I am not sure, if this is an issue of the task manager plasmoid, the plasma theme (currently, I am using Breeze), or both. I find it rather difficult to tell the state of a window just by looking at its task manager button. Consider the following visual representations: * a hovered button has a blue background color and a glowing icon, * the button of the active window has a blue background color, * the buttons of non-minimized windows have a light gray background color, * the buttons of minimized windows have a dark gray background color. I have the following problems: * A hovered button always has the same visual representation, disregarding the state of the window completely. This implies, that the visual representation does not change after clicking the button, while the actual state of the window does change. I often click task bar buttons repeatedly, because I do not see a change of the button and the related window is in another corner of another monitor and therefore out of my field of view. * It is not intuitively clear to me, that a dark gray button represents a minimized window. Especially, if there is exactly one minimized window and no active window. Reproducible: Always Expected Results: The state of a window should always be intuitively represented by the task manager button, especially while hovering a button. I suggest, to indicate hovering only by glowing (maybe including the text). In this way, the state of the window stays visible. For minimized windows I suggest to dim the text and maybe also the icon, similar to disabled GUI elements.
Created attachment 101527 [details] different window/button states A screenshot of the different window/button states in the same order as listed above.
VDG needs to look at it.
Created attachment 101999 [details] different window/button states with plasma-workspace 5.8.3 In the current version (plasma-workspace 5.8.3), the distinction between hovered and active buttons is better in my opinion. Yet, the problems that I stated in comment 0 still persist. I would even argue that minimized tasks now stand out even more.
*** Bug 350356 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 384290 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 108368 [details] Crude mockup of proposed changes (move to colored backgrounds for everything) Proposal: - A colored square behind the running and active program gets a background color equal to "Selection Background" from the color theme - A colored square behind running but inactive programs gets a background color equal to "Alternate Background" from the color theme - A colored square behind minimized programs gets a background color equal to "Alternate Background" from the color theme, but darkened. Crude mockup attached.
I would be in favor of something like the proposed change. However, we have to discuss colors at some point.
> A colored square behind the running and active program gets a background color equal to "Selection Background" from the color theme We had exactly what you suggest for a while and then it was changed back to line art. Can we stop randomly changing theme whenever someone comes by and doesn't like something unless it actually comes enclosed with a 20 page empirical study made in a lab or something?
(In reply to Kai Uwe Broulik from comment #8) > > A colored square behind the running and active program gets a background color equal to "Selection Background" from the color theme > > We had exactly what you suggest for a while and then it was changed back to > line art. Can we stop randomly changing theme whenever someone comes by and > doesn't like something unless it actually comes enclosed with a 20 page > empirical study made in a lab or something? For me it is not personal preference; it's a matter of usability and visual communication: - Using a thin gray or blue line to denote what's running and active (respectively) is challenging to visually distinguish at a glance. - Because a different background color is already used for minimized windows/apps, not doing the same for running or active windows/apps visually communicates to the user that it's more important to be able to tell when a window or app is minimized than it is to tell when it's running or that it's the active window, which seems odd. Given that we already had the requested design in the past, I'd be interested in knowing why it was changed to the current design. If the reason was because the visual designers wanted it to look more "modern", "flat", "minimalistic", or "material", then I would suggest that the onus should have been on *them* to include the requested 20-page lab study. :)
*** Bug 164218 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 375684 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 405602 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
We've got an open patch that will fix this: https://phabricator.kde.org/D25340
FWIW this isn't a Task Manager bug, it's a Breeze Plasma theme bug.
Git commit 7e52c869de2d58ff714b60252041a447db2c10c0 by Noah Davis. Committed on 09/12/2019 at 18:00. Pushed by ndavis into branch 'master'. Added background colors to active and inactive icon view Summary: Added: - Semi-transparent blue background color for active window - Semi-transparent gray background color for inactive but not minimized window Changed: - Reduced opacity for minimized background FIXED-IN: 5.66 Test Plan: Before: {F7804957} After: {F7805236} Reviewers: #vdg, ngraham, niccolove Reviewed By: #vdg, ngraham Subscribers: filipf, manueljlin, ngraham, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel Tags: #frameworks Differential Revision: https://phabricator.kde.org/D25340 M +976 -4784 src/desktoptheme/breeze/widgets/tasks.svg https://commits.kde.org/plasma-framework/7e52c869de2d58ff714b60252041a447db2c10c0
I know this is already marked as fixed, however, with the recent changes, I find it harder to distinguish the focused window from the others when using certain color schemes. I've attached a screenshot showing the difference between old and new Breeze theme using the Norway color scheme. With the new changes it is virtually impossible to distinguish the focused window (dolphin). With the old theme, it's much easier to distinguish it. I haven't tested other color schemes except the default Breeze one where the recent changes actually help rather than hurt. Is there a fix that might help no matter the color scheme?
Created attachment 126482 [details] New vs old theme: in new can't distinguish focused window (dolphin) Norway color scheme used
It's a bug in the Norway color scheme. Whenever you change anything, you find all kinds of bugs in the customization options. :)
Created attachment 140163 [details] different window/button states with plasma-workspace 5.22.3 With the patch from 2019-12-09, which (also) uses the background color for representing the window state, the situation got much better. Thanks! However, an important issues I initially mentioned still remains: “ * A hovered button always has the same visual representation, disregarding the state of the window completely. This implies, that the visual representation does not change after clicking the button, while the actual state of the window does change. I often click task bar buttons repeatedly, because I do not see a change of the button and the related window is in another corner of another monitor and therefore out of my field of view. ” I am not sure if I shall reopen this issue or create another issue for that.
Created attachment 140164 [details] different window/button states with plasma-workspace 5.22.3 (Upload image again with correct MIME type.)