Wouldn't it be easier, and save all this difficulty, if the logic were changed so that the panel, once hidden, stays that way until the mouse pointer moves into its area of the display?
-- Regards, Peter. Gentoo amd64 system, Kernel 5.15.11, GCC 11.2.0, SDDM 0.18.1-r5 kde-apps 21.08.3, kde-frameworks 5.90.0, kde-plasma 5.23.5
