Bug 445555

SUMMARY

Hey there,

I noticed that KDE Plasma ships with one default layout (the dock at the bottom) and nothing else, other layouts have to be configured manually. As I think that most of the users would use one of the following layouts, I think it would be useful to add them as easily selectable options:
- Windows-like (current default)
- MacOS-like
- GNOME-like
- Unity-like

This could also include an option to add custom layouts and make them visible there as well.
Customizing one of the default layouts automatically creates a custom layout.
This menu could look like on Zorin-OS (https://bit.ly/3FiPa0e) or feren OS (https://bit.ly/3HzVfay)

AFAIk this already kind of exists, as global themes can ship with a custom layout; but this has some disadvantages:
- custom layouts are not available in a default installation
- unexperienced users might overlook the checkbox at the bottom and might wonder why the layout changed / didn't change as intended
- layouts can't be distributed independent of global themes
- easier accessibility and better understanding of how applying new layouts work

Global themes could still also include a custom layout, but just as window decoration or the cursor, the layout should also be selectable independently. As said, this would also allow users to upload layouts without also having to include a complete global theme.

This feature would also have to have a way to register panels, also by third-party-software like latte-dock, so that these docks are saved as well (though I think there already is an interface for other applications to tell kwin that they added a panel?)

I think this whole idea would remove another small papercut from the KDE shell, as I, a user of KDE for about 5 years now, only learned today that global themes come with a layout (or I might just be exceptionally blind and dumb to not understand how this works :D)