🟩 MineLauncher — Minecraft-Style KDE Plasma App Launcher

MineLauncher (package ID: mc_inventory) is a KDE Plasma 6 plasmoid that transforms your desktop app launcher into a Minecraft Creative Inventory–inspired grid.
Browse your applications with category tabs, a favorites bar, and authentic Minecraft-style UI elements. 🧱

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🔗 Also Try

💡 If you like this Launcher, you might also enjoy: MineClock on GitHub — another Minecraft-style plasmoid with similar fun vibes!

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🧩 Features

✅ Grid-based launcher UI — 9×5 scrollable app grid with Minecraft-style borders
✅ Category tabs — Top and bottom tabs (like Minecraft's Creative tabs)
✅ Favorites bar — Pin up to 9 visible favorite apps for quick access (additional favorites are stored but only the first 9 are shown in the bar)
✅ Search functionality — Real-time app filtering
✅ User profile bar — Display username with Minecraft avatar support
✅ Power controls — Lock, logout, reboot, and shutdown buttons
✅ Custom scrollbar — Minecraft-style scrollbar with row snapping
✅ Color-coded categories — Apps display category colors in tooltips
✅ Configurable — Custom launcher icon, size, avatar URL, and always expanded option
✅ Built in pure QML + JS for Plasma 6

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📂 Folder structure

mc_inventory
├── contents
│   ├── config
│   │   ├── config.qml
│   │   └── main.xml
│   ├── ui
│   │   ├── CategoryTab.qml
│   │   ├── CompactRepresentation.qml
│   │   ├── configGeneral.qml
│   │   ├── DashboardRepresentation.qml
│   │   ├── InventorySlot.qml
│   │   ├── main.qml
│   │   ├── StaticFavoriteGrid.qml
│   │   └── StaticGrid.qml
│   ├── minecraft-items
│   │   └── {images}
│   └── textures  
│      └── {images}
├── grass_block.png
├── LICENSE
├── metadata.json
├── preview2.png
├── preview3.png
├── preview.png
└── README.md

Component descriptions:

• main.qml — Root UI file; manages app grid, category switching, and main logic
• InventorySlot.qml — Represents a single app slot with icon, tooltip, and click handling
• CategoryTab.qml — Renders a category tab (top/bottom) with icon and selection state
• StaticGrid.qml — Draws Minecraft-style borders/background for the main app grid
• StaticFavoriteGrid.qml — Draws borders/background for the favorites bar
• configGeneral.qml — Implements the widget's configuration dialog UI
• CompactRepresentation.qml — Handles panel/compact widget mode
• DashboardRepresentation.qml — Handles dashboard/expanded widget mode
• grass_block.png — Default launcher icon (Minecraft grass block)
• metadata.json — Plasma package metadata and manifest
• minecraft-items/ — Minecraft assets
• textures/ — Minecraft assets

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⚙️ Installation

Local Install (Recommended for testing)

# Create the plasmoids folder if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/

# Copy this project there
cp -r mc_inventory ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/

Then right-click desktop → Add Widgets → search for "MC Inventory".

If it doesn't appear:

kbuildsycoca6 --noincremental
killall plasmashell
kstart plasmashell

Package Install

# From the parent directory containing mc_inventory/
kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -i mc_inventory

# To update an existing installation
kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -u mc_inventory

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🎮 Usage

Categories

• Top tabs: All, Favorites, System, Utilities
• Bottom tabs: Games, Graphics, Internet, Multimedia, Office, Development

Interactions

• Left-click — Launch application
• Right-click — Add/remove from favorites
• Mouse wheel — Scroll through apps (snaps to rows)
• Search field — Filter apps by name

Favorites Bar

• Right-click any app to add it to favorites
• Favorites are stored without an enforced limit; however, the in-widget favorites bar shows up to 9 pinned apps (extra favorites remain saved but are not displayed in the 9-slot bar)
• Favorites appear at the bottom of the inventory (first 9 entries)
• Right-click favorites to remove them

Power Controls

Located in the user bar below the main grid:

• 🔒 Lock — Lock screen session
• 🚪 Logout — End current session
• 🔄 Reboot — Restart system
• ⚡ Shutdown — Power off system

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⚙️ Configuration

Right-click the widget → Configure MC Inventory...

General Settings

Launcher Icon:

• Choose any system icon for the panel/desktop
• Default: start-here-kde

Icon Size:

• Range: 16-256 pixels
• Default: 48px

Custom Avatar URL:

• Leave empty to use mc-heads.net/avatar/{username}
• Or provide a custom URL to any image
• Example: https://mc-heads.net/avatar/Steve/100.png

Always Expanded:

• Keep the launcher always visible (useful for desktop widgets)

• Default: Off (click to expand)

    Label {
        text: "Note: Favorites bar displays up to 9 items; additional favorites are stored but only the first 9 are shown in the bar"
        font.pointSize: Kirigami.Theme.smallFont.pointSize
        opacity: 0.7
        Layout.fillWidth: true
        wrapMode: Text.Wrap
    }
  

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💻 Manual Uninstall

# Remove the plasmoid directory
rm -rf ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/mc_inventory/

# Or use kpackagetool6
kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -r mc_inventory

Then restart Plasma:

killall plasmashell
kstart plasmashell

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🧠 Development Notes

Current Status

The plasmoid is now functionally complete with all major features implemented:

• ✅ Full category system
• ✅ Search functionality
• ✅ Favorites management (favorites are saved without an enforced limit; the favorites bar displays up to 9 visible slots)
• ✅ Custom scrollbar with row snapping
• ✅ User profile display with avatar
• ✅ Power controls
• ✅ Configuration dialog
• ✅ Color-coded tooltips

Known Limitations

• Favorites are stored with no hard cap, but only the first 9 favorites are visible in the in-widget favorites bar (this matches the 9-slot/hotbar visual design)
• Some KDE themes may affect border appearance
• Avatar images require internet connection (mc-heads.net)
• Avatar images may be overridden by a custom URL in the config

Tips for contributors

• Always keep "Id": "mc_inventory" in metadata.json matching the folder name
• Name ("MC Inventory") is just the visible label
• Check logs with journalctl --user -f | grep plasmashell
• Test in a sandbox session (Xephyr) for major changes
• Use Qt 6 / Plasma 6 APIs only

Development Tools

# Watch logs
journalctl --user -f | grep plasmashell

# Restart Plasma after changes
killall plasmashell && kstart plasmashell

# Test in Xephyr
Xephyr :1 -screen 1920x1080 &
DISPLAY=:1 plasmashell --replace

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🤝 Contributing

Got QML experience? Plasma dev skills?
Contributions are welcome!

Areas for improvement:

• Additional category icons/themes
• Animation polish
• Performance optimization
• Accessibility features
• Theme customization options

How to contribute:

1. Fork this repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request 🚀

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🧱 Future Plans

• Animation effects (fade in/out, slide transitions)
• Custom category creation
• Theme variants (dark mode, different Minecraft versions)
• Drag-and-drop app organization
• Recent apps category
• Keyboard navigation support
• Multi-monitor improvements

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📜 License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later

Copyright (C) 2025 CAL (calamytryx)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

See LICENSE for full text.

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🙏 Credits

• Inspired by Minecraft's Creative Inventory UI
• Built for KDE Plasma 6
• Avatar service: mc-heads.net
• Icons: KDE Breeze icon theme

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💬 Fun Fact

"MineLauncher" is named after the Minecraft Creative Inventory — but here, you're not placing blocks… you're launching apps like items! 😆

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📸 Screenshots

The launcher features:

• 9×5 scrollable grid with Minecraft-style borders
• Category tabs at top and bottom
• Search bar with real-time filtering
• Favorites bar with up to 10 pinned apps
• User profile with Minecraft avatar
• Power controls for system management
• Custom scrollbar matching Minecraft's UI style

Check preview.png and preview2.png for visual examples!