| Summary: | Desktop context menu should have a better default order | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Plasma] plasmashell | Reporter: | John <ilikefoss> |
| Component: | Desktop icons & Folder View widget | Assignee: | Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs> |
| Status: | RESOLVED FIXED | ||
| Severity: | wishlist | CC: | david.decos, hein, kde, nate |
| Priority: | NOR | Keywords: | usability |
| Version: | 6.2.90 | ||
| Target Milestone: | 1.0 | ||
| Platform: | Neon | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Latest Commit: | https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/commit/2c0e2452c76856818622ae3f1feeb0890045755f | Version Fixed In: | 6.4.0 |
| Sentry Crash Report: | |||
| Attachments: | My desktop menu | ||
|
Description
John
2025-01-16 12:49:39 UTC
This is probably reasonable. The historical context for why we had the "Desktop and Wallpaper" item first was that this was the only way you could change the wallpaper, and people had a hard time finding it. We wanted to make it prominent in the menu. But today, you can do this from System Settings, which makes discoverability via context menu less important. I think we can re-arrange the menu a bit like this. A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/merge_requests/5081 Git commit 2c0e2452c76856818622ae3f1feeb0890045755f by Nate Graham. Committed on 23/01/2025 at 20:32. Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'. Re-arrange desktop context menu for better usability In the past, we put the configure wallpaper item on top for discoverability. However nowadays discoverability is provided through System Settings, negating the need for this. The displays item was only ever there to group it with the wallpaper item. Accordingly, move both of them to the bottom of the menu. This lets the "Create New" item be on top as it is in Dolphin, where it's more contextually relevant most of the time. FIXED-IN: 6.4 M +11 -6 containmentactions/contextmenu/menu.cpp M +1 -0 containmentactions/contextmenu/menu.h https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/commit/2c0e2452c76856818622ae3f1feeb0890045755f Git commit 18a18ed9a4e3a801beaec95edd098856cdd5270b by Nate Graham. Committed on 23/01/2025 at 20:57. Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'. Move "Icons" item in desktop context menu below other things Actions like Paste, Undo, and Empty Trash are more contextually relevant; move this below them. M +1 -1 containments/desktop/package/contents/ui/FolderViewLayer.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/commit/18a18ed9a4e3a801beaec95edd098856cdd5270b This aligns perfectly (or might conflict with) a very similar request that I have been wanting to make for a long time: the two menu entries regarding wallpaper slideshow currently appear at the bottom, but that's not a good place for them, because: 1) The other entry related to the wallpaper is at the top. This is fixed by the proposed commit two comments above this. 2) More importantly: this relegates "Lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen" to the middle of the menu, with entries regarding look & feel stuff both further up and further down it. "Lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen" are the desktop menu entries that I use most, by far, and IMO they should be at the bottom of the menu (the bottom is a prominent position too, it's the middle of the menu that is "harder" to find/reach). In the next comment I'm showing how my current menu looks, to illustrate my point. Created attachment 177826 [details]
My desktop menu
See how "Lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen" appear at the middle of the menu, with wallpaper related stuff above and below them.
So my proposition is the following: - Top: Icon stuff (if you have a folder view desktop). - After that: Desktop and Wallpaper stuff, including the slideshow entries currently at the bottom, and other desktop related things like "Add panel" and "Enter edit mode". - Then: more technical stuff, like "display configuration", "show krunner" and "open terminal". - Bottom: "Lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen". Is this appropriate here, as the title of the bug report is "Desktop context menu should have a better default order"? Or should I open a new bug report? At this point I'm happy with the menu. I wouldn't want to add more actions to it like lock and logout because they aren't related to the desktop itself. But those two entries ARE in the menu currently, and they've been there for ages. I'm just proposing placing them at the bottom. Perhaps you have them unselected (or maybe they're unselected by default and I'm the one who has them enabled)? But they are available as menu entries, that's for sure. Those items aren't shown by default anymore, no. If I add them back, I can see that they're no longer at the very bottom, which probably does make sense for them. Thank you very much, Nate. In order to leave "Lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen" at the bottom, I'd suggest simply moving the "Wallpaper actions" entry (currently at the bottom) to right under "Configure desktop and wallpaper" (where it should be IMO), thus accomplishing two goals with one move. To me, after the change, how it's shown here it's perfect! https://invent.kde.org/-/project/2703/uploads/a2fe9572e6a472b6d258595de4aaea12/After.png The only thing that is a bit sad it's the fact that the change is intended for version 6.4, which means that it will miss being in the next Debian release 13 (Trixie), which most likely will come with Plasma 6.3.x, but not 6.4, so I'll have to wait 2+ more years to be able use it. But who knows, maybe after Debian 13 is released in the summer, if I switch to its 'testing' repository Plasma 6.4 will come there eventually. Anyway, it's there and it will come sometime in the future. As for the "lock Screen" and "Show Logout Screen" I don't have them already in Plasma 6.2.5 and I don't miss them as I probably never used them since most of the time there's no one I need to lock my computer from. If I really need that I would do it from the start menu. Same for the logout screen, as I'm the only user on my computers. For the wallpaper actions, they would indeed make sense to be near the "Desktop and Wallpaper" (probably just below it. But I would take out the "Open wallpaper image" and put instead of it a "Previous wallpaper" so there are both previous and next. While it would be cooler to have "Desktop and wallpaper" absolutely at the bottom and these two optional items below it, I'm not sure I would trade that for the usability and importance of "Display configuration", which must be as easy as possible to find and identify when the screen is broken such as: - Having a resolution too low or too high. - Having a scaling too low or too high. - Having a brightness too low. - Having bad orientation. - Having bad position in multi-monitor mode. - Having bad colors. - HDR not being enabled. To me, being able to solve problems and annoyances fast, when they occur, show how professional and well thought a DE is and the best is that the item that can fix the problem is in a good position, meaning first or last. Since first is already taken by the productivity option, which is Create new stuff and these problems that may occur are not so often, then last it seems to me to be the best position. Remember that it's last at all times, could help also with the cases where we need to fix the broken screen or not broken, but with something that doesn't work or has the wrong position or scaling, can also be done for people that use other language than English, or they have put the image upside-down or screens are rotated. I remember the first times that I plugged my laptop to my 4K monitor and my desktop to my 4K TV and I had to go closer to the screens to be able to actually read the items in the context menu to find the proper item as everything was so small. I think Wallpaper configuration and then the wallpaper slideshow thing that adds that / those extra items are nat used so ofter and are not that important to deserve the last place in the menu, which could be better used the the problem solver and features enabled "Display configuration". But anyway, that's just my opinion, feel free to continue to come with other argumens and ideas and move the items as you wish. One day though, this menu and the system tray needs an option to be able to reorder the items as it's best for us. Though, for the case of problems, a very good default is very important! You can't customize that menu (at least easily) if the screen has bad position, orientation, brightness, colors, etc. |
