Bug 503245

Summary:	Virtual desktop pager should use a compact button for each desktop when "show window outlines" is off
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Sam Birch <bugs.kde.org>
Component:	Pager widget	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	hein, kdedev, nate
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version First Reported In:	6.3.4
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=489371
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Sam Birch 2025-04-23 18:24:34 UTC

The workspace pager can take up quite a lot of space if the screen configuration is very wide. (Or, in a vertical panel, if the screen configuration is very tall.) Turning on "show only current screen" can mitigate this somewhat, but not if you have one of those suuuper wide monitors.

When "show window outlines" is off, the buttons in the pager just have to be click targets, so there's no reason for them to take up any more space than necessary for that purpose. In particular, there's no reason for them to be desktop-shaped.

I think the most minimal tweak would be:
- make the desktop buttons square whenever "show window outlines" is off.
- make "show only current screen" unavailable/greyed out when "show window outlines" is off.

Comment 1 TraceyC 2025-04-23 20:38:44 UTC

This makes sense. I have the same frustration when using a laptop, connected to two ultrawide monitors.
The workspace pager takes up a lot of space, needlessly. This means there's less space for things like apps in the text-and-icons taskbar, and other widgets.