AppGrid — KDE Plasma 6 Application Launcher

A grid-style application launcher for KDE Plasma 6. Ships as two plasmoids — a standalone centered popup (AppGrid) and a native Plasma panel popup (AppGrid Panel) — both sharing the same grid, search, categories, and config.

• appgrid.xarbit.dev for screenshots, features, FAQ, install instructions, etc.
• appgrid.xarbit.dev/docs/ for build instructions, configuration reference, internals, etc.

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Install

Built, signed, and published by the AppGrid maintainer. These are the channels safe to recommend by default.

Distro	Command
Arch Linux + derivatives (AUR)	yay -S plasma6-applets-appgrid
Ubuntu 25.10+ (Launchpad PPA)	sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xarbit/plasma-applet-appgrid && sudo apt install plasma-applet-appgrid
Fedora (Copr)	sudo dnf copr enable scujas/plasma-applet-appgrid && sudo dnf install plasma-applet-appgrid
Immutable distros (KDE Linux, Kinoite, Bazzite, Aurora, Kalpa, SteamOS)	Universal ~/.local/ tarball — see INSTALL.TXT
Nix / NixOS	Flake — see packaging/nix/README.md

After install: right-click the panel launcher → Show Alternatives → AppGrid.

Full per-distro guide with download links, checksums, and step-by-step terminal commands: appgrid.xarbit.dev/#install.

Community packages

Maintained by third-party contributors, not by the AppGrid project. They are listed here as a convenience for users of those distros; we do not build, sign, audit, or vet the packages and cannot vouch for what each maintainer ships. Please open issues against the linked overlay/package, not this repo.

Distro	Source	Maintainer
openSUSE	OBS package	@JMarcosHP01
Gentoo	Overlay	@mnalmahmud
Fedora (Terra)	Terra package	@hilltty

If you maintain an AppGrid package for a distro not listed here, open an issue and we will add you.

Build from source

Requires Plasma 6.0+ (6.4+ recommended) and the KDE Frameworks 6 development headers — see PKGBUILD for the Arch list, or packaging/ for the Fedora spec and Ubuntu debian/ packaging.

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)
sudo cmake --install build
kquitapp6 plasmashell && kstart plasmashell

Arch users can build a proper pacman package with makepkg -sf and install via sudo pacman -U plasma6-applets-appgrid-*.pkg.tar.zst.

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Documentation

Full docs live on the website: appgrid.xarbit.dev/docs.

• Build from source + Dependencies (per distro) + CMake build options
• Configuration reference — every setting with default + effect
• Plasmoid variants & IDs · Favorites storage · Universal package internals · Update checker internals · Versioning scheme
• State file locations · Running the test suite · Translations workflow
• Help & troubleshooting — 1.7.x upgrade, distro ↔ universal switching, logs / debugging, bug-reporting

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Contributing

• Bugs / ideas — open an issue with steps to reproduce and your Plasma version (i: in the search bar copies your system info)
• Translations — .po files live in po/; add or improve a language and open a PR
• Code — fork, branch, PR. Keep changes focused; test against both AppGrid Center and AppGrid Panel
• Packaging — if you maintain AppGrid for a distro not listed above, open an issue and I'll add it

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Credits

• Jason Scurtu — author

This project is developed with Claude Code as an AI pair programmer. Context-engineered and reviewed, not vibe-coded — but if AI-assisted code gives you the ick, this might not be the launcher for you.

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Acknowledgments

AppGrid stands on the work of the KDE community.

Built with KDE Frameworks 6 & Plasma — KGlobalAccel, KRunner, KIO, KIconThemes, KCoreAddons, KWindowSystem, Plasma::Applet/PlasmaQuick, PlasmaActivities, LayerShellQt. Without these, none of this exists.

Inspired by KDE's own launchers — Kickoff for the popup layout conventions, Kicker for the SPI patterns we reuse (ProcessRunner, ContainmentInterface), KRunner whose results feed our search via KRunner::ResultsModel.

Thanks to the Plasma team, the Frameworks maintainers, and every contributor whose work AppGrid builds on.

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License

GPL-2.0-or-later.