Reconsider panel sizing
(This is separated from https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/plasma-framework/-/merge_requests/932.)
Issue
Currently the default panel sets different icon sizes for the left and right applets:
This is because applets to the right of the Margins Separator become smaller. (Precisely, some applets such as Task Manager are not affected by it though.)
Personally I find it looks unbalanced overall.
I also think symbolic icons on the left look too big against the panel height. It's even worse if we apply the common tool button style for them:
If all the icons were the same size:
I think it will look more balanced and professional.
Proposal
So I suggest making the left and right icons in a panel the same size. To achieve it, I suggest not using Margins Separator to adjust applets sizing. Instead, make applets sizing configurable in the panel settings (using the same SVG hints), e.g.:
Contents Size:
(x) Normal
( ) Large
So people who prefer large icons can still choose it (but for all the panel icons).
Or possibly, allow users to set arbitrary panel padding, e.g.:
Panel Padding: [-| 8 |+]
So users can set their preferred icon size in any panel thickness.
Perhaps Task Manager icons should also follow the panel setting, but I'm not 100% sure. Ideally, IMHO it would be great if Task Manager could allow 24px icon size, which is neither too small nor too big on 40px-48px panels, but it doesn't seem to be easy according to Nate's comment.
Comparison with other operating systems
OS | default panel height | system icon size (left) | app icon size | system icon size (right) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Plasma 5.27 | 44px | 32px | 32px | 22px |
Windows 8.1 | 40px | 28px, at least | 32px | 16px |
Windows 10 | 40px | 16px | 24px | 16px |
Windows 11 | 48px | 24px (colorful) | 24px | 16px |
ChromeOS | 48px | 20px, probably | 32 or 34px? (lossy/blurry) | 20px, probably |
To be clear: What I'd like to see is unified icon sizes like Windows 10 and ChromeOS have. (However, as a side note, I'm not thinking ChromeOS's big app icons are good because it's making the button states hard to distinguish, e.g. whether selected or not, whether minimized or not, etc.)
Thoughts?