Using the task-manager as an application dock, I selected for the ones I use the most the option "Show a launcher when not running". I also want to place them as I like, so I selected the option "Sort manually" in the task-manager settings. However, this does not work as I expected (i.e. the way it worked in Plasma4). There are actually two (probably related) problems: - the icons of the running applications are grouped separately from the icons of the non-running application, which means that when you launch an application its icon moves from the "non-running" section to the "running" section. I think this is confusing (and at odds with the "sort manually" option) and unnecessary, since there already is a visual cue on the icon itself to show which applications are running. - it is not possible to drag and drop the icons in the "non-running" section to rearrange them, only those in the "running" section. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Select the "Sort manually" option in the task-manager settings. 2. Open a bunch of applications (the problem will be more obvious if you open at least 4 of 5), and for each of them select the "Show a launcher when not running" option. 3. Rearrange the icons manually. 4. Close some of the applications (2 or 3). 5. Try to rearrange the icons of the closed ones. Actual Results: On step 4, the icon of the closed applications will move to the "non-running" section. Step 5 won't work. Expected Results: When "sort manually" is selected along with "show a launcher when not running", the icons should stay where they were placed, whether the application is running or not. It should also be possible to rearrange them even when the application is not running.
The separate sections were the same in Plasma 4. I can't remember if launchers were rearrangable, but there's a prior ticket for that already. You might be interested in trying out the Expanding Icons Task Manager fork available on some distros: it allows free mixing of launchers and running tasks. Or the icons-only Task Manager bundled with Plasma. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 333316 ***