SUMMARY If I configure the icons-only task manager to have at most 1 row of icons, when it comes the time to shrink icons to fir more of them, it shrinks them way more than is necessary and in very big steps. I'd estimate at one point it shrinks them to roughly 1/6 of the size after adding 1 more icon, which is very unappealing and makes them hard to click and to visualize. Would be better if the icons were shrunk progressively like latte dock does, instead of immediately switching from big to microscopic. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Configure the icons-only task manager to have at most 1 row of icons. 2. Start adding widgets to the panel until the right half is not available for the task manager icons. 3. Start launching applications until the task manager is full and it becomes necessary to shrink icons. OBSERVED RESULT Icons shrink too much and too abruptly. EXPECTED RESULT Icons should shrink by the smallest amount that still makes them fit. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Windows: macOS: Linux/KDE Plasma: (available in About System) KDE Plasma Version: 5.21.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.86.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Icons do not smoothly scale because this would cause them to get blurry at the smaller sizes in particular; rather, they snap between the following pre-defined sizes: 16px 22px 32px 48px 64px 128px As you can see, there are some pretty big jumps between sizes especially at the higher end of this scale. But typically people don't use icons that large in their Task Managers. Can you maybe attach a screen recording that shows the icon scaling behavior you're seeing which also shows the height of your panel?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > Icons do not smoothly scale because this would cause them to get blurry at > the smaller sizes in particular; rather, they snap between the following > pre-defined sizes: > > 16px > 22px > 32px > 48px > 64px > 128px > > As you can see, there are some pretty big jumps between sizes especially at > the higher end of this scale. But typically people don't use icons that > large in their Task Managers. Can you maybe attach a screen recording that > shows the icon scaling behavior you're seeing which also shows the height of > your panel? Was playing with it again, now I noticed that the issue does not happen while launching apps that add icons, but while triggering actions that widen existing widgets (such as playing a file with a long name while having the “media player compact” widget), and also when changing the settings for maximum number of rows and clicking "Apply". And by the way they do scale and have many sizes inbetween those. The problem is particularly once they shrink below 16px. When adding icons by launching apps, they then start overlapping once shrunk enough, but when shrunk by other means, they shrink too much. In any case, even when adding icons by launching apps, they shrink more than necessary (for example, after reaching 20px or so, they continue shrinking as I add more icons despite roughly 1/4 of the panel space being free), and the icons are the only thing that shrinks, while latte also shrinks other widgets (which looks better as some widgets have too much space inbetween when put next to each other in a plasma panel compared to a latte dock).
Can you attach a screen recording that shows the issue?
Created attachment 142157 [details] kde_icons_shrinking Attached is a video. Notice all the wasted space, and notice how the space between widgets (such as the one next to the systray) does not shrink at all, while latte would shrink it too. If the widget with text had been widened before starting to add these icons, they would not have shrunk so much, but would still waste a lot of space and leave more and more empty space when shrinking. Also notice in there a certain bug that came back recently (although I'm not 100% sure it ever went away entirely) about new icons oftentimes not showing until adding yet another icon.
Looks like the Task Manager's own icon shrinking effect when new apps are opened is more or less fine (that extra space on the right is preserved intentionally, I believe) but the big problem happens when that media widget in your screen recording becomes wider. I think this may actually be an issue with the widget in question taking up too much space for itself. You can verify this for yourself by Entering edit mode while the widget in question is vislibe and hovering the cursor over it. You should be able tell from that how big the widget is. If it's taking up extra space on the left all by itself, then the bug is in that widget, not the Task Manager.
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #5) > Looks like the Task Manager's own icon shrinking effect when new apps are > opened is more or less fine (that extra space on the right is preserved > intentionally, I believe) but the big problem happens when that media widget > in your screen recording becomes wider. I think this may actually be an > issue with the widget in question taking up too much space for itself. You > can verify this for yourself by Entering edit mode while the widget in > question is vislibe and hovering the cursor over it. You should be able tell > from that how big the widget is. If it's taking up extra space on the left > all by itself, then the bug is in that widget, not the Task Manager. But it’s actually not fine either: if I were to keep adding icons there past what’s in the video, after a certain point, the space that it leaves between the icons and the next widget to the right would keep increasing as icons are added, shrinking them unnecessarily, although more progressively and would make the icons overlap with each other past a certain point, which does not happen when it shrinks icons after a widget widens. I do not think it has to do with the media player widget taking more space than it appears, because you’ll also see that there’s a volume control widget right next to it, and that’s what the task manager borders (that’s the KDE built-in widget, and doesn’t use extra space). The media player widget also uses the same space and ends up at the same absolute position regardless of whether it widens before or after the task manager is full enough that it shrinks icons, but the end result is different (for the task manager) depending on what happens first. The issue would also happen if it were the built-in system tray that would widen instead.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your video. Everything looks normal me until the very end when the text "No Media Playing" appears on the panel, and then the Task Manager becomes super duper squeezed. Can you clarify whether the problem you're reporting happens before that happens, or is that the moment at which the problem starts?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #7) > Maybe I'm misunderstanding your video. Everything looks normal me until the > very end when the text "No Media Playing" appears on the panel, and then the > Task Manager becomes super duper squeezed. Can you clarify whether the > problem you're reporting happens before that happens, or is that the moment > at which the problem starts? There's several issues which I think all come from the same underlying mechanism: - Case 1 (in the video): Icons shrink more than needed when a widget widens, and the size they have in this case is different than if they were shrunk by adding the same icons after the widget has already widened with fewer icons present beforehand (not shown in the video). - Case 2 (not shown in the video): After icons reach the end of the available space, if further icons keep being added, it starts leaving an empty space and shrinking them more than is necessary, and this space becomes wider and wider as more icons are added. - Case 3 (not shown in the video): After a widget widens enough, it also leaves an unused space, and this space also grows as more icons keep being added, even if they had not reached the end of the bar.
I'm having a hard time understanding the problem because you're describing multiple issues and your video shows multiple issues. Could we maybe limit this bug report to one issue and could you attach a screen recording that shows only that one issue?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #9) > I'm having a hard time understanding the problem because you're describing > multiple issues and your video shows multiple issues. > > Could we maybe limit this bug report to one issue and could you attach a > screen recording that shows only that one issue? Ok, then let's limit this to the weird resizing that it makes when forced to shrink by a widening widget. For the problem of widening empty space, I created bug 443641.
OK cool, thanks. Unfortunately I still cannot reproduce that specific issue with a horizontal panel, an Icons-Only Task Manager, and making the Clock widget wider by forcing the date to appear beside the time. I notice you're using Plasma 5.21. Any chance you could test again in 5.23 once it's released tomorrow?
I guess this one would also reproduce with a 38px panel.
Indeed.