I do agree! I find these high tasks uglier than theses smaller like in KDE 3.

i agree too. (just to give that wishlist more credibility).

By the way, this is a wishlist item and not a bug

Oops, did I submit it as a bug? My mistake.

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

I think that this option should be rather something like "Always use maximum amount of rows". Some users may have bigger panel (enought big for 3/4/more rows of tasks) and they don't want to have exacly two rows but just a maximum amount.

That sounds good too, since some users may have panels too small for multiple rows.

so to make up for the ugly painting of taskbar buttons when they are too big .... you want to introduce configuration options?

configuration is not the answer to sub-par behaviour. *fixing* the behaviour, in this case the painting so it looks nicer, is.

just consider how screwed up the code would become if we then supported a mix of "minimum rows enforced, unless they don't fit, but then let the layout figure out the rest from there".

so this will not happen. we can always work on the appearance of the taskbar, but configuration options for this are going make this a WONTFIX.

i'll give you a couple of days to reply and change my mind on the matter.

I'm not saying that the taskbar buttons in their current state are "ugly" or that there is in fact a problem with the painting of the taskbar buttons. What I and the people who have voted for this wishlist item have stated is that we prefer it when there are always 2 rows. It's an issue of personal preference, not an issue of "something's wrong that needs fixed". I like the taskbar entries being smaller for the sake of them being smaller.

Aaron J. Seigo: you are right, too many options isn't a good solution.
I'm just afraid that if I change way of painting buttons (to don't use multiple rows as one, when possible ─ I'll be happy with that) someone may become unhappy and may create new wish about resoring old behaviour. So how can we decide which sollution should be used?

Guys, you are making comments having only to concepts in mind: one big row, or several smaller ones.

There might be a lot of other opportunities to choose from, so don't try to hardcode this two behaviours.
I think that's something Aaron tried to say: right fix is not choosing big row over smaller several ones or letting the user to choose from them, but fixing task presentation in such a way, that would be convinient to use for everyone.

Or at least trying to get close to such a way ;)

The primary problem I have with the task bar re arranging itself when I open a new window, is that I lose track of where a window is located in the taskbar.  I've commited a position for the window to memory, and switching is sped up.  Then I open a new window, and everything gets shifted all over the place.  I need to look for the window again.  

Having the items not reposition themselves would aid in this behavior.  I'm not sure if theres a sane way to do this without a configuration option, however.

I think this will not cause a 'settings overload' because these settings are not going to be in System Settings anymore.these are the 'Taskbar' settings and user will find them simply.
in KDE3, panel settigns were in Control Panel, you had to go to control panel, find the proper place for panel settings and there were lots of settings/tabs there.so finding a settings was hard.
but now, user right clicks on panel, gets the panel settings, nothing more, and right clicks on taskbar and gets taskbar settings, nothing more.so he will quickly find the setting.

btw i dont think that big taskbar items are ugly.problem is that when my taskbar is filled, i feel like messed up, like there are many windows open...

Jonathan: the taskbar users the most of the space it has. larger targets == easier to hit. it's not worth the complexity at either the code level or the UI level to make it always use two rows as an option: the win is tiny. the root of your issue is that you don't like how it looks, and what i'm suggesting is that there is probably a way to make it *look* better even in single row mode. unless you really mean "i like it being hard to hit the window entries." which i don't think you do. so the solution is to work on the appearance of the single row taskbar. and if that still doesn't do it for you, well, find another taskbar applet.

Rafał: it's not just too many, it's the wrong options or just plain bad options (as defined by: work around problems rather than solve them). as for the "but then someone will want the existing behaviour back" quandry, see the reply to Jonathan above.

Dan: the sane way is going left-to-right then top-to-bottom on add and vice-versa on remove. the layout animator sucks in that regard, but the improvement is fairly obvious and doesn't require any configuration options.

@Emil: it's still configuration overload if they are stuffed to the rafters in an application config dialog. and that doesn't address the impact on the code base either. and for the record, getting at taskbar settings could be done by right clicking in kde3 as well.

as for wanting things as cramped as possible so you get unused space ... that's just something we'll have to disagree on. the point of having space there is to use it.

OK: "uglier" was a bad word. I think similar to Dan Meltzer and Emil Sedgh. Always-multi-line taskbar is just more friendly for me, I feel better with that, I can easier remember position of each task-button. I also don't like moment when one line begins to be too short and every button changes it's size, place, position. That all is why I prefer always-multi-line taskbar.

I really cant see the Aaron's point, since this doesnt look like a problem with some 'technical difficulty'.
each plasmoid could have something between 0-10 options.you could decide to remove most options to keep simplecity and sacrifice customizability.

and the taskbar plasmoid, is probably one of the most importants.

(sorry for bad English)

Rafal: as i said already, the solution to positional movement (spacial memory invalidation) is to always move left-right, top-to-bottom in placement.

@Emil: the point is that configuration options are not a substitute for fixing problems.

consider: what is the better solution to "My elbow hurts when I move my arm": "Instead of using your arm, move things with your feet." or "Get a doctor to look at your elbow if the pain persists and if necessary get treatment for the elbow."

configuration options are fine when they actually provide a meaningful bit of value. when they are simply used as a way to more easily work around a problem, they are not just not useful they are *hazardous* to the code base.

when you add an option, it's really hard to ever take it back again (i've blogged about this some three years ago!) and every option complicates the code base. so if you are just working around problems that would have *real* fixes, then it's really shortsighted to put such a work around in place.

and what i'm saying is that this option would be exactly such a work around.

i dont think that this is a 'problem'.
some users prefer to have small taskbar items, some others prefer to have big ones.
saying 'big items are easier to see and click' (and forcing it to users) is like saying playing basketball is easier than soccer because you have more control on your hands (please dont force me to play basketball, i love soccer =) )
btw im not insisting anymore, thanks for replying. (its so hard to change your mind)

But you can always fork the taskbar to do one that is ok for you.
I personnaly want to have one that look like the kasbar of kde3.
I tried to do that but failed to get square icons but this is another story.
The point is that it seems preferable to have several plasmoid instead of plasmoids with a big complexity.

Matthieu

I think this bug/wishlist is better described as an option to 'scale taskbar buttons to use available space' or not.

Aaron: I understand your point about making it easier to hit, but if that is the 'ideal' then the solution would be to scale a single button to fill the entire taskbar. We don't do that because it's weird, unfamiliar, and familiarity is central to usability.

I would suggest that if a user regularly has enough applications open to fill the taskbar then it's possible that smaller buttons may be more 'familiar' - for that person - and represent a usability gain.

Would setting a default button-height (just as we currently have a predefined button-width) and making this toggleable be *that* complicated?

ah finaly i found out why i like 2 rows taskbars more than the current kde 4 one, somebody wrote it.
It's actualy the always same size of my tasks in the taskbar.
Actualy another thing is, i like small tasks more than big ones. This is probabably because i have very often 6-10 applications open at the same time. With the kde 3 two rows taskbar this isnt a problem (and the feeling of the taskbar always is the same), but with the kde 4 one everything changes size and position (suddenly i have 2 rows, then again 1).

It's nice to see such a constructive discussion about this very important point of the kde desktop

My panel height is 108px, for HDTV viewing, and I get about 6 tasks in view on a single line, a 7th window/dialog of any kind suddenly and brutally changes the taskbar view. Opening up Kate with a session of 20+ remote files is hideous, both for the dialogs covering the main screen and the transient number of items in the panel taskbar.

One solution for the taskbar is to have a sliding area with arrow handles on either side (like kickers left/right edge arrows) so only a subset of windows are viewable with the first opened windows taking precedence on the left and transient dialogs appearing to the right out of direct view "under" the rhs of the taskbar.

I guess for the open remote file dialogs, kate could have a optional viewable download pane like kmail and akregator.

I would also like this to get implemented. The nice thing about the kde 3 taskbar is that it puts the buttons in a small space and they are easy to see without having to scan the entire width of the taskbar(unless you have a full taskbar wich is usually not the case). Filling them left-to-right would make things worse.
The buttons are quite easy to hit and the text is easy to read since it is displayed horizontically. Making them larger will not accomplish anything. This is just a case of making things prettier at the expense of usability.
The only point that Aaron made is about code complexity wich is quite bullshit since it has to be able to display two rows anyway. The only difference this will make is that you would set it to display rows regardless of the number of tasks that you have.

i thought about this issue a lot and i think we it would be nice if applets use the maximum possible width, not the maximum possible height.this way, they would be accessible *and* beautiful.fat taskbar items are not so nice and thats why plasma panel is much better when its tiny.

Hey,

In KDE 3.5, I could have one row of my panel be buttons to launch applications and all other things on that row like the clock etc..., and a second row was the "task manager" with all the buttons of open windows.

That was a very good use of space: the whole width of my screen was available for task manager buttons, which had a sharp font.

In KDE 4.1 I didn't find a way to do this. All task manager buttons are cluttered together in a small space and are huge so that they are even less efficient. I have only 10 windows open, and can only read the first 3 letters of the name of every window in the taskbar! This is an abomination :p

Two rows, one for taskbar, one for all the rest, in 1 bottom panel, like was possible with KDE 3.5, would ROCK!