Bug 464341

Summary:	Hide hardware-based KCMs while the hardware they control is unavailable
Product:	[Applications] systemsettings	Reporter:	Alexander Wilms <f.alexander.wilms>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	bastimeyer123, bugseforuns, justin.zobel, nate, rahul.vit2014
Priority:	NOR
Version:	5.26.5
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Alexander Wilms 2023-01-15 20:50:22 UTC

SUMMARY
Thunderbolt ports are not very common in my experience. However, by default there's an entry for the Thunderbolt KCM in the System Settings which just displays "Thunderbolt subsystem is not available"


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Use Computer without Thunderbolt port
2. Open System Settings

OBSERVED RESULT
There is a Thunderbolt entry

EXPECTED RESULT
There is no Thunderbolt entry

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20230114
KDE Plasma Version: 5.26.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.101.0
Qt Version: 5.15.8
Kernel Version: 6.1.4-1-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Alexander Wilms 2023-01-15 21:00:36 UTC

The same applies to Bluetooth, and Touchpad KCMs. The Game Controller and Graphics Tablet KCMs at least offer the option to set them up manually. Maybe the "general" component would be a better fit.

Comment 2 Nate Graham 2023-01-17 20:56:38 UTC

Yeah, totally.

Ultimately this probably needs to be implemented first at the System Settings level, to allow KCMs to define a new piece of metadata governing under which condition they should be present, that triggers code in the shell app to parse that and determine on the fly whether to show or hide the KCM.

This was also proposed and agreed to in https://invent.kde.org/plasma/systemsettings/-/issues/15. We can keep this bug report open to track the implementation of that feature.

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2023-09-05 21:13:29 UTC

*** Bug 474051 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2023-09-27 21:07:31 UTC

*** Bug 397870 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5 bastimeyer123 2024-03-07 12:36:47 UTC

With the "Input & Output" and "Connected Devices" sections being moved to the top in Plasma 6, this issue is even more important now.

I understand why the sections were moved to the top, but sub-sections which are not available on certain systems should not be shown.
"Input & Output": touchscreen, game controller, drawing tablet
"Connected Devices": bluetooth, thunderbolt, kde connect, printers

It doesn't make sense having empty and unavailable menus at the top of the system settings menu while other important menus are buried because of that.