the dashboard is supposed to do.
Maybe we can have two options to select in the new "Behavior" KCM: Treat dashboard as window and one options that does what I request in this bug report

Comment 1 Thomas Pfeiffer 2014-11-24 21:03:00 UTC

I agree. The dashboard is a temporary mode used to show Plasmoids which would otherwise be covered by windows. I see no use in keeping windows above the dashboard: When a user activates the dashboard, they want to interact with widgets, not windows.

Comment 2 kdeuser56 2014-11-25 22:13:13 UTC

No question, but the problem is actually a technical one. I tried solving it with kwin window scripts, but that seemed impossible, because I wasn't able to find a way to set "always on top" in an absolute manner (meaning above *all* other windows, no matter if they are marked on top too).
You can create a rule for the dashboard to always stay on top. That would reproduce the problem of plasma 4 dashboard though: the panel is non interactive, which is a drawback imho.
So to solve this, the dashboard needs to be marked on top and the panel on top of the dashboard. However only handling the panel case is not enough, e.g. krunner could be invoked too from dashboard, and that would appear inaccessible hidden under the dashboard layer.

Plasma 5 introduced a lot of regressions regarding proper window management (e.g. on top windows can cover the logout dialog), but at the moment I am not in the mood to run after those, especially since most devs wont be interested in such minor stuff and I myself currently suspended learning to code.

Comment 3 Martin Flöser 2016-08-29 11:03:24 UTC

Plasma doesn't have a dashboard any more, thus we cannot fix this bug any more.