Thanks for the report.

I'm afraid we can't match everyone's opinion - if we make them bigger we'll get a bug report "the icons are too big" from someone.

It's using the stanard icon size - which is customisable in system settings.

Created attachment 100079 [details]
Compare with activities panel

I am so sorry but please reconsider this...

I have uploaded a screenshot to compare with the activities panel...
Shouldnt the two of them be comparable in that matter?

I tried changing the various icon sizes but there is no difference.
The icons in these three buttons are even smaller from the taskbar ones which in my opinion should be the smallest.

Maybe is it a padding issue? I see that the buttons' size is no problem
but the size of the icons in them are very small..

With regards,
Michail

David, (not defending the activity switcher here :) )

I do think this might have got changed accidentally - I don't know any other place where icons are intentionally 8x8px.

If the icons are different to activity manager that's a bug, yes. Sorry to misunderstand you at first.

Unfortunately I can't reproduce it, and the code between the two is mostly identical.

Can you send me your exact font and icon config and reopen this bug report.
(ideally just attach your ~/.config/kdeglobals)

Created attachment 100226 [details]
this is my kdeglobals

uploaded my kdeglobals

Git commit 79f842066d0544d879434b50aecee2cff7156336 by David Edmundson.
Committed on 01/08/2016 at 12:50.
Pushed by davidedmundson into branch 'Plasma/5.7'.

Remove dead code

Summary:
Setting the layout height to be the height of one of the layout items is
both pointless, it will be calculated from all child items
implicitHeight anyway, and wrong as the heading/textField could be
bigger.

Test Plan: Opened it, looked the same

Reviewers: #plasma

Subscribers: plasma-devel

Tags: #plasma

Differential Revision: https://phabricator.kde.org/D2241

M  +0    -2    desktoppackage/contents/activitymanager/Heading.qml

http://commits.kde.org/plasma-desktop/79f842066d0544d879434b50aecee2cff7156336

is the bug still valid after above commit? (icons between widget explorer and activity manager are the same here)

I havent updated after plasma 5.7.3, so I can not confirm it yet...

This still remains in my system with Plasma 5.8.0

This can be fixed in my system if at
       WidgetExplorer.qml:210  (Plasma 5.8.0)
I comment the line and do the following that looks a little how activities manager is using height
-------

            //Layout.minimumHeight: Math.max(heading.height, searchInput.height)
            Layout.fillHeight: true

that would break the case of the buttons being taller than the font.

Can you try:

diff --git a/desktoppackage/contents/explorer/WidgetExplorer.qml b/desktoppackage/contents/explorer/WidgetExplorer.qml
index b8761b4..41b1baf 100644
--- a/desktoppackage/contents/explorer/WidgetExplorer.qml
+++ b/desktoppackage/contents/explorer/WidgetExplorer.qml
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ Item {
 
     Action {
         shortcut: "Up"
-        onTriggered: list.currentIndex = (list.count + list.currentIndex - 1) % list.count 
+        onTriggered: list.currentIndex = (list.count + list.currentIndex - 1) % list.count
     }
 
     Action {
@@ -207,11 +207,11 @@ Item {
             id: header
             property bool showingSearch: false
             Layout.fillWidth: true
-            Layout.minimumHeight: Math.max(heading.height, searchInput.height)
+            Layout.minimumHeight: Math.max(heading.implicitHeight, searchInput.implicitHeight)
             Layout.alignment: Qt.AlignVCenter
             PlasmaExtras.Title {
                 id: heading
-                anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter
+                Layout.alignment: Qt.AlignVCenter
                 text: i18nd("plasma_shell_org.kde.plasma.desktop", "Widgets")
                 width: parent.width
                 elide: Text.ElideRight
@@ -221,7 +221,7 @@ Item {
                 id: searchInput
                 width: parent.width
                 clearButtonShown: true
-                anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter
+                Layout.alignment: Qt.AlignVCenter
                 placeholderText: i18nd("plasma_shell_org.kde.plasma.desktop", "Search...")
                 onTextChanged: {
                     list.positionViewAtBeginning()

David I tried and it didnt work, 

some numbers for my case,
heading.height and heading.implicitHeight , are both 29 in my system
searchInput.height is 0 in the beginning,

if I set directly 
Layout.minimumHeight: 30   //for header
the problem is fixed, it is one pixel difference, I suppose 29 gives us icon size:24 and 30 gives us icon size: 36 
is this is why it is fixed that way?

I hope that helps....

Can't reproduce this bug in:

Plasma: 5.12.1
Apps: 17.12.2
Frameworks: 5.43.0
Qt: 5.10.1
Kernel: 4.14.20-2-MANJARO
OS: Netrunner Rolling

Both 'Add Widgets...' and 'Activities...' windows have icons of the same size

Me neither, can't reproduce anymore. The buttons are the correct size now; looks like this got fixed.