[Bug 163634] New: Usability: it is not obvious how to resize/move a panel

[monstermunch at fmail.co.uk]

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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163634         
           Summary: Usability: it is not obvious how to resize/move a panel
           Product: plasma
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: unspecified
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: panel-devel kde org
        ReportedBy: monstermunch fmail co uk


Version:            (using Devel)

For reference, this is what the 'control panel' for resize a panel looks like at the moment:
http://img164.imageshack.us/my.php?image=panelcontrollereq6.png

Just from looking at the screenshot, it's very obvious how to change the justification of the panel (i.e. the icons give a strong hint what they do from the way they look), add widgets and remove the panel. Resizing the panel horizontally  is less obvious as the arrows are a unfamiliar widget but the arrows do look draggable. 

However, how to resize the panel and move it is much less obvious. The way resizes/moving works copies how window titlebars do this (i.e. dragging and stretching titlebar moves/resizes the window). From looking at the configuration panel, it just was not obvious to me that this was possible (the config panel looks nothing like a title bar window and is not part of the panel so I didn't expect resize/moving this to change the panel). I found it through experimentation but I would hope there would be a way to make it more obvious how to alter the panel. Also, even when you find the drag to move location, you are only given feedback when the panel snaps to one of the edges.

Some ideas:

* add a "resize panel" and "move panel" button. Very obvious and would act like when you select move/resize from a right-click window title bar menu. I find going from a menu click to what feels like a dragging action (except you aren't dragging) a bit weird though.

* Add a (not sure what the word is) gripper icon to the corner of the configuration panel (like the ones in the corner of windows). Some kind of arrow, dotted etc. thing to make it look like you can grab it.

* Have a "move" hover icon appear when you are in the area that you can click/drag to move the window. At the moment, nothing appears.

* Have a "click and drag this area to move the panel" label. Maybe a little ugly.

* Just have 4 icons for each of the four edges of the screen the panel can attach to. This would be similar to the old KDE3 configuration screen and how the justification look i.e. have a top, left, right, bottom icon that instantly move the panel to that edge on click. Not great for multiple monitors though.

* Perhaps continue with the idea of the coloured arrows used for resizing horizontally to resizing vertically. This would be nice and consistent as you are reusing the same concept and you could just add have a "drag arrows to resize the panel" label to make it really clear.  In the above screenshot, you would, for instance, add a horizontal pointing blue arrow to the top left corner of the panel. Grabbing this would resize vertically.