Version: (using KDE 4.2.0) OS: Linux Installed from: SuSE RPMs I have a vertical panel up the right side of my screen. This contains only a task manager. In KDE3.5 it's an "external taskbar" and I have it configured to "tiny" size, which is, I think, 16 pixels wide. It shows just the icons of my running applications, which is how I want it in KDE4. In KDE4 I created a new panel for that side of the screen and added a Task Manager widget. Under Task Manager Settings I set the number of rows to be 1, then under Panel Settings I reduced the width of the panel to about 16 pixels. This has a different effect to KDE3. It seems the entry in the task manager has to contain the text describing the application, which is pretty useless thing to attempt in 16 pixels. In order to fit the icon and the text into such a small space it shrinks the icon down to virtually nothing - far too small to see - and then ends up showing about half the first character of the text next to it. The result is useless. The answer appears to be an option to not show the text in the task manager entry. I would have expected "1) Show icon, 2) show text, 3 show both" options, with 3 being the default. Then the current algorithm would, I think, do the right thing for how it works now and for what I want.
Created attachment 31148 [details] Example of how I like it Screen show from the top right corner of my KDE3.5 desktop. Against the extreme right edge is my column of icons in an external taskbar - a file viewer, VMware, 2 Firefoxes and so on. Butted up against it is the panel configuration dialog that allows me to get this effect. I can't duplicate it in KDE4.
re. the screenshot - a bug in KDE3 shows it listed as the "Main Panel". It isn't, it's the "External Taskbar". :)
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 159480 ***