Bug 510767

Summary: Overlapping panel priority
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Jon <opinionateddrone>
Component: PanelAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: wishlist CC: nate, niccolo.venerandi
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.4.5   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: CachyOS   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In: 6.5.0
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Two Screenshots of the same area of screen showing the vertical panel in one frame and hidden in another

Description Jon 2025-10-18 19:23:54 UTC
SUMMARY


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. create overlapping panels in any corner of the screen, one horizontal, the other vertical
2. place a different widget in the corner of each
3. restart plasmashell

OBSERVED RESULT
the panel chosen to be on top seems to change randomly upon starting plasma shell

EXPECTED / DESIRED RESULT
there should be an option on the Panel Settings dialogue to set a "priority" or "layer" which would control which panel appears above and which panel appears below

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS

Operating System: CachyOS Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.10.0
Kernel Version: 6.17.3-1-cachyos-bore-lto (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM (13.6 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The current solution is to put the same widget in the corner of both panels, with the panels sized in such a way that the icon appears in the same position.  This is not ideal because it makes duplicate widgets a necessity.
Comment 1 Harald Sitter 2025-10-19 13:53:49 UTC
*** Bug 510766 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-10-20 16:22:15 UTC
Why do you have overlapping panels? What's the goal or use case here?
Comment 3 Jon 2025-10-21 00:00:01 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #2)
> Why do you have overlapping panels? What's the goal or use case here?

One is above windows, the other dodges windows. I cannot offset either from the corner, so they must share the corner.

Another use case is having kurve along the bottom which dodges windows, and kara pager on a second panel bottom center which is above windows.  If I could guarantee the pager panel is always above the kurve panel, I wouldn't have to gingerly dodge the kurve panel to scroll virtual desktops.
Comment 4 Nate Graham 2025-10-21 15:03:42 UTC
Could you set the dodge-windows panel to have a custom size and not overlap with the always-visible panel?
Comment 5 Jon 2025-10-23 12:30:01 UTC
I'm sure I could, but that would really mess up the look I want
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2025-10-23 13:54:03 UTC
Would it? Could you maybe attach comparison screenshots showing why that solution doesn't work for this use case, while a full-width panel looks better?
Comment 7 Jon 2025-10-24 01:46:26 UTC
Created attachment 186066 [details]
Two Screenshots of the same area of screen showing the vertical panel in one frame and hidden in another

I'm not even sure I know what you mean.  Apologies, my last response was made in a half asleep state.

Both panels are set to fit content.
The top right (horizontal) panel is 26 px tall
The right top (vertical) panel is 26 px wide
This way they match despite one being horizontal and the other vertical.

Right now I have two copies of the notification widget.  One on the right of the top panel, one on the top of the right panel.  Even with the height of the top panel matching the width of the right panel, the widget is slightly differently sized on the top vs the right panel.
I could add width to the right panel or height to the top panel, but the problem would persist.
I cannot predict which of these will appear on top of the other after any given plasma restart.
Sometimes they will switch which one appears on top after messing about with the panels.
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2025-10-24 16:13:18 UTC
Got it. In Plasma 6.5, horizontal panels always take priority. Anything else was deemed too complicated and fiddly.