Bug 178032 - KDE 4.2 Beta 2: Taskbar Sorting Automatically, Even When You Tell It Not To
Summary: KDE 4.2 Beta 2: Taskbar Sorting Automatically, Even When You Tell It Not To
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: plasma4
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: widget-taskbar (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Compiled Sources Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords: triaged
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-12-18 03:11 UTC by Jay LaCroix
Modified: 2010-06-16 22:34 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
Sorting set to alphabetical in trunk (13.02 KB, image/png)
2009-05-19 22:51 UTC, Martin Klapetek
Details

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Description Jay LaCroix 2008-12-18 03:11:30 UTC
Version:            (using Devel)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Compiled sources

I installed KDE 4.2 Beta 2 today. The first thing I noticed was that it sorted the taskbar items alphabetically. I turned that feature off and switched it to "Manual". With that setting, the task bar still rearranges the contents to an order other than the order I opened the items in. I then changed the option to "Do Not Sort", and the same thing happened.

I always have my email client first, web browser second, and so on. No matter what setting I choose, plasma rearranges the order of the taskbar items on me.
Comment 1 mb1 2008-12-19 03:36:00 UTC
I can confirm here.

What it looks like is that Dolphin always is at the far left of the panel (regardless of other applications), and all other applications are sorted alphabetically.

On Kubuntu 8.10 KDE4.2Beta2 via PPA upgrade through Adept.
Comment 2 Aaron J. Seigo 2008-12-19 04:50:05 UTC
After switching to "Do No Sort" all windows show up in the order they are launched.

After switching to "Manual" i can drag them around and the windows are added to the end in the order they subsequently appear.

Are you expecting them to re-order into a as-started ordering immediately on changing the setting?
Comment 3 Jay LaCroix 2008-12-19 06:01:26 UTC
No.

Here is a typical scenario of what happens, with either "Do Not Sort" or "Manually" selected.

1. I open Thunderbird

2. After thunderbird opens I open Firefox.

3. At this point it's how I want it, email first on the taskbar then the web browser.

4. I use the desktop as normal, opening and closing programs as needed.

5. At some point the order is changed, with Firefox first and Thunderbird second.

6. If I switch desktops using the pager, the contents get rearranged frequently.

Unfortunately there is no 100% trigger, but here are some things that have caused the task order to be rearranged:

* Emptying the trash (then the Plasma "warning" tasks disappears, rearranging the items)

* Closing multiple dolphin windows that have been grouped

* Switching desktops (Happened when multiple thunderbird windows were grouped, but not when they are not grouped)

* Opening Dolphin or KTorrent

I've been testing it for a while now, trying different things, and I can't find a 100% trigger. For example, I just opened four Dolphin windows and then closed them, the bug didn't happen. Then, I switched the desktop using the pager and it happened. The next time I switched desktops it didn't happen, then I launched a program then switched the desktop and that time it did happen.

This is really weird... 
Comment 4 FiNeX 2009-04-26 00:35:01 UTC
I've just tried the various configurations on current trunk and the taskbar seems behave correctly. Someone can confirm it?
Comment 5 Martin Klapetek 2009-05-19 22:51:51 UTC
Created attachment 33847 [details]
Sorting set to alphabetical in trunk

I'm running the latest trunk and the alphabetical setting has no effect. Here is a screenshot showing the taskbar, the windows were opened in order from right to left (Dolphin first, then KWrite and so on) and instead of alphabetical it's sorted by "who was the last opened move to the left please".
Comment 6 Jay LaCroix 2009-05-20 00:03:12 UTC
Martin, I think we may be experiencing different bugs. For me, I have everything opened in the order I like them in. Sometimes if I launch a program, it is moved to the beginning of the taskbar, even though I set it up to not sort. This happens most commonly when a program opens a new window of itself.
Comment 7 Jay LaCroix 2009-06-14 17:25:27 UTC
This problem is still happening in 4.3 Beta 2. In fact, I can reproduce it 100% of the time by doing the following:

1.) Open Thunderbird
2.) Open Firefox
3.) Note that Thunderbird is listed first on the taskbar and Firefox second
4.) Switch to a different virtual desktop
5.) Switch back to the first virtual desktop
6.) Firefox is now first on the taskbar and Thunderbird moved to second.
Comment 8 Danny Auble 2009-06-23 18:17:10 UTC
I'm using kde 4.3 beta2.  What I see is when a program which wasn't grouped gets grouped it moves that to the end of the taskbar.    Then when the extra window is closed it (sometimes) hops up one in the taskbar order.  My reproducer is kontact.

1. Open Kontact
2. Open firefox
3. Open a couple of xterms
4. Open a few emacs (or something else that will group)
5. Open a new mail message from kontact.

This will send Kontact to the end of the taskbar.
Comment 9 Jay LaCroix 2009-06-23 18:25:20 UTC
The behavior that Danny mentioned fits me perfectly. I am also using KDE 4.3 Beta 2.
Comment 10 Aaron J. Seigo 2009-06-23 18:35:58 UTC
so what people want is not "do not sort" but "sort by launch order". "do not sort" literally does not sort. it just puts the buttons at the end as they come and go, so when a new group is created, sure it's going to end up at the end of the list. and when you switch desktops, the buttons are destroyed and created.

i suppose the solution to this is to make "do not sort" actually have a sorting implementation which preserves a set order. in the case of creating a new group, i suppose it will need to pick one of the previously held spots of the items to take for the group.

not hard, but it's too late for 4.3 at this point.
Comment 11 Danny Auble 2009-06-23 18:44:45 UTC
I would like it if no reorder was ever done.  IMHO that just leads to confusion.  Especially when I have manual set and then when a new group is formed my order is gone.  Unless the user has specified alphabetically as their sort method where an alphabetical reorder does make sense.
Comment 12 Jay LaCroix 2009-06-24 01:58:10 UTC
I agree with Danny on this one. I am sure a long-term solution is out of reach this far in KDE 4.3's development, but is a short term solution or work around possible? If not, is there a setting where I can tell it not to group certain applications?

Thanks again.
Comment 13 Jedd 2009-08-11 17:06:24 UTC
Aaron, with 4.x , a 'sort by launch order' has been conspicuous by its absence - it was the 3.x default, and I guess quite a few of us got used to it.  I think the grouping concept was much weaker in 3.x, so perhaps it just *seemed* to me that new applications appeared on the right side of the task bar.  This was highly predictable, and predictable is always a comforting thing.  :)

With 4.x this feature wasn't available, so I opted for the 'manually sort' option - because the 'no sort' thing, as you observed, isn't the same as 'sort by launch order', and didn't feel right to me.  Unpredictable, and all that.

Anyhoo, I moved from 4.2.4 to 4.3 a few days ago, and during that move I see that the 'manually sort' option is now disregarded.  I can reproduce this on any set of applications, and on a new user account I just created on my box.  I'm using Debian unstable, and those guys tend to not faff around with the 'essence of KDE', so I suspect it's not distro/packaging related.


Oh, just so we're clear, Task Manager Settings | Grouping & Sorting | Sorting: Manually  --> this /should/ mean that I can move tasks around on the task bar, on any of my virtual desktops (I typically run 6) and when I return to that desktop the tasks are in the order I left them.  With 4.2.4 this consistently worked as expected within a login session.  With 4.3 I can re-arrange the tasks when this option is enabled, but switching to a different virtual desktop and back again (mouse or keyboard) will revert the task bar items to an order that I can't identify, but might be some variant of 'launch order'.

I have set a different sort order, applied, used, and then come back in and set my sort-manually sort order, but this didn't resolve the problem.
Comment 14 Jedd 2009-08-18 19:34:04 UTC
Can the reporters and other subscribers to these two bugs please confirm if they are the same and can be combined?  They look pretty similar to me, and I think we all have the same end-game in mind here:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178032
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202562
Comment 15 Jay LaCroix 2009-08-19 02:16:44 UTC
I have both problems.
Comment 16 j wandler 2009-09-14 07:07:19 UTC
problem still exists in 4.3.1

Downloaded the latest KDE-Four-Live CD, with 4.3.1 and the reordering still happens with "do not sort" and "manual" selected.
Comment 17 Audrius Kažukauskas 2009-10-24 14:03:28 UTC
Yesterday I upgraded from KDE 4.2.4 to 4.3.2 (slackware-current) and I'm experiencing the same behavior: with manual ordering turned on, tasks in taskbar are ordered in an unpredictable way (previously they were ordered in the same way as they were launched), also manually re-arranging tasks is not preserved after I switch to another virtual desktop and go back.
Comment 18 Joel 2009-11-25 09:30:15 UTC
Same here with kde4.3.3 on ArchLinux.
Comment 19 Danny Auble 2009-12-29 23:22:51 UTC
This problem still exists in 4.4 beta 2 (4.3.85).  Could someone please look at this before it gets too late to get it in there?
Comment 20 Danny Auble 2009-12-29 23:23:41 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 21 Andreas 2010-02-07 01:20:45 UTC
I can confirm this bug too and would like to see it fixed.
A "sort by launch" order would be very good way to solve this problem.
Comment 22 Decha 2010-02-17 11:08:44 UTC
Still the case in Qt: 4.5.3, KDE: 4.3.3 (KDE 4.3.3). Just got ark before konsole after virtual desktop switch.
Comment 23 Andreas 2010-03-04 10:25:02 UTC
The KOffice guys at the CeBIT booth just showed me KDE 4.4.1 and it seems, this bug is fixed.

At least the window order was persistent during all desktop switched, regardless which applications i started.
Comment 24 Danny Auble 2010-03-04 17:59:37 UTC
I believe you are talking about a different bug here.  I believe it is https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202562.  The one you are discribing is when switching desktops the order remains the same as you left them, that indeed is fixed. 

I am running 4.4.1 and this continues to be an issue.  Any time you make a new group of windows it moves from it's place in the order, and when the group is back down to 1 it moves once again.  If you follow the order listed in previous posts you will see what I'm talking about.
Comment 25 Aaron J. Seigo 2010-03-04 23:02:29 UTC
ah, this is almost certainly the bug i fixed in trunk (for 4.5) the other day where the sorting was done on indexes that included items in groups.

symptom: scroll wheeling over the taskbar activated the windows in a different order than they were displayed in.
Comment 26 Jay LaCroix 2010-03-05 13:09:50 UTC
Is this fix going to be backported into 4.4.x?
Comment 27 Danny Auble 2010-06-02 05:46:44 UTC
This still appears to be a bug.  I see no difference in 4.4.80 (4.5 beta 1).  When a new group is formed it moves to the end of the taskbar.  If you need a reproducer follow the reproducer I left above.
Comment 28 Danny Auble 2010-06-16 22:34:43 UTC
Could the status of this be at least changed from RESOLVED as FIXED to something else?  Unless no one else can reproduce this.  On my system it doesn't appear the behavior has changed at all in reference to this ticket.