Created attachment 178365 [details] Screenshot of the Info Center SUMMARY Sometimes the user can be surprised that other apps launch, for instance, when the user clicks on the "System Monitor" entry in the "Info Center". While basically all other entries just change the content in the same window, this button opens another application. It would be great if this could be communicated to the user, similar like links are communicated by a small square icon with an arrow. Unfortunately I haven't come up with a good suggestion though myself yet.
> ~square icon with an arrow.~ With a symbolic world icon.
I don't think this is solvable in the general case; actions themselves are (I think) not aware whether they open a new window (and I could even imagine situations where it's non-deterministic whether they open a new window or not – say, if there was a button that opened a random side bar entry in Info Center, it would sometimes get the System Monitor and open a new window, and at other times it would not, with no way to know until the button is actually clicked. So should it get the marker or not? In specific cases this does seem like a very reasonable request, at least where it's not obvious that a new window will be opened. (System Monitor's Launch Konsole entry in the Tools menu also seems clear enough without an emblem. And if we added an emblem to launchers pinned to the task manager to indicate that they will open a new window, people would get out their pitchforks…) So if you see something where an unexpected window is opened, please file an individual bug for that specific issue, as I don't think this is actionable in general. We can repurpose this bug report to cover the specific example you gave, and I would definitely agree - opening a new app here is highly unexpected and should be indicated to the user beforehand. Maybe the entry should just be called "Launch System Monitor", but this might cause string length issues in some languages I fear...
Thanks for your response > if you see something where an unexpected window is opened, please file an individual bug for that specific issue > We can repurpose this bug report to cover the specific example you gave Sounds fine to me!
Am I missing something? The button doesn't actually open another app; it displays a dialog window asking if it's okay to open another app. Therefore the user doesn't get surprised by the app opening. That said, I agree it's odd behavior. I think it would be better if this sidebar list item were deleted, and "Launch System Monitor" were added to the hamburger menu or the header actions on the main page or something.
> Am I missing something? The button doesn't actually open another app; it displays a dialog window asking if it's okay to open another app. Nope, it doesn't show a dialog window. Just tested it on Fedora 41 with Plasma 6.3.0 and a with a new user account. Can't also remember to have ever seen it. The InfoCenter's content page, which gets covered by SystemMonitor's window says "Systemmonitor is an external application and has been launched automatically."
That's odd. Can you attach a screen recording of it?
Created attachment 178610 [details] Screenrecording of InfoCenter: Launching SystemMonitor
How strange! It's supposed to just show a dialog.