Bug 482418

At the moment there is no such option.

I would untag it from "wishlist", it is a regression in functionality causing problems either in the Pager or in the Grid View as described.

I'm also affected by this regression.

I'm on a laptop with a relatively small screen with 4 workspaces in a row. Using the Desktop Grid in Plasma 6 doesn't show the desktops in the most screen space-efficient manner possible, like it did in Plasma 5.

As a result, I have trouble seeing what windows are in what workspaces, which wasn't a problem in Plasma 5.

I made the discovery that, if you open your Virtual Desktop settings and set, let's go for 4 desktops (works nicely in the Grid, right?)

If you then set 4 ROWS. Then you have 4 vertical desktops... which display (IMO) nicely in Overview (but suck in Grid). The vertical desktop arrangement here is actually nicer for navigation for me.

If you set 1 ROW, then you have 4 Horizontal desktops... which display worse still in GRID, and not much better in Overview.

So we have a Hobsons Choice here.

I would suggest 1. Fix the Grid, and make Overview flexible in lining up whatever desktops we have or 2. Fix the Overview and make GRID more flexible.

Desktops have names/numbers, so an option to display this - if we assume that mixing up layouts would be in some way 'confusing'.

Created attachment 171216 [details]
Desktop grid overview regression example

This issue persists in Plasma 6.1.1. 

Instead of using the desktop grid overview space efficiently, desktops are shown in a row instead of a grid.

I uploaded an example of the regression. Notice how the desktops are in a horizontal row instead of a grid like they were in Plasma 5.27. This makes using the desktop grid overview mostly useless, as you can't even see the windows in each desktop because they're too small.

KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.1
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.3.0
Qt Version: 6.7.2
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Hello, based on the screenshot this issue may be as quick a fix as setting the Rows count in System Settings -> Window Management -> Virtual Desktops. This of course affects the pager where the top-right window will jump down to the next row, etc. 

Not ideal, but if I understand correctly, Plasma 6 fully overhauled the way that Virtual Desktops are handled. This makes the system unified across all these separate components like Overview, Desktop Grid, but it also causes issues like this where the behavior of one component negatively affects others. 

Now i'm questioning why the Desktop Grid isn't designed to tile desktops smartly into an actual multi-dimension "Grid" by default, to use optimal screen space. Using a linear list of desktops in the full Desktop Grid seems counterproductive to actually switch between, and if users don't research or go deep into the semi-unrelated Virtual Desktop settings they'd never know they could split the rows.

Thanks for the response, Blazer. 

Unfortunately, adding multiple rows affects the pager as you mentioned, and makes virtual desktop switching gestures pretty confusing. I'd prefer to keep switching desktops horizontally, as swiping left/right is easier than navigating a grid of desktops with gestures. Same thing when it comes to dragging windows between virtual desktops.

Optimally, an option for the desktop grid to tile desktops in a space-efficient manner would be ideal, as was the case in Plasma 5.

Same issue here. I use 20 desktops, arranged in two 10-desktop lines so that the pager can fit in the panel. The end result in KDE6 isn't great. In KDE5 I had the desktop grid show as 4 rows while the pager (and navigation) was using 2 rows. Now the desktop grid shows 10x2 desktops which isn't useful because I can't see the windows in the desktops (see attached).

I think that the best solution is a boolean flag that allows the script to rearrange the grid, which when selected will do the following: When the pager has width of X desktops (X per row), then the desktop grid will check if X/2 would result in desktop height reduction. If not then it'd show X/2 per row and thus double the rows. This will make the previous larger.

Example 1: When showing the grid for a 4x1 pager layout (width 4, height 1) they will be rearranged in a 2x2 grid because this won't make the desktop thumbnails smaller. 
Example 2: When showing the grid for a 10x2 per layout, they will be rearranged in a (5x2)x2 -> 5x4 grid because it also won't make the desktop thumbnails smaller.

Created attachment 176713 [details]
Desktop grid 10x2

Hey, thanks for providing this use case! I've been tinkering with an option to ignore the pager and auto-tile Desktops in the Grid Effect, and only in the Grid Effect. It's a very small change, uses the square root of the amount of desktops to determine the amount of rows and columns to use, and allows fallback to the default Plasma 6 behavior: 

property int columns: effect.autoTileGrid ? Math.ceil(Math.sqrt(desktops)) : Math.ceil(desktops / rows)
property int rows: effect.autoTileGrid ? Math.ceil(desktops / columns) : KWinComponents.Workspace.desktopGridHeight

As it were, 20 desktops is currently the soft maximum, these tile into 5x4 like the attached screenshot. The pager in the panel remains 1-row per the general VD setting (and does take up quite a bit of panel space at 20 desktops). 

Hoping to have this ready for merge by 6.3's feature cutoff in a little over a week. I need to: 
- raise the soft maximum to 25 desktops (clean 5x5 grid) wherever that's defined, 
- add labels to the desktop previews similar to how windows are presented in Overview.

Created attachment 176716 [details]
Auto-tile 20 desktops to 5x4 grid

I've opened https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/6922 to square this feature off. 

Encouraging anyone able and willing to build and test, thanks!

@Blazer Silving, thanks for working on this. Really appreciating your work.

I'm glad bringing back this feature was this simple! It's finished and ready. Unfortunately, it didn't get picked up for testing in the upcoming 6.3 release, and as a UI behavior change, it probably has to wait until 6.4 in June. 

The lack of the option to separate the Overview Grid from the VD row count is technically a regression relative to the standalone Desktop Grid's offerings. Not a "new" feature despite the slightly different approach.

@ Blazer Silving - Thank you for implementing this indeed! The grid view is definitely more useful with this option enabled so it will be really nice when it gets merged. Much appreciated!