Version: (using KDE KDE 3.1.4) The icons people want in their taskbar depends from people to people. There are three possibilities to have a taskbar which is suited for everyone: 1) Add very much icons in Kicker. --> problem: clutter 2) Add only a few icons in Kicker and let people add the icons by themself. --> problem: For people new to KDE it isn't easy to add icons by there own and if they could, they don't know that the application that they want exists in KDE. 3) See my proposal beneath. My proposal: The above described problem can be solved by adding an extra step to KPersonalizer: a step to choose the icons of Kicker. In this step people should see a list of actions like E-mail, Surfing on the web, Instant Messaging, Word processong, Music,... where they can (de)select one or more actions via checkboxes: some of these actions should be default selected (for people who click always on next). Maybe it's also a good idea to have default some advanced actions hided which can be showed via an advanced button. Under this list people should see an automatic updated preview of how their taskbar will look like with the actions they selected. It should be also possible that people can change the order of the icons via this preview. Draft: ------------------- What would you like to do with your computer? Here you can select actions like E-mail, Surfing on the web, Word processing, Music, Command line... Based on your preference we will give you a taskbar which is best suited for you. <short list with actions with checkboxes. Some actions are default checked so that "next...next...next people" ;) will have a usable taskbar.> Preview of how your taskbar will look like (you can change the order of the icons): <a preview based on the above selected actions> ------------------- ps: Some of these things where also discussed in the following very long thread: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=106104732116356&w=2
I agree with your proposal. KDE become a lot of applications and we can't propose suitable default buttons for all users. A step that ask for which use KDE will be is a very good way to quickly and easily personalize it ! And then, the user could go to work more quickly because his desktop will respond to her PC uses !
I see this wish is about three months old and hasn't received input since. Is it being pondered, or maybe worked on? This sounds like an excellent idea, especially with sane defaults and a preview of the taskbar. Or are there reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea, that may be escaping me? Thanks. :)
Sorry, that I did not comment on this before. I planned some sort of "kicker-themes" for kpersonalizer for quite some time. Unfortunately, I did not find much time for KDE recently and at the moment, I'm busy learning for exams. I will likely giving it a shot after I (hopefully) passed them. ;-) Sander put some thought into it and I think, his proposal will be quite usefull.
It should be pointed out to the new users in this step(in better and simpler terms, i guess), that: - the kicker panel is an ideal place to put "shortcuts" to the apps they will mostly use - later they will be able to freely add and remove "shortcuts" from kicker, and configure kicker to their needs - that all applications are always available in the K menu
Hi! Kpersonalizer will not be improved with new functionalities. It is only mantained for fixing existing bugs. I'm sorry. Regards.