Hi,

Below is an image of a typical plasma netbook session.



You type what you are looking for, and gradually icons pop up which match. In this case looking for system monitor.

I tried to make a video to illustrate the problem, but my netbook is too weak. But what happens is that the two System Monitor icons pop up very quickly and are placed in the center. After ~2s the .pdfs are found, and the two central icons are moved to the upper left.
The following screenshot was taken after 5 seconds, the above one after 1 second.

What happens often to me, that I see the program I want to run, move my mouse to it and click. But just in the moment when I try to click, more items are found and the one I wanted to choose is moved and I open something else instead.

On fast computer this might not be an issue as everything can pop up immediately. But on my netbook I feel very annoyed by this.

My suggestion: Once placed items should not be moved anymore. Instead new items are populated around the original item.

Might be also possible to detect if mouse had been moved and change the behaviour accordingly.

I would be happy about your opinion. I know this restricts a bit the flexibility of positioning depending on screen resolution and number of hits, but that would be a huge usability improvement.

Edit: Changed title, was "Plasma Netbook: Fix once displayed icons"
Added another screenshot