Fancy Tasks NG

A feature-rich and highly customizable alternative task manager for KDE Plasma 6.

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What is this?

Fancy Tasks NG is an alternative task manager for KDE Plasma 6. It builds upon the native task manager concepts by offering deeper customization and additional visual features like animated activity indicators, smart notification badges on app icons, volume scroll controls, dynamic hover zoom, centered alignment, and rich tooltips.

Why this fork exists (A personal story)

I used the original FancyTasks by alexankitty for many years. When Plasma 6 came out, I thought the project was dead. Later, I found a fork (FancyTasksPlus by SushiTrashXD) that attempted to port it to Plasma 6.

Unfortunately, as Plasma continued to evolve (especially after 6.4), the code started breaking and the widget stopped working entirely. I temporarily went back to the standard Plasma task manager, but I really missed the features I was used to.

So, I decided to fork the project for myself just to restore basic compatibility with modern Plasma. After getting it to work, I started making a few small tweaks here and there. What started as a simple compatibility fix quickly grew into a major overhaul. I ended up completely rewriting large chunks of the codebase, removing legacy code, and adding a bunch of new features I had always wanted. Thus, Fancy Tasks NG (Next Generation) was born.

Overview of Capabilities

Fancy Tasks NG is a standalone task manager widget that includes the following features:

• Alignment: Built-in option to align tasks to the center of the panel.
• Background Data Integration: A custom D-Bus bridge enables the display of unread message badges and task progress bars directly on pinned icons, even if the application has no active windows.
• Interaction Shortcuts: Support for adjusting the volume of individual applications via mouse wheel scroll over their icons.
• Configuration Preview: A Live Preview component in the settings window displays changes in real time before they are applied.
• Visual Effects: Configurable options for icon hover zoom animations, custom indicator styles, and particle effects when closing windows.

For a complete list of features and version history, refer to the CHANGELOG.

Requirements

• KDE Plasma 6.5 (or newer)

How to install

From source (Highly Recommended)

This is the best way to ensure you have the absolute latest version:

# 1. Grab the code
git clone https://github.com/daydve/FancyTasksNG.git
cd FancyTasksNG

# 2. Build and install (this handles everything for you)
make install

Once it's done, right-click your panel, select Add Widgets, and look for "Fancy Tasks NG".

From a pre-built package

If you prefer not to use make, you can download the latest FancyTasksNG.plasmoid file from the Releases page and install it from the terminal:

kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet --install FancyTasksNG.plasmoid

From the KDE Store

You can also grab it from the KDE Store straight through the Plasma "Get New Widgets" dialog. (Note: The KDE Store version might occasionally be a bit behind the GitHub releases.)

Keeping it updated

If you installed from source, updating is a breeze. Just open a terminal in your cloned FancyTasksNG folder and run:

git pull
make update

This will fetch the latest code, recompile what's needed, install the update, and seamlessly restart Plasma for you.

Uninstallation

If you ever need to remove it, make sure you first delete any Fancy Tasks NG widgets from your panels. Then run:

make uninstall

Contributing

Found a bug? Have a great idea for a feature? Want to help translate the widget into your language? All contributions are welcome!

Head over to the GitHub Issues tracker to report bugs or request features. If you want to help with translations, you'll find the .po files in the tools/translate/ directory.

Acknowledgements

This project wouldn't exist without the amazing work of the original authors and the KDE community. A massive thank you to:

Who	What they did
SushiTrashXD	Created FancyTasksPlus (the initial Plasma 6 port that served as the base for this fork).
Alexandra Stone	Created the original FancyTasks for Plasma 5, pioneering the animated indicators and badges.
Luis Bocanegra	Implemented the original hover-zoom logic.
The Community	Everyone who has submitted bug reports, PRs, and ideas.

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_{Licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later  ·  Maintained by Vitaliy Elin}