Bug 363878 - Adjustable spacing between IOTM icons
Summary: Adjustable spacing between IOTM icons
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Task Manager and Icons-Only Task Manager (show other bugs)
Version: master
Platform: Neon Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Eike Hein
URL:
Keywords:
: 363879 441922 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2016-06-03 06:21 UTC by apache
Modified: 2022-07-28 12:48 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In: 5.25
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
desired settings (167.09 KB, image/png)
2016-06-03 14:41 UTC, apache
Details
Spacing proof of concept (14.89 KB, image/png)
2019-10-06 19:41 UTC, Jacopo Martellini
Details

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Description apache 2016-06-03 06:21:30 UTC
I reported a bug Bug 349411 - Horizontal and vertical task buttons should have consistent margin sizes 
but after a year is was closed. My bug was not about Breeze but about Task manager settings and this one is about that. Don't force user to change themes. Most users don't have skills to do it. 

Please read 
Size of Task Manager Icons and System Tray Icons 
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=124799

Please make options like in Smooth task fork 
https://bitbucket.org/flupp/smooth-tasks-fork
or in Icon tasks by Craig Drummond 
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Icon+Tasks?content=144808

flupp doesn't want to do a version for Plasma 5
https://bitbucket.org/flupp/smooth-tasks-fork/issues/43/compile-against-kde5-fails
neither Craig Drummond
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Icon+Tasks?content=144808
(nor response to user question about version for Plasma 5)

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 Kai Uwe Broulik 2016-06-03 13:12:36 UTC
*** Bug 363879 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 apache 2016-06-03 13:45:07 UTC
Bug 363879 - option to make icons bigger is not a duplicate of this one. I want to have this options in both widgets because I use regular task manager but my acquaintances prefer icon task manager.
Comment 3 Kai Uwe Broulik 2016-06-03 13:56:52 UTC
I have no idea what your bug report is even about. Instead of dumping a bunch of links please describe in the bug report itself what you want changed.
Comment 4 apache 2016-06-03 14:41:31 UTC
Created attachment 99341 [details]
desired settings

Did you take your time read it carefully? It states in description:

Please read Size of Task Manager Icons and System Tray Icons 
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=124799 

Everything is there. See also attachment.

I don't want wasted pixels as shown on screenshots. 
Plasma 5 Breeze Light Task manager
http://i.imgur.com/gB3qlUs.jpg
Plasma 5 Breeze Light Icons only Task manager
http://i.imgur.com/8WafAG3.jpg
Comment 5 apache 2016-07-08 16:36:52 UTC
I just want to let you know that this is very old story:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=254651
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=303787
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2017-10-16 04:12:25 UTC
It's not totally clear what you're asking for, but let me have a go: are you asking for the Icons-Only Task Manager to not have such thick padding around the icons at various widths of the panel itself?

If so, I think the better solution is to have the icon smoothly scale as you resize the panel, rather than keeping the current jerky resize behavior and adding a setting to add or subtract padding.
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2017-12-13 20:20:25 UTC
No response and I can't really figure out what's being asked for; moving to close.

Apache, if you want this bug report to be re-opened and worked on, here's the information we need:

1. Upgrade to Plasma 5.11 and tell us if the issue still reproduces
2. If it does, please explain the issue in your own words or preferably with a screen recording (but not a bunch of links to forum threads).

I know this has been a somewhat frustrating experience for you, and I apologize for that. But we need more and clearer information to investigate the issue!
Comment 8 Jacopo Martellini 2019-10-05 15:49:28 UTC
While I don't think that this is technically a bug, it sure is a missing feature! I really prefer the icons only task manager over the other alternatives, but the icons are small and crammed together with no way to configure the appearence.
Icons scaling and spacing have to be hardcoded somewhere in source. Sometime ago I skimmed through the code and didn't find 'em, but I can do it again. I'd appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction
Comment 9 Eike Hein 2019-10-06 10:02:24 UTC
Have you tried increasing the maximum panel icon size in System Settings -> Icons, Jack?
Comment 10 apache 2019-10-06 11:13:42 UTC
https://i.imgur.com/q4HkaeZ.png

Icon size settings has fixed values such as for example 48, 64. Increasing, decreasing doesn't change anything because task manager widget (or panel - I am not sure) are designed in the way that there is a space between icon and task manager / panel edge. I marked in in red.

Of course it is not a bug. It is bad design that results in icon being always a few pixel smaller than task / panel widget. 

Maybe this is different approach to "what looks good" but to me these spaces that I marked red are useless / unnecessary / waste of space.
Comment 11 apache 2019-10-06 12:05:48 UTC
Icons on task manager are not scalable in a sense that they can only have size that is set in system settings. (Ok. it is kind of scaling but limited to actual icons size). But task manager seems to have these predefined spaces. The result is that making panel wider only increases space on panel that I marked in red at the bottom of icon. And this is the case until panel is made larger and next fixed size of icon jumps. 

Example - the same icon size with different spaces - one is from task manager and the other from launcher added to panel from menu:

https://i.imgur.com/PnvTja4.png

https://i.imgur.com/99sPyPv.png
Comment 12 apache 2019-10-06 12:38:04 UTC
This is even better example how icon size doesn't match another widget size (time and date) in terms of panel space utilization
https://i.imgur.com/nQLEQyT.png
 
I know it is different widget but just to clarify the problem.

I hope in Plasma 6 you would come back to plasma 4 solutions in terms of customization of icons, fonts and colors.

In my humble opinion you improved what was better. Best is the enemy of good.
Comment 13 Jacopo Martellini 2019-10-06 14:43:26 UTC
(In reply to Eike Hein from comment #9)
> Have you tried increasing the maximum panel icon size in System Settings ->
> Icons, Jack?

Yes, I have. As apache pointed out it's not that, and icons scale really well when increasing the panel height.

As a matter of fact my main issue is spacing.
There's too little space between the icons, and it should be configurable, or at least widened.
Just look at Dash to panel on Gnome, Start is back on Windows 10, or vanilla even Windows 10 taskbar, 
Assuming that changing icons scaling may be difficult because of the small bar above and the + sign when there are multiple instances open, spacing should be quite trivial.
I was looking here:
https://github.com/KDE/plasma-desktop/blob/master/applets/taskmanager/package/contents/ui/code/layout.js

is this the correct file to edit?
Comment 14 Eike Hein 2019-10-06 16:39:01 UTC
> is this the correct file to edit?

No, sizing data mostly comes from the theme-specific SVG files and declarative expressions in Task.qml.
Comment 15 Jacopo Martellini 2019-10-06 18:42:13 UTC
(In reply to Eike Hein from comment #14)
> > is this the correct file to edit?
> 
> No, sizing data mostly comes from the theme-specific SVG files and
> declarative expressions in Task.qml.

Ok, but I think that at least spacing is handled by the task manager, because every theme seems to have square task icons, and that's unlikely.

In Task.qml I see the Item object that declares "width: height" and then uses function adjustMargin(vert, size, margin) to calculate the margins, calling function horizontalMargins() from layout.js.

Maybe adding a parameter could do the trick. Something like this:

function horizontalMargins(customMargin) {
    return taskFrame.margins.left + taskFrame.margins.right + customMargin;
}

Forgive me if I ask dumb questions or say something stupid, I'm mostly a firmware developer, have little experience with qt, and only with widgets, but I'd really like to "fix" this design
Comment 16 Jacopo Martellini 2019-10-06 19:41:54 UTC
Created attachment 123066 [details]
Spacing proof of concept

And it works!
It's just a proof of concept, but I'll work on it and submit a PR
Comment 17 Nate Graham 2019-10-06 22:47:34 UTC
Yes please do! I'd use it.
Comment 18 apache 2019-10-08 10:18:28 UTC
> It's not totally clear what you're asking for

I was asking for these settings
https://bugsfiles.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=99341

Not necessarily graphical. Option in configuration files would be enough for me.
Comment 19 Jacopo Martellini 2020-05-10 17:02:40 UTC
Hello, work made me disappear from this issue for months, but here I am again.
I've submitted the change at https://phabricator.kde.org/D29603 but since it's the very first time that I dabble with qml, and, kde code, it could very well be horrible.
Comment 20 Nate Graham 2021-09-02 21:41:05 UTC
*** Bug 441922 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Nate Graham 2022-07-27 20:02:35 UTC
This was implemented in Plasma 5.25!
Comment 22 Jacopo Martellini 2022-07-28 12:48:04 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #21)
> This was implemented in Plasma 5.25!

I saw, thank you!