The icons on the left, look like they correspond with the text on the right... They don't.

Lets get rid of them, and or make it a quick launch.

Isn't it a quick launch? I mean, it's called Favorites, but what's the difference?

In KDE 4.x I've never noticed any issues with the 'favourites' icons (the vertical ones down the left hand edge) seeming to be associated with the text to the right of them ('Recent Applications', 'Education' etc. etc in the above screenshot) but i agree with airop that it does look a bit like that in Plasma 5. Here's a screenshot of my menu in KDE 4.x:


The only real differences that i can see between KDE 4.x & Plasma 5 are:

1 - in the KDE 4.x version there's more of a gap between the column of 'favourites' icons and the text to the right of them, but note that the 'Search' field below that text isn't aligned with the text - it's closer to the 'favourites' icons than the text is.

2 - in my KDE 4.x screenshot I’ve reduced the number of 'power off' icons to just the single 'Power off' button instead of the 3 default ones in the Plasma 5 screenshot in the first post, and that big red icon really doesn't look like it's associated with any of the text. To my eye, in Plasma 5 the fact that those three icons are black & white and have a line weight that's fairly close to the unrelated text to their right makes my mind automatically (& incorrectly) associate the icons with the text (particularly the top of the three 'power off' icons and the text 'Utilities' just to its right).

If it was me i'd try tweaking the gap first & only if that didn't work would i try and address point 2 (because point 2 would mean more work & i'm lazy )

Isn't that specific for OpenSUSE? My kickoff (Arch) definitely looks different (without your mentioned problems) - but I saw that kickoff on a machine a recently installed an OpenSUSE...

bjoernbalazs wrote:Isn't that specific for OpenSUSE?

Not really, I suppose.

But, to be clear here:
openSUSE uses Kicker as application launcher in Plasma5 by default, not Kickoff.
And this thread is about Kicker, the title is wrong.

So that's probably a source of confusion here...

Right-click on the icon and select "Alternatives" to switch between Kickoff and Kicker.

What do you mean by quick launch?

Ah, learned something! Thanks for clarifying.

Just separate the text more from the Favourites icons and maybe alter the spacing between the text and/or the icons so that the differentiation is more clear.
I think that refining the design is preferable to modifying the function of that menu.