Bug 165196

Summary:	Panel configuration not intuitive
Product:	[Unmaintained] plasma4	Reporter:	Dotan Cohen <kde-2011.08>
Component:	panel	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	bluedzins, echidnaman
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Dotan Cohen 2008-06-28 16:18:53 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.0.83)
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages
OS:                Linux

There are many bugs on the KDE4 panel, I searched but this does not appear to be a dupe.

The current KDE4 panel configuration is not intuitive. These issues should be addressed:
1) It is not clear what needs to be dragged in order to move the panel to the top/sides. I literally stumbled upon it by accident, after giving up and concluding that panels cannot be dragged to other locations.
2) It is not clear what needs to be dragged in order to make the panel taller (or wider, in the case of side panels). Again, this is an option that I stumbled upon my accident.
3) It is not clear how to configure panel hiding. In fact, I have not yet found how to do this and it might not exist yet, however, after my experience with the previous two issues I concluded that maybe this feature does exist.
4) It is not clear how to move objects around to different locations on the panel. Like the previous item, I have not yet found this and it might or might not exist.

The current KDE4 panel configuration leads the user to look for hidden places to click and hidden things to drag. This is not the Legend of Zelda and users (especially business users) need the options to be clear and easily accessible. Please consider and alternative, KDE3-style configuration dialog. Thanks.

Comment 1 aapgorilla 2008-06-29 17:09:20 UTC

maybe a bit of text in the configuration should help (drag slider, drag up or down to resize). I too had no idea how the configuration thing that popped up was supposed to be used, I thought it was another panel.

Comment 2 Yves Glodt 2008-07-15 11:31:48 UTC

I wish there would be no panel "configuration panel" at all, in fact all the configuration could be done by drag-and-drop direct manipulation, by creating handles dynamically, and by right-click context menus, or click+modifier keys.

Sorry, but IMHO the current panel-config is clumsy :-(

Comment 3 Dotan Cohen 2008-07-15 13:09:11 UTC

Actually, Yves, it is all done by drag and drop. However, the wrong item is being dragged and dropped! The panel itself should be dragged and dropped, not the configuration popup. I agree that the current behaviour is clumsy.

Comment 4 Maciej Pilichowski 2008-10-29 17:26:18 UTC

Related report:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163060

Comment 5 Jonathan Thomas 2008-11-20 02:38:46 UTC

All of these issues have been addressed for KDE 4.2 in a similar vein to how bug 163060 was addressed. Moving/resizing the panels got their own specific buttons. Moving applets within the panel was added in KDE 4.1, and autohide has been implemented in KDE 4.2.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 163060 ***