SUMMARY Currently, everything in the tables (processes and applications) is centered except for the first column. Numeric values in tables should be right-aligned, text should be left-aligned. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Open system monitor 2. Switch to processes page 3. Ensure that one numeric column (e.g. "Memory" or "PID") and one text column (e.g. "Username" or "Command") are enabled OBSERVED RESULT In both columns, the text is centered. EXPECTED RESULT In the numeric column, text should be right-aligned. In the text column, text should be left-aligned. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Windows: macOS: Linux/KDE Plasma: (available in About System) KDE Plasma Version: 5.21.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.82.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Also happens on git master
Agreed. Ksysguard actually has an alignment hardcoded for each field, e.g cpu usage is still centered.
IMO it's visually cleaner to center numerical values as much as possible as it prevents huge whitespace gaps between wide columns, especially when you have a text column to the left of a numeric column. KSysGuard's column alignment always felt totally random to me. The Name and MAC Context columns (text) are left-aligned, but the Username column (text) is centered. The CPU column (numeric) is centered but the PID and Memory columns (numeric) are right-aligned. And so on.
While centering everything may look a bit cleaner, there are downsides as well. When numerical values are right-aligned, it is very easily visible which number is bigger (and in fact most proportional fonts still have equal-width digits to support this). In the context of the system monitor, I can easily spot the memory hogs. Centering (or left-alignment) makes this harder. Maybe this is not as relevant for PID (which is just an identifier and not a size indicator) or CPU (as it is very short). For the command column, some programs (e.g. postgres) have whitespace padding at the end of their command lines, so centering does not really work anyway. With username, centering is probably not too bad. In general, I think it is a common expectation (from other system monitors, spreadsheet applications or the real world) that English text is left-aligned and numbers are right-aligned. When this expectation is broken, there should be a compelling benefit. Finally, I don't think centering everything even solves huge whitespace gaps, at least not as much as a reasonable column width and column order do.
Fair enough. It's not something I feel super strongly about.