I am coming from 14.04, with Plasma Netbook, and now I need some help to set up a similar interface.
I hope, I may ask a number of questions in the same post? - i'll try:

1. When I use the 'Search and Launch' desktop, it is basically empty. I can drag an application to the desktop, but then there is a tiny application icon, and a small area containing some letters of the application name. This works, but looks horrible. A tight clock does not offer anything but the setting of a shortcut.

2. I cannot drag a whole group of applications to the desktop, neither generate a folder. Probably I didn't find yet how to. I would like to have a group of applications like in netbook, 'Internet', containing all Internet applications, 'Office', and so forth.

3. I can't find the cursor settings, it does that ugly bouncing; and contrary to earlier Settings, there seems to be no option.

Thanks in advance for help,

Uwe

1./2. I'm not sure, is the following what you wanted?
- create folders in your file system for the different application categories
- add folder-view-widgets to your desktop
- in the settings of the widgets, set the locations they should display to the according folders
- drag the desired applications into the category folders or directly into the widgets (you may want to rename the links as they will be named like "<application name>.desktop" instead of "<application name>")

3. in settings->applications there should be some kind of "program start indicator"-section (name may be different, just guessed the english translation).

Thanks so much for your help!

1. Has been solved, by incidentally: One needs to click ouitside, next to an icon, and waiiiit. Then the menu pops up. Not intuitive, but solved.

1./2. The one that you understood: Some problems: This is a *folder*, not an application folder. I wouldn't know how to 'drag' applications into a folder.
Plus, coming from the notebook Plasma, where I could click a category in Search and Launch, and then I'd get the applications popping up on the desktop.
I consider that much much better: One Icon, like 'Office', click it, and all applications come falling out of it onto an area of the desktop.

> 3. in settings->applications there should be some kind of "program start indicator"-section (name may be different, just guessed the english translation).
You'd think so, but here I am talking about Plasma 5, and there isn't ('Application Style').

Thanks anyway, again!

Uwe

1./2. The one that you understood: Some problems: This is a *folder*, not an application folder. I wouldn't know how to 'drag' applications into a folder.

For me it works to drag an application from the taskbar or the launcher into the folder and then select "link here" in the menu that is popping up.
There is also a "Quicklaunch"-Widget, it's specifically designed for containing shortcuts to applications (no need to create extra folders for them), maybe this one is the better choice for you.

Plus, coming from the notebook Plasma, where I could click a category in Search and Launch, and then I'd get the applications popping up on the desktop.
I consider that much much better: One Icon, like 'Office', click it, and all applications come falling out of it onto an area of the desktop.

I'm not familiar with plasma notebook, but does the "Application Dashboard"-Launcher-menu (can be enabled by right-clicking the k-menu->Alternatives) do the job for you?

> 3. in settings->applications there should be some kind of "program start indicator"-section (name may be different, just guessed the english translation).
You'd think so, but here I am talking about Plasma 5, and there isn't ('Application Style').

It isn't in 'Application Style', it's in 'Applications' (should be a star icon if you use breeze theme, tested on Plasma 5.7 and 5.8 )

Thanks again for your efforts! Here is the progress:

The Quicklaunch-Widget is there, but it does what one expects: containing all apps that one has dragged into there. So nothing special. I really miss the - alas, not longer existing - notebook theme. Why do the nice things tend to go away?

The Application Desktop Launcher is nice, and a little bit close. The notebook launcher was even better: The Application Desktop Launcher needs one click to open it, another to go to a group, and then all elements are displayed. The notebook launcher would just have icons for the groups, you clicked an icon, and all applications would become visible across the desktop. Having an icon per group is one click less, you can remove the icon of groups you don't need/like.

A full success was your hint of 'Applications', finally I found the 'launch feedback' and have the bouncing cursor gone.

Thanks very much for all your efforts, again!

And, no, I can't understand why we have to endure so many breakages and regressions with each update. Have these guys not listened to the transition to Plasma 4? Now it is Plasma 5, and Plasma 6 is in the making.

Glad to see that at least some things improved

Two more suggestions:

There is a widget called "Popup Launcher", which can be downloaded using the "get new widgets" button on the 'add-a-widget-panel'.
It is basically an Icon (that can be changed), and if you click on it, it shows a list of applications that can be chosen in the settings of the widget. If you use one instance of this widget for every application group, this may get close to the behaviour you are looking for. And you only need one click to view the applications in one group.

If you use a normal folder widget and hover a folder inside that widget, two small circles will appear next to it. If you click on the lower one of those too, the contents of the folder are displayed right on the desktop without the need to open a file manager. (The area you have to aim at is quite small though)

By the way, I am not aware that Plasma 6 is planned in the near future. Releases of Plasma 5 are planned at least until August 2018 (there may be more, they are just not planned jet), see https://vizzzion.org/blog/2016/10/plasmas-road-ahead/

Thanks, tried both. Both are alternatives to the behaviour of the netbook-interface. I'll try a tad longer, to decide on what to do.

Yet, I still consider nothing as clean and as elegant as the 'netbook' behaviour.
Later I'll try if I can tweak the otherwise fantastic 'Application Dashboard to do away with the unwanted tree, and instead just pop up the icons of one of the categories. Once this is possible, I'd place some 8 or 10 thereof on the Desktop, and get exactly what I am looking for.

The Plasma 6 info was what I happened to run into when trying to look for means to get back the functionalities that I was used to.
Being a FOSS person for the last 20 years, I sometimes feel sad, that the potential of *nix on the desktop is often wasted, by Gnome as well as KDE, by frustrating users over and over through introducing ever new and sexy (for the developers) frameworks that break functionalities.
Just to explain where my rants come from.

Thanks again,

Uwe

DON'T ever!

I found out the hard way that creating a second instance of the 'Application Dashboard', and customizing it, modifies the original k-menu. In a nutshell, it destroys it.
Fortunately, I could find a recovery solution: Edit->Restore System Menu.