Bug 499472 - Kickoff menu not centering on the screen horizontally when centered on the panel and it *could* be centered within existing constraints
Summary: Kickoff menu not centering on the screen horizontally when centered on the pa...
Status: ASSIGNED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Panel (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.3.0
Platform: Fedora RPMs Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
: 508825 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-02-03 18:07 UTC by Leniwcowaty
Modified: 2025-11-06 18:39 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

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


Attachments
Expected behaviour shown in Kubuntu 24.04 on Plasma 5.27 (492.70 KB, image/png)
2025-02-03 18:07 UTC, Leniwcowaty
Details
Issue still persisting on Plasma 6.3.0 (1.26 MB, image/png)
2025-02-19 18:32 UTC, Leniwcowaty
Details
Sadly this is not the case either (1.70 MB, image/png)
2025-02-19 21:23 UTC, Leniwcowaty
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Leniwcowaty 2025-02-03 18:07:31 UTC
Created attachment 177934 [details]
Expected behaviour shown in Kubuntu 24.04 on Plasma 5.27

***
If you're not sure this is actually a bug, instead post about it at https://discuss.kde.org

If you're reporting a crash, attach a backtrace with debug symbols; see https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports

Please remove this comment after reading and before submitting - thanks!
***

SUMMARY
In Plasma 5.27 when you centered Application Launcher, aka Kickoff on the panel using panel spacers, the Kickoff menu would always open centered on the panel, attached to it, similarly to how it does in Windows 11, or Cinnamenu in Cinnamon, as a KDE example there's Ditto Menu and Andromeda Launcher. This gave the menu a coherent look and ensured, that no matter how many applications are on the panel, the menu would open in the same place.
However, since Plasma 6 came out, this behaviour is different. Kickoff menu tries to always center on the Application Launcher button, or if it's not possible, it will align its left side to the end of the panel (or screen edge). Because of that, the position of the menu changes depending on how many applications are opened and present on the panel, which makes using it much less intuitive, since you always have to look for the menu alongside lower edge (which is especially annoying with ultrawide monitor).
In my humble opinion, there should be an option in the Launcher settings to allign to left, right or center of the panel, or to center on the button, if this is better for someone. 
I have found this bug report: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477957, however the fix that resulted in that only aligns the menu to the left whereas I'd like it to, as stated before, and suggested in the mentioned bug report, to center on the panel/screen.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Add panel spacers to the left of the Application Launcher and to the right of Tasks Widget, so that Application Launcher and Tasks are centered on the panel
2. Launch Kickoff menu
3. Observe that the menu centers on the button, not on the panel

OBSERVED RESULT
Kickoff menu opens centered on the Application Launcher button

EXPECTED RESULT
Kickoff menu opens centered on the center of the panel (attachment in Kubuntu on Plasma 5.27)

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.2.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.10.0
Qt Version: 6.8.1
Kernel Version: 6.12.11-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Processor
Memory: 30.9 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: X670 GAMING X AX

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-02-19 18:16:53 UTC
This is fixed for me in Plasma 6.3.0.
Comment 2 Leniwcowaty 2025-02-19 18:32:37 UTC
Created attachment 178602 [details]
Issue still persisting on Plasma 6.3.0

As can be seen - this issue is still present on Plasma 6.3.0
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-02-19 20:38:31 UTC
In that case it's also expected: if it centered on the screen, it would no longer appear above the button on the panel.

If you un-pin or close some apps, you'll see that it becomes centered as you want.
Comment 4 Leniwcowaty 2025-02-19 21:23:40 UTC
Created attachment 178611 [details]
Sadly this is not the case either

Thank you for your help and assistance.

As can be seen - now I have only 5 icons on my taskbar. If the menu centered on the screen, it would still be above the button. However, the menu still centers on the button, not the screen/panel. Even if the menu is expanded horizontally, it still always center on the button.

In my opinion, it would be beneficial for end user to have a toggle/option to choose if it should center on the button or the screen (similarly to how Andromeda launcher does it)
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2025-02-19 21:25:19 UTC
Hmm, that does seem like a bug based on my understanding of the current implementation. Re-opening!
Comment 6 Leniwcowaty 2025-02-19 21:43:41 UTC
Do I understand correctly, that under current implementation, if:
1. The menu is wide enough, or
2. There aren't enough icons on the panel

So that opened menu *could* be both centered and above menu button (fully? partially?) then it should be centered?

That seems a bit inconsistent from my point of view. Supposedly I have 5 icons pinned + menu button, and the menu is only wide enough to facilitate 6 icons. Any additional application opened would move the menu button to the left of the panel, which means the menu would no longer be above it. So the menu gets "kicked out" and now centers above the button, completly throwing off the muscle memory, since it opens in completly different place than usual.

**A** solution to that is to have the menu be much wider than anticipated number of icons, but in my case that would mean the menu would have to take almost half of the screen width (and I have an ultra-wide monitor, on 16:9 laptop it's almost 3/4 of the screen width). Not very good solution, but it is A solution (of course if it works, which in this case doesn't, at least on both my systems).

So if I understand correctly - in current implementation there's no way to FORCE Kickoff to ALWAYS open centered on screen, no matter if it would be above button or not? I got into discussion on Fosstodon with Niccolò Venerandi, who claimed there is an easy-ish way to force that in QML, but sadly the conversation didn't go anywhere from that.
Comment 7 Leniwcowaty 2025-03-06 15:43:35 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2025-03-06 15:50:05 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 9 Bug Janitor Service 2025-03-09 15:17:57 UTC
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/libplasma/-/merge_requests/1285
Comment 10 Leniwcowaty 2025-06-27 08:55:06 UTC
(In reply to Bug Janitor Service from comment #9)
> A possibly relevant merge request was started @
> https://invent.kde.org/plasma/libplasma/-/merge_requests/1285

This would most likely solve the issue, unfortunately looks like this MR has stalled with no updates in 3 months and its milestone target being Plasma 6.4 no longer applicable.
Comment 11 Niccolò Venerandi 2025-06-27 09:06:17 UTC
(In reply to Krystian Kacprzak from comment #10)
> (In reply to Bug Janitor Service from comment #9)
> > A possibly relevant merge request was started @
> > https://invent.kde.org/plasma/libplasma/-/merge_requests/1285
> 
> This would most likely solve the issue, unfortunately looks like this MR has
> stalled with no updates in 3 months and its milestone target being Plasma
> 6.4 no longer applicable.

I'm sorry about that; we're hitting a weird layershell bug and I haven't found a fix for that yet; but I'll keep trying.
Comment 12 Leniwcowaty 2025-06-27 09:36:05 UTC
(In reply to Niccolò Venerandi from comment #11)
> (In reply to Krystian Kacprzak from comment #10)
> > (In reply to Bug Janitor Service from comment #9)
> > > A possibly relevant merge request was started @
> > > https://invent.kde.org/plasma/libplasma/-/merge_requests/1285
> > 
> > This would most likely solve the issue, unfortunately looks like this MR has
> > stalled with no updates in 3 months and its milestone target being Plasma
> > 6.4 no longer applicable.
> 
> I'm sorry about that; we're hitting a weird layershell bug and I haven't
> found a fix for that yet; but I'll keep trying.

Oh, understandable. Thank you for the response, I just assumed since there are no comments or updates there it just fell into "MR purgatory". Well, nothing to do but be patient I guess! Really looking forward to this being resolved.

By the way, it would make for an interesting video, how and why this was changed between 5.27 and 6.0, and why it's this hard going back to how it was!
Comment 13 Sylens 2025-08-20 11:15:22 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 14 Nate Graham 2025-08-28 16:46:24 UTC
*** Bug 508825 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 15 Leniwcowaty 2025-11-06 10:56:53 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 16 Sylens 2025-11-06 18:24:50 UTC
nate@kde.org it would be wiser to answer people whom "dare" to ask, instead of marking them as spam, so totally new people coming by to these tickets would have an actual idea about the progress. Because the way of how you're so diligently marking all these questions as spam (even if they're relevant to the tickets) will cause a chain reaction, of more people coming here to ask around, of what's the status of the ticket, because there's no information. No information => you keep people blindfolded => people will keep asking.

So, I ask it aswell (go ahead, mark me as spam, I look forward to it) : are you guys even working on this? If no, thats okay, then just mark the ticket as "later" or something, so people would have an actual idea of what's going on..
Comment 17 Nate Graham 2025-11-06 18:39:51 UTC
There truly is no information, though. The issue hasn't been fixed yet, and the open merge request stalled. 

Yes, we want to fix it, and there's open work that attempts to, but people get busy, life gets in the way, etc etc etc.

And pinging for status updates isn't going to change that, which means it just clutters up the history of the Bugzilla ticket, annoys people who actually read their email, and wastes the time of the people who might be able to fix the issue, making it *less* likely to get fixed. I'm afraid that's just the reality of the situation in a project where work gets done by volunteers (whose motivation is a precious commodity) and sponsored people (whose time is paid for).

In this case, what would have helped would have been an explicit reminder about the open merge request. I see that there was an open question, presumably addressed to me, that I forgot to answer. That's my bad, and I've answered it.