configure panel height

[Duncan]

Felix Miata posted on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:36:47 -0500 as excerpted:

> Kicker in openSUSE KControl offered tiny, small, normal, large & custom
> for size (which means height, as there's separate control for its
> width). In custom, height could be set by number of pixels or a slider.
> I find nothing comparable in KDE 4.4. Is it possible? If so, how?

>From your description I'm unsure if you've not yet discovered how to 
resize the panels at all, or if you don't consider the current method 
satisfactorily precise.

The panels can be resized and the method is supposed to be more intuitive, 
but to many kde3 users, it not only seems /less/ intuitive, but the whole 
process seems imprecise and indirect, at least compared to kde3's setup.  
There's some hope, however, as the whole thing seems to be changing over 
time in response to user outcry, and early kde4 plasma (see below) was far 
more panel inflexible than 4.3/4.4.

The whole desktop is now "plasma".  This includes the panels (kde3's 
kicker), the desktop itself (kdesktop), and all the shipped-with-kde-sc 
widgets, kmenu, etc, now called plasmoids.

The key to configuring much of plasma is the "cashew", aka "toolbox" 
icons.  These disappear on the panels when widgets are locked, altho the 
one on the desktop remains.  Thus, first unlock widgets (from the desktop 
toolbox, context-button clicking on the desktop if that option is enabled, 
or context-clicking on the panel and most plasmoids).

With widgets unlocked, again either context-click on the panel in 
question, click its cashew, or context-click a plasmoid (may be disabled 
on some of them).  Select panel options if appropriate, then panel 
settings.

A panel toolbar should popup, with the various tools for moving, resizing, 
setting behavior (always-on-top, auto-hide, etc), etc.

Assuming a horizontal toolbar, there's a "height" button.  Click and drag 
on this to the appropriate height -- up to a third of the screen height 
(so I can do 400 px tall panels on my 1920x1200 screen), and down quite 
tiny.

For vertical panels, that button is width, instead.  To set height on 
vertical panels (or width on horizontal panels), first use alignment under 
more settings, setting left/center/right, then drag the little arrow-
pointers as necessary.  There should be three of them.  Drag the one 
indicating alignment to move the panel along the edge.  Of the other two, 
one indicates maximum and one minimum panel size.  Set them both the same 
if you prefer.  Again under more settings, there's also a maximize panel 
option, setting it to full height for vertical panels, full width for 
horizontal panels, thus eliminating all the otherwise necessary dragging 
to get the same effect.

If you meant that you knew about all that, you just want a more precise 
pixel size setting, well... perhaps one will eventually be added.  FWIW, 
one thing that sort of helps with setting precise pixel dimensions is the 
kruler applet.  I use it for setting window sizes and etc too, on 
occasion.  Still, getting precise to-the-pixel might be difficult, tho 
with screen magnification (I like kde4's screen magnifier option, enabled 
on the all effects tab under desktop effects, in "the application formerly 
known as kcontrol", if you get my drift...), it's a bit easier.  I use the 
hotkeys to enable it when I'm doing fine work, altho the movement with the 
cursor can be a bit dizzying at times.

> In Bugzilla "Find a Specific Bug" search there is no product "panel". To
> look for existing bugs on this subject, what product should I select?
> Bugzilla search currently seems very slow.

As explained above, it's all part of Plasma, now.  The only arguable 
element of the desktop remaining separate is krunner, the run dialog, 
which is handy to know if you shut down plasma-desktop sometimes, as I do, 
using only krunner and my hotkey configuration to launch stuff.  FWIW, 
with the math extension, krunner makes a nice little calculator as well, 
and I use it in place of kcalc most of the time, now. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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