ngraham added a comment.
That's disappointing to hear and a bit frustrating considering that it never came up in the Bugzilla ticket I filed months 3 ago, and the patch was approved by one Plasma developer and not objected to by another. Can I try to explain my reasoning before we revert it? In my bug triaging and online user support, I encounter //many// people being confused by the distinction between panel launchers and pinned Task Manager icons. With the default settings (task manager on panele and unlocked widgets), Kicker/Kickoff's context menus show options for creating both. And they are similar, but not exactly identical: - Both live in the same part of the panel by default - Pinned apps become Task Manager buttons when launched; launcher widgets don't - Pinned apps display jump lists; launcher widgets don't - Pinned apps can be removed when widgets are locked; launcher widgets can't - Icon sizes and scaling policy differs between pinned apps and launcher widgets To someone like you or me, these differences may be useful, because we understand them. To an average user, it just seems like a UI papercut. "Why are there two ways to do the same thing?" they initially wonder. Later on, as stumble across the differences (often by adding a launcher and then wondering why it doesn't have a jump list or turn into a Task Manager button when launched), they wonder "Why are these things so similar to one another? Why bother to have both?" I've seen a lot of people complain that launcher widgets seem like crippled versions of pinned launchers. Again, //you// understand why both exist and what each one is good for. But to an average user, only one is needed, depending on the context. Otherwise we just confuse people. As such, I think keeping this patch not only fixes a usability issue, but also fixes a source of Bugzilla tickets, user support requests, and feelings of confusion about Plasma being "Too complex". Before this patch, it was not "Simple by default". With this patch, we reduce the confusion and regain "Simple by default", but retain "complex when needed" because technically adept users like us can still add launcher widgets whose properties and traits we understand via the other methods. Does that make sense? I'm happy to clarify anything! REPOSITORY R119 Plasma Desktop REVISION DETAIL https://phabricator.kde.org/D12969 To: ngraham, #plasma, mart Cc: hein, mart, davidedmundson, plasma-devel, ragreen, Pitel, ZrenBot, lesliezhai, ali-mohamed, jensreuterberg, abetts, sebas, apol
