KDE Plasma 5.23.3 - Disappearing Menu Bars (when using the "Hamburger" icon)

[SomeGuy]

Don’t know if this has been identified already, but having finally narrowed down the source of a Menubar issue, I thought I’d alert others. Sharing is caring …

Observation: I noticed that my main menu bar (File, Edit, View…) atop the window of many apps were missing. This was observed on on two separate Manjaro installations (hardware: a MacbookPro and a Dell)*.

Conclusion: If I selected the “hamburger” (Application Menu) icon in any customized Titlebar Button configuration (found under the Window Decorations of the Appearance tab in System Settings) as part of the cluster of icons on the left side of my windows, then the primary menu bar of many applications simply disappeared. (The “hamburger” itself contained the Menubar choices, but the menubar itself was nowhere to be found - so perhaps this is the intended behavior?)

When I restore the default Titlebar settings under Window Decorations, those primary window menu bars (File, Edit, View, …) return.

This drove me nuts for a couple of hours as I was trying to resolve it using Krita, and then realized it wasn’t just a Krita issue.

This led me to explore the KDE window behavior at large - and ultimately to my having chosen to move various window “decoration” buttons around.

Of course if this issue is old news to many folks (or if this is a feature, not a bug) then I’m just late to the party.

*Installations: (1) circa 2011 MacBookPro dual booting from external drive and (2) Dell Optiplex 7010 tower single-boot, both running Plasma 5.23.3KWin Arch/Manjaro.

[Aragorn]

@SomeGuy

Conclusion: If I selected the “hamburger” (Application Menu) icon in any customized Titlebar Button configuration (found under the Window Decorations of the Appearance tab in System Settings) as part of the cluster of icons on the left side of my windows, then the primary menu bar of many applications simply disappeared. (The “hamburger” itself contained the Menubar choices, but the menubar itself was nowhere to be found - so perhaps this is the intended behavior?)

Yes, that is the intended behavior. You have three options…:

1. A global menu in a panel ─ usually placed at the top of the screen ─ as in Apple macOS.
2. The application menu inside the application window, as in Microsoft Windows.
3. The application menu hidden behind a “hamburger menu” button in the window title bar.

[SomeGuy]

@Aragorn

Yes, that is the intended behavior. You have three options…:

1. A global menu in a panel ─ usually placed at the top of the screen ─ as in Apple macOS.
2. The application menu inside the application window, as in Microsoft Windows.
3. The application menu hidden behind a “hamburger menu” button in the window title bar.

Excellent … many thanks for clarifying. Now I’m off to figure out which one of 3 options will work best for my needs.

Hopefully someone in the future searching re: “disappearing menu bars” will benefit from this brief exchange, sparing them undue rabbit-holing