I am on the window titled Desktop Settings -- Plasma Desktop Shell. Icons, and the first option is Sorting.

What does one do to make 'Unsorted' appear as the first selection in the 'Sort By:' dropdown menu?

I know this is possible because I apparently did something to make it appear on another of my Desktops -- it wasn't there at first and then I must have done something to make it appear. I thought it happened when I selected, or unselected, Align to Grid, but now I'm doing this again, without getting that result. So, I assume it was triggered by selecting some other option? But, what?

I am clicking 'OK' and 'Apply' but these seem to have no effect on the missing Menu entry.

I can't find an explanation of how I might duplicate this, by searching the KDE forum on the terms
Unsorted
and then, that selection, on
Icons

Perhaps someone could help me and others who may want to set up their Desktops the same way?

While waiting for a reply, I did a <Ctrl><Alt><Backspace> to restart KDE -- just to see what might happen.

I then returned to the Desktop giving me the configuration problem, opened the 'Sort By:' drop-down menu and 'Unsorted' now was at the top of the list.
I am obviously missing something -- and I would like to be able to more-predictably duplicate whatever has to be done, to create this option, when setting up another Desktop.

Has anyone else seen this missing menu-option problem, on their own system? Or, was this some sort of a one-time occurrence?

[edit] Well, it happened again, after adding a new Desktop. The unsorted menu selection absolutely refused to appear. This time, restarting KDE had no effect. So, something else must have happened, of which I was unaware. [/edit]

P.S.: Relevant system details may be seen in my signature.

OK, for the benefit of anyone coming across this thread through a forum or web search, there is an undocumented 'trick' to make the missing option appear:

Right click on Pager -> +Add Virtual Desktop
Right click on new Desktop -> Default Desktop Settings
View, Layout: Folder -> Apply
Right click on Desktop -> Folder Settings -> Icons
The problem is, Sort By: contains only four items, Name, Size, Type and Date.
Right click and drag any icon on the Desktop a short distance, in any direction.
As soon as the icon is dragged, a fifth selection, 'Unsorted' pops-into the Sort By field.
When the drop-down menu is opened, the new entry is now at the bottom, on the line following Date.
The 'Unsorted' menu selection, so far as I can determine, is persistent.
Apply -> OK

... and the Desktop is ready, including the option to display unsorted icons.

This worked twice. Who would have guessed?