Bug 447603 - Icons in icons only task manager reduce to unusable size when Panel is filled up with other widgets
Summary: Icons in icons only task manager reduce to unusable size when Panel is filled...
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Task Manager and Icons-Only Task Manager (show other bugs)
Version: 5.93.0
Platform: Other Linux
: HI major
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Eike Hein
URL:
Keywords: usability
: 418878 426060 436219 478259 491845 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 488142
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2021-12-28 14:00 UTC by samuele1.sg
Modified: 2024-08-20 17:34 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

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


Attachments
This is the icons only task manager after some time my computer is turned on (1.76 KB, image/png)
2021-12-28 14:00 UTC, samuele1.sg
Details
attachment-14311-0.html (1.61 KB, text/html)
2022-01-28 21:01 UTC, samuele1.sg
Details
Screenshot_20220129_223113.png (16.16 KB, image/png)
2022-01-29 21:32 UTC, samuele1.sg
Details
attachment-9527-0.html (1.26 KB, text/html)
2022-01-30 13:19 UTC, samuele1.sg
Details
video showing the icons scaling issue (3.06 MB, video/x-matroska)
2022-02-07 21:00 UTC, galder
Details
attachment-21137-0.html (1.09 KB, text/html)
2022-02-11 13:26 UTC, samuele1.sg
Details
Taskbar setup that causes the issue when rotated (20.66 KB, image/png)
2024-02-09 19:55 UTC, Nathan F.
Details

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Description samuele1.sg 2021-12-28 14:00:30 UTC
Created attachment 144909 [details]
This is the icons only task manager after some time my computer is turned on

SUMMARY
***
Hello, I have got a problem with the Icon only task manager. After some time that my computer is turned on, the icons's size in the Icons only task manager gradually reduces, until I can't even see or click on them. This happens only when i click in some apps, like if I'm working on my browser this happens, but when I click on the desktop the size returns at the normal size, or, when I'm working on my first screen, in the second screen it's all ok, but when I click on an app in the second screen Icon size reduces in the second and returns normal in the first.
***

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1.  Turn on the computer
2.  Open an app
3.  Wait

EXPECTED RESULT
I'd like that the icons only task manager will work fine

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: EndeavourOS 
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.89.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Comment 1 galder 2022-01-26 15:00:47 UTC
Hello,
did you try with the latest stable 5.23.5 version?

I could not reproduce the issue.
Regards
Galder
Comment 2 samuele1.sg 2022-01-28 21:01:11 UTC
Created attachment 146021 [details]
attachment-14311-0.html

Hello,
Thank you for the answer, I just updated and, unfortunately, I can still
reproduce it. I hope that you or someone else could help me solving it.
Thank you all the same
Samu

Il giorno mer 26 gen 2022 alle ore 16:00 galdera <bugzilla_noreply@kde.org>
ha scritto:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447603
>
> galdera <lemmyg@gmail.com> changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>          Resolution|---                         |WORKSFORME
>              Status|REPORTED                    |NEEDSINFO
>                  CC|                            |lemmyg@gmail.com
>
> --- Comment #1 from galdera <lemmyg@gmail.com> ---
> Hello,
> did you try with the latest stable 5.23.5 version?
>
> I could not reproduce the issue.
> Regards
> Galder
>
> --
> You are receiving this mail because:
> You reported the bug.
Comment 3 galder 2022-01-28 23:04:13 UTC
Hello,
I started to notice similar problem this morning. 

In my case it happens when I have many widgets in the panel and I started to use the  panel with auto hide.
Because there is a limited space for non icon task manger widgets, suddenly they started to disappear.

The correct behaviour should be to reduce the size of the widget according the existing space but not disappear.

I'm using plasma 5.23.5

I'm going to mark this as confirmed to see what the developer says


Regards
Comment 4 galder 2022-01-29 09:52:29 UTC
Could you please attach a picture of your entire panel? 
To see the layout of your widgets.

In may case task manager starts to do weird changes to icons when  I change the height of panel.
Sometimes the icon size doesn't not adapt properly.

Regards
Comment 5 samuele1.sg 2022-01-29 21:32:24 UTC
Created attachment 146055 [details]
Screenshot_20220129_223113.png

Here you are:
[image: Screenshot_20220129_223113.png]

Il giorno sab 29 gen 2022 alle ore 10:52 galdera <bugzilla_noreply@kde.org>
ha scritto:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447603
>
> --- Comment #4 from galdera <lemmyg@gmail.com> ---
> Could you please attach a picture of your entire panel?
> To see the layout of your widgets.
>
> In may case task manager starts to do weird changes to icons when  I
> change the
> height of panel.
> Sometimes the icon size doesn't not adapt properly.
>
> Regards
>
> --
> You are receiving this mail because:
> You reported the bug.
Comment 6 galder 2022-01-30 11:14:00 UTC
Hello Samuele,
Yesterday,  I tried with master version, this is future plasma 5.24.0 version that will be released soon. I think Icon only task manager behaves  much better, as I don't see the icons disappearing.

I think we need to wait until the version is released because this issue is difficult to replicate. I would also recommend you to try to recreate your panel to see if that helps.
Regards,
Galder
Comment 7 samuele1.sg 2022-01-30 13:19:32 UTC
Created attachment 146071 [details]
attachment-9527-0.html

Thank you very much for the help. I'll try to recerate it.
Regards
Samuele

Il dom 30 gen 2022, 12:14 galdera <bugzilla_noreply@kde.org> ha scritto:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447603
>
> --- Comment #6 from galdera <lemmyg@gmail.com> ---
> Hello Samuele,
> Yesterday,  I tried with master version, this is future plasma 5.24.0
> version
> that will be released soon. I think Icon only task manager behaves  much
> better, as I don't see the icons disappearing.
>
> I think we need to wait until the version is released because this issue is
> difficult to replicate. I would also recommend you to try to recreate your
> panel to see if that helps.
> Regards,
> Galder
>
> --
> You are receiving this mail because:
> You reported the bug.
Comment 8 galder 2022-02-07 21:00:15 UTC
Created attachment 146405 [details]
video showing the icons scaling issue

this test was made with current master 5.24.0
Comment 9 samuele1.sg 2022-02-11 13:26:01 UTC
Created attachment 146580 [details]
attachment-21137-0.html

Hello, I finally fixed it: I've configured the global menu, reducing it,
and now it's all fine.
Thanks for all your help,
Regards,
Samu

Il giorno mar 8 feb 2022 alle ore 15:35 galder <bugzilla_noreply@kde.org>
ha scritto:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447603
>
> galder <lemmyg@gmail.com> changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>             Version|5.23.4                      |5.24.0
>
> --
> You are receiving this mail because:
> You reported the bug.
Comment 10 galder 2022-02-11 13:38:18 UTC
Hello Samuele,
I'm glad to read that you found a workaround.
Any way the issue still exists, it should be fixed because is very visible.
Comment 11 Peter Ries 2022-03-03 13:48:57 UTC
I too can confirm this behaviour after 5.24 was out.

When I use laptop with 1920 screen width and about 40% of bottom bar filled with plasmids and miniprograms from the right hand side the task bar with symbols only gets compressed like in the first screenshot. sometimes also icons of a running program is not being displayed and reappears after one more program is started.

the cnmpression of the icons does not occur when I use my very wide screen display with 3840 pixels screen width. Here the right positioned icons only make about 20% of screen width. May be the effect only shows when the space left on the left for task bar drops below a certain limit?
Comment 12 Peter Ries 2022-03-03 14:32:53 UTC
fun fact. coincidentally I dicovered that this does not occur after I put a second separator next to the existing one. strange. but seems to work around it...
Comment 13 Andrew Steele 2022-08-14 01:26:47 UTC
A suggestion intended to improve how the pinned icons on the task manager behave.

Icons pinned to the task manager is a great idea, so are virtual desktops.
I think it would be better when switching from one virtual desktop to another one that the icons remained rather than come and go depending on the status of the application, i.e. running or not.
Instead when you click on a pinned icon then if the application is not running, start an instance in the current desktop.  As is currently done.
On the other hand, if the application is running then switch to the appropriate desktop and bring the application to the top.  If a second instance of the application is required then right click to bring up the menu and select duplicate.
Colour around the icon could be used to visually indicate if the application is currently running or not.
Comment 14 Nate Graham 2023-04-11 21:01:05 UTC
Unfortunately there isn't a generic way to fix this. A panel only has so much space, when when that space is limited, *something* has to scale down to make room for everything else. At a certain point, there's no room for it anymore.

In the specific case of this setup, it's possible to improve things by making the Global Menu widget not fill empty space on the panel. It does by default, and so does the Task Manager, so they will compete for that empty space. Turning off space-filling in the Global Menu will allow the Task Manager to take up all the free space and thereafter, it can be right-aligned if you want it to put its internal whitespace on the left side so that there's empty space between the Global Menu and the Task Manager.
Comment 15 Nate Graham 2023-04-11 21:07:30 UTC
*** Bug 426060 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 16 Nate Graham 2023-04-11 21:07:34 UTC
*** Bug 418878 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 Nate Graham 2023-04-11 21:57:30 UTC
*** Bug 436219 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 Nate Graham 2024-02-08 17:19:19 UTC
*** Bug 478259 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Nate Graham 2024-02-08 17:21:21 UTC
I wish we had a better resolution status than NOT A BUG here, because this clearly *is* a bug, it's just that we don't really have good options for solving it; right now the Task Manager icons are the ones that get squeezed when there's not enough space on the panel, so you see the problem there, but if we made anything else squeeze instead, the problem would simply migrate there.

Given the increasing number of duplicates though, it's probably worth applying some creative thinking to the problem. Maybe we can force the Task Manager to move into a multi-row mode, or maybe we can start reducing the size of *everything* on the panel so the squeezyness is shares, rather than only dumped on the Task Manager.
Comment 20 Tammes Burghard 2024-02-08 17:43:11 UTC
Ideas I have for this:

1. Make all the spacers actually width 0
2. collapse as many items as needed in the systemtray into that expandable arrow widget that already holds hidden items
3. Let the clock fall back to a more compact formatting
4. squeeze everything equally
5. force multiple rows

Yes I know this is quite complicated and a lot of work...
Comment 21 Nathan F. 2024-02-09 19:55:13 UTC
Created attachment 165706 [details]
Taskbar setup that causes the issue when rotated

I have the taskbar setup shown in the attachment, and when I rotate my computer in tablet mode, the tasks all get compressed by the sensor readout to the left of the system tray. I'd like to add to Tammes' idea with the suggestion that custom widgets should have an option to be hidden when space becomes limited. If this was possible, I could set the sensor readout to do this. I think that this behavior would come into play after all VW spacers are fully shrunk and inter-icon spacing is set back to desktop mode, but before the system tray icons are hidden or tasks are compressed. Alternatively, the order in which those steps happen could be user-customizable.
Comment 22 Nate Graham 2024-02-13 22:41:53 UTC
There is a discussion in https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/issues/115, FWIW.
Comment 23 Tammes Burghard 2024-02-17 23:42:38 UTC
Very nice, thanks for linking it.
Comment 24 Nate Graham 2024-08-20 16:49:42 UTC
*** Bug 491845 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***