Bug 513497

Summary: The "back" button for sub-pages should include the header text
Product: [Frameworks and Libraries] frameworks-kirigami Reporter: Jin Liu <ad.liu.jin>
Component: generalAssignee: kdelibs bugs <kdelibs-bugs-null>
Status: REPORTED ---    
Severity: wishlist CC: nate, notmart
Priority: NOR Keywords: usability
Version First Reported In: 6.21.0   
Target Milestone: Not decided   
Platform: Arch Linux   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: sub page
first level

Description Jin Liu 2025-12-17 17:36:44 UTC
Created attachment 187748 [details]
sub page

SUMMARY
The "back" button for sub-pages should be the same size as the first-level pages.
See attachments. Not only the "<" symbol, but also the text should be clickable.

Also, only one of them has a "Navigate back" tooltip, resulting in inconsistency.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.18.1-arch1-2 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM (15.0 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Comment 1 Jin Liu 2025-12-17 17:37:01 UTC
Created attachment 187749 [details]
first level
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-12-18 20:46:11 UTC
The conjoined button in the System Settings sidebar is custom; extending this UX to KCMs would entail implementing it in Kirigami; moving there.

However I'm not sure it would be a good idea. Frankly I'm not sure the existing instance of this in System Settings was a good idea (I say this as the person who implemented it).

The problem is that the law of proximity visually connects the page title to the back button; putting them both in the same clickable button would reinforce that even more. But this is confusing because the page title is for the *current* page while the back button takes you to the *previous* page!

Ideally the back button would share a clickable frame with a label that tells you which page you'll be taken back to, not the name of the current page.

But the whole idea of left-aligned page titles makes this virtually impossible. To improve on the situation there I think we'd need a fundamental re-think of how page titles work in Kirigami.