Bug 511147

Summary:	Access element in taskbar is error-prone
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	federico
Component:	Task Manager and Icons-Only Task Manager widgets	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	normal	CC:	kdedev, nate, qydwhotmail
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.3.6
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Debian stable
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	taskbar-app-switcher-win-11

Description federico 2025-10-26 11:01:22 UTC

Created attachment 186179 [details]
taskbar-app-switcher-win-11

SUMMARY

Accessing the n-th element from the taskbar is error-prone

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open 5 instances of Kate
2. move them to the background
3. from the taskbar, try to access the fifth instance of Kate directly

OBSERVED RESULT

One needs to position the mouse over tha kate icon on the taskbar, the move the mouse on the adjacent preview of kate, and then move the mouse to the fifth instance.
If the mouse drops for a moment from the taskbar preview (which happnes normally when moving from the taskbar to the preview), then all previews are closed.

EXPECTED RESULT

To be able to move the mouse directly from the taskbar to the desired distance, even if the mouse leaves the taskbar/preview for a moment


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 13
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.13.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.12.48+deb13-amd64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

I do not think my description does a good work, so I've made 3 videos

https://fekir.info/multimedia/ui/context-menu-submenu-kde.webm shows that when the mouse leaves the context menu, the submenu is not close immediately, and thus one can easily access the n-th element directly

https://fekir.info/multimedia/ui/taskbar-app-switcher-win-11.webm shows that in Windows the behavior is similar to context-menu-submenu-kde.webm and it is possible to access directly the n-th instance of an application

https://fekir.info/multimedia/ui/taskbar-app-switcher-kde.webm shows that accessing the n-th instance of an application is error-prone

Comment 1 TraceyC 2025-10-28 19:18:36 UTC

Thanks for the bug report and the screen recording.
In your steps to reproduce, when you say "move them to the background", I assume they are not minimized, but just behind other windows? it wasn't clear from the recording, since it only showed a small area of the desktop.

In the recording, it shows the Icons-Only Task Manager
The problem is clearly shown - if the cursor moves off of the icon for Kate in the task manager, the window preview list is lost
I confirm this behavior in git-master

We might consider making the menu stay open for an area outside of the actual icon (as shown in the screen recording of Windows0

Comment 2 federico 2025-10-28 20:41:54 UTC

> In your steps to reproduce, when you say "move them to the background", I assume they are not minimized, but just behind other windows? it wasn't clear from the recording, since it only showed a small area of the desktop.

> In your steps to reproduce, when you say "move them to the background", I assume they are not minimized, but just behind other windows? it wasn't clear from the recording, since it only showed a small area of the desktop.

Yes, sorry, that step is not really necessary.
Kate can even be in the foreground, but it might be more difficult to recognize what is happening if you have 5 identical instances of Kate in the foreground.

In the video if one moves the mouse quickly and tries to click on a specific instance, he might not realize he did not in fact select anything because one of the five instance was already in foreground, and since they are all equal, they are hard to tell apart.

Comment 3 TraceyC 2025-10-28 21:25:27 UTC

Thanks for confirming and clarifying.

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2025-10-29 19:01:33 UTC


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 496169 ***