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It's been apparent since I was using KDE3, that KDE likely takes some inspiration from WIndows 95 & 98 (9n) & ME (win9n/ME) such as drop-down start/kicker menu. However, I really preferred an earlier option in Windows 3 (win3) of program groups in boxes of icons (maybe in a program manager) you could move & resize and keep behind your running programs/tasks, or bring the program groups back to the front or side to see what you could run.

[img=770x610]https://zdnet2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/11/16/3345bc27-9e2d-4268-8b1a-3532af0dc37c/resize/770xauto/be61f0ace5f530d2dcc91b54f12d98e2/win-3-1-hero.jpg[/img] (don't know why the image didn't show but you can see the link)

I preferred that (but now also like taskbar w/start/kicker menu & system tray) because I'm a philosopher-scientist-mathematician, artist/writer/musician, etc. (polymath/Renaissance-man) so I used to work on something a while then take another look at some/all programs to be reminded what else I could do, or in case I had some inspiration. It was much easier than going through an entire start menu that if you make a single-pixel slip, you have to go back through. It was much quicker to see your entire lists of programs and be reminded much faster what else you might want to do.

(Similar to CDE & NsCDE,) couldn't it become an option in KDE also? The fullscreen application launcher/menu really doesn't equal the Windows 3 style for me, because one was able to do that while still using programs in the rest of the screen. To use a start/kicker menu you have to stop that and go to another layer that's very sensitive/fidgety to use and you may have to go several levels in to even see what is there, rather than immediately in a program group. I was most productive, in ways, in win3 because I constantly was able to see what else I could do. After start/kicker menu replaced that, sometimes I don't review some other programs for months or even years, and I lose productivity daily.

Desktop icons--as already were in win3--aren't a replacement option either, because as not having program groups, can't be as organized (nor have as many) and takes much longer to look through. Rather than desktop icons, I prefer just to have a blank gradient background of blue down to aquamarine/turquoise (in KDE3, also with a fullscreen slideshow on top, sadly no longer possible since Plasma 4, P4.)

Hi!

I'm using activities with quicklaunch-plasmoids. Perhaps you could adapt this: For every bigger task, create an activity, e.g. writing, audioproducion, …
Then place a launcher-plasmoid with the needed apps, like jackd, ardour, rosegarden for audioproduction.

koffeinfriedhof wrote:[...] I'm using activities with quicklaunch-plasmoids. Perhaps you could adapt this: For every bigger task, create an activity, e.g. writing, audioproducion, …
Then place a launcher-plasmoid with the needed apps, like jackd, ardour, rosegarden for audioproduction.

Meantime (still would like an option 99% similar to win3) that might be an option, but I haven't used 'activities' yet; is there an introductory documentation (or maybe even video? I normally dislike videos unless there's documentation beforehand, but might additionally be helpful in case of a new GUI thing.)

I do not know a (good) documentation. The official one is a real short one :https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/kde-workspace/plasma-desktop/activities-interface.html
It is another containment like the desktop. It has the predefined virtual desktops but provides a place for new/other on screen plasmoids. With the help of KWin-rules you can force windows to start/stay in an activity. They all share the default panels, but you could switch to latte-dock to have custom panels for each activity.

koffeinfriedhof wrote:[...] It is another containment like the desktop. It has the predefined virtual desktops but provides a place for new/other on screen plasmoids. With the help of KWin-rules you can force windows to start/stay in an activity. They all share the default panels, but you could switch to latte-dock to have custom panels for each activity.

Interesting, but most that's new to me also; I don't think of my desktop as a 'containment' or bother with 'plasmoids' or have more than one panel per monitor: by the time KDE added 'virtual' desktops I had multiple monitors anyway so have zero need for extra activities, desktops, panels, plasmoids. Nevertheless, it sounds it could be usable.

However if people could just have old GUI options back it'd save them from putting 500+ icons in program groups when that should be automatic.

If you really want to have all installed applications unfiltered in one view, you can have this very easily. Just place a folder view - plasmoid on the desktop and link it to /usr⸨/local⸩/share/applications and you have all system wide installed applications in one big list.

This approach does not allow filtering or using local customized desktop-files, so you could just link or copy the .desktop-files to ~/.local/share/applications/ and use this as target for your folderview. Another approach would be to use two folder views: the systemwide view an the local one, so that you can have both without linking and copying.

koffeinfriedhof wrote:If you really want to have all installed applications unfiltered in one view[...]

I never said that, as that's not what program groups are about; groups, not group: did you view the image?