SUMMARY When opening the application dashboard, using the global keyboard shortcut or a mouse click, if the search field is focused (which isn't always the case, see bug #510871), it is not possible to use the arrow keys to move the focus to the favorites or application list. Compare with how the Application Launcher ("kickoff") behaves, where when the search field is focused and empty, using the arrow keys moves the menu focus. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Open the Application Dashboard. 2. Focus the search field, if not already focused. 3. Use the arrow keys to access the favorites or application menu. OBSERVED RESULT Nothing happens EXPECTED RESULT The focus should move to the application list or favorites and the user would be able to select an application to launch without searching. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: KDE neon User Edition KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.0 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0 Qt Version: 6.9.2 Kernel Version: 6.14.8-061408-generic (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 20 × 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700H Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.0 GiB usable) Graphics Processor: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics ADDITIONAL INFORMATION There are few additional navigation issues related to the search field: 1. If the search field is focused, using TAB to navigate to other sections is unintuitive as the Favorites section is the last in the tab order (it should be first) 2. If the search field is not focused when the Application Dashboard launches (which may not be desired anyway - see 510871 - especially if this issue if ever fixed), using the down arrow focuses the last favorite in the first Favorites line, while intuitively one might expect the first favorite to be focused.
I can confirm this bug in git-master
*** Bug 513545 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/3467
Git commit 4ea9f64e64ba20819081fa4fe576a5a45a230558 by Christoph Wolk. Committed on 27/01/2026 at 19:41. Pushed by cwo into branch 'master'. applets/kicker: make kickerdash keyboard navigation work better Keyboard navigation in kickerdash works rather awkwardly; the most noticeable issue is that it's impossible to get to the search field using keyboard shortcuts, or that the search field is not focused by default (while some things forward to it, it's not possible to type some things, such as using the compose key). And there are a bunch of other inconsistencies (in particular for tab navigation, with the search field not being in the tab chain) and older patterns (like forwarding arrow keys to the grid views while maintaining focus elsewhere, which is confusing and tends to break screen reader accessibility). This change makes arrow key navigation work more inutitively, fixes the tab focus behavior, and places default focus on the search field. Related: bug 510871 FIXED-IN: 6.6.0 M +78 -10 applets/kicker/DashboardRepresentation.qml M +4 -0 applets/kicker/ItemMultiGridView.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/commit/4ea9f64e64ba20819081fa4fe576a5a45a230558
Git commit b8b73fae70f2e7da69dbfa0a87bd17cc1dc3f2ee by Christoph Wolk. Committed on 27/01/2026 at 20:26. Pushed by cwo into branch 'Plasma/6.6'. applets/kicker: make kickerdash keyboard navigation work better Keyboard navigation in kickerdash works rather awkwardly; the most noticeable issue is that it's impossible to get to the search field using keyboard shortcuts, or that the search field is not focused by default (while some things forward to it, it's not possible to type some things, such as using the compose key). And there are a bunch of other inconsistencies (in particular for tab navigation, with the search field not being in the tab chain) and older patterns (like forwarding arrow keys to the grid views while maintaining focus elsewhere, which is confusing and tends to break screen reader accessibility). This change makes arrow key navigation work more inutitively, fixes the tab focus behavior, and places default focus on the search field. Related: bug 510871 FIXED-IN: 6.6.0 (cherry picked from commit 4ea9f64e64ba20819081fa4fe576a5a45a230558) Co-authored-by: Christoph Wolk <cwo.kde@posteo.net> M +78 -10 applets/kicker/DashboardRepresentation.qml M +4 -0 applets/kicker/ItemMultiGridView.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/commit/b8b73fae70f2e7da69dbfa0a87bd17cc1dc3f2ee