Agree about the Whisker Menu.
One of the kde5 menu options is a good compromise. It is a narrower box with the icons for your favorites running down the left side and the search field across the bottom.
But, kde5 has other appearance problems. The default wallpaper looks like someone barfed in the parking lot and the panel icons looks like they were drawn by a 5 year old with a pencil. The volume slider indicator isn't much better. The kde4 interface was much better looking.

3 alternative type menu's and "Application Launcher" is enough like Xfce's Whisker menu.


I have never kept defaults of any desktop or windows env but we can't be discussing default interface with the most configurable Desktop Env is up for discussion.

Of course, the first thing I do is change the wallpaper, but I haven't found a way to change the default panel icons, e.g. volume, connection, clipboard, etc.

systemsettings > icons allow you to change the entire icon theme at once, to change individual icons you'd need to find what the icons your theme is using and replace that individual file with what you wanted to use (or create your own theme and load it).

I no longer have kde5 installed so I can't double check this, but I don't think "systemsettings > icons" will change the panel icons usually in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

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Yeah, those themes do indeed control those icons as well. I know because I always change the theme as I don't like the default "Breeze" icon theme, although there are many themes that use those same icons either out of ease or laziness.

No, none of the three are anything like Xfce's Whisker menu because all three current KDE menus are award and clunky.

The 3 menus seems perfectly usable to me if you understand how to use them but also I'm mostly launching from krunner or the latte dock.
As for configurations difficulties Plasma 5.18 is now much more easily configured and you can make it look and behave from WM's to heavy loaded DE's. I hope to see it in Slackware 15.

I know how to use all 3 of the application menus. The "Application Dashboard" looks like it's for a touch screen which reminds me of Windows 8 which I despise. The "Application menu" is like Windows 95/98/me/2000. The "Application Launcher" feels awkward to use. You can't make any of them look feel or work like the Whisker menu from Xfce. I wish the KDE developers would add the Whisker menu as the fourth option to KDE. I like KDE otherwise.

I love the Application Menu. A proper menu that doesn't require scrolling to see things, or multiple submnenus. Biggest reason I can't use most other DE's, I can't find a usable menu in Gnome, Cinnamon, XFCE...

That means you never tried the Whisker menu in Xfce.

I have indeed tried the whisker menu. It's not any good IMO. You have to scroll. So totally useless to me. I'm not a fan of the artificially constrained area that a menu goes in, and add scrolls to have to see everything, and make it all big and take up lots of room. I want exactly what the KDE menu gives. Expands to as large as it needs to be, has room for a few favorites, and has your menu. That's it. No scrolling, no hoopla, no extra cruft, just...a functional menu. Don't know why noone else uses a simple, functional menu.

Its safe to say its a matter of opinion and KDE team gives you the variety of options that are still not enough to satisfy everyone.
I was ready to ditch Plasma after v.4 but improvements from v5.12 to what v5.18 is now has called me back in.
Its plasma or dwm for my battle stations

Right click on the Whisker Menu button, then left click properties and change it to fit your needs.

So I cannot find how to do that to make it fit my needs. In this pic, how do I get rid of the entire right portion of the menu? I don't want a huge area for favorites, most frequently used, most recently used, etc. Just a MENU, with the search field. That's it. Nothing else. I cannot find that option in the properties... If it shows it when I click on a menu item, then ok...but it should NOT show anything other than the menu until such a time as I do.

https://ibb.co/wWhd7pr