I like the KDE desktop environment a lot. It is relatively configurable, and
easy to master. The only thing about it that I miss from my Win9x environment is
the enhanced task bar. I am able to creat tool bars or pop-up menus in the
task bar at the bottom of the screen at will. I could point a "tool bar" at a
folder, and the contents of the folder would be available in the tool bar. This
ability allowed me to keep a much cleaner desk top, and to organize my desk top
icons into tool bars and pop up menus. I used pop up menus for such things as a
My Documents folder and a My HTML folder as well as any specific project I may
be working on at any given time. The tool bars I use for system utilities, and
applications I find I need for all projects (my favorite goodies and toys). The
task bar could also be resized from one row high to half the screen high, and
it can auto-hide as well.
kpanel can auto-hide, and you can select the icon size small, medium, or large.
But you can not set up two or more rows, and you can not organize the icons
into "tool bars" within the panel, although pop-up menus are possible. I just
think a panel as flexible and configurable as the Win9x one would be a usefull
tool in any desk top environment.
Take note that I am not asking for a Win9x environment. If I wanted that, I
could be using it right now. I simply think that the panel applet could be
more flexible, and the enhanced task bar in Win9x is a good example of the kind
of flexibility I have in mind.
To put this in a nut shell, I would like a panel applet which can have one or
more rows of tool bars or pop-up menus. I want to define the size of the icons
displayed in the tool bars and pop-up menus in terms of pixels, not small,
medium or large. I also want the tool bars and pop-up menus to represent the
contents of folders, allowing automatic update as the contents of the
represented folders change.
I think this may be asking a lot, considering that Linux Mandrake is free for
all intents and purposes, but you asked :).
--
___________________________
Ernie ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
