Bug 422704

Summary: Allow grouped instances to be optionally sorted manually or alphabetically instead of by order of opening
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Me <linuxguy123>
Component: Task Manager and Icons-Only Task Manager widgetsAssignee: Eike Hein <hein>
Status: CONFIRMED ---    
Severity: wishlist CC: david.cortes.rivera, nate, plasma-bugs, qydwhotmail
Priority: NOR    
Version: 5.22.2   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: unspecified   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Me 2020-06-09 23:23:26 UTC 
SUMMARY

Add Sort by... and search to grouped instances.  Allow a group of task instances (like Firefox instances) to be sorted alphabetically, by last used, my most used, etc. and to search for instances based on window title names. 

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. Add a panel with a task manager widget.  Enable group by name, disable waiting for the task bar to be full.  All tasks will be grouped all the time.

2. Open 20 to 50 instances of an app, like Firefox

3. Use them over the course of a week.

4. Reboot. 

OBSERVED RESULT

When Linux reboots, task manager adds instances to the group as they launch.  Ie without a pre determined order.  If you need to open a specific instance from the list, you have to search through the list and find it.  Very time consuming.

Would be better to be able to search the instance list for a window title keyword or sort the instances alphabetically.

Would also be great to be able to "star" a specific instance (gmail, for example) and keep it at the bottom or top of the task list, so it is always available.

Would also be great to be able to sort the list by last used, most frequently used, etc.

EXPECTED RESULT

No have to manually search through an arbitrarily ordered list to find the instance that is needed.  Give the power users some power tools. 

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS

Operating System: Fedora 32
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.70.0
Qt Version: 5.13.2
Kernel Version: 5.6.16-300.fc32.x86_64
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core Processor
Memory: 62.8 GiB of RAM



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 Me 2020-06-10 01:27:06 UTC 
BTW, would be really nice if TaskManager -> rightclick -> More Actions had a "Open" (Open All) function in the list.   This would allow users to open all the instances at once, look through them and then manually close them one at a time.  Would make searching for something much easier.  

As it is right now to do the same thing you'd have to manually open each instance by selecting it in the group list.

By "Open" I mean open the instance as if you clicked it in the group instance list.  The More Actions list has Maximize, Minimize and lots of other stuff, but no plain Open.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2020-07-12 03:58:05 UTC 
> Open 20 to 50 instances of an app, like Firefox
Out of curiosity, is this something you typically do, or is it just for illustration purposes here?

FWIW the Present Windows effect has a search which will match window titles (just start typing while it's open), and KRunner can do this too. So I'm not sure a search makes sense here given the available alternatives.

As for sorting, last used and most used would be super confusing, I think. Entries would be constantly jumping around and your spatial perception would be broken. Alphabetical and order of opening make sense to me though.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2020-07-12 04:09:35 UTC 
*** Bug 413996 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***