Icons in panel rearrange themsleves

[Howard]

Related questions: 

1. Icons in the main panel in KDE3.5 can be moved around by right clicking on them, this doesn't seem to be available in KDE4, they go where they want and I cannot find out how to order them the way I want.  Is this possible?  How?

2. What's a widget?

[AndrzejL]

Related questions:  

1. Icons in the main panel in KDE3.5 can be moved around by right clicking on them, this doesn't seem to be available in KDE4, they go where they want and I cannot find out how to order them the way I want.  Is this possible?  How?

2. What's a widget?

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,68352.0.html

1# rule of the forum = Search for the answers before asking questions.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,68352.msg557661.html#msg557661

Andy

[T6]

Icons in the main panel in KDE3.5 can be moved around by right clicking on them, this doesn't seem to be available in KDE4, they go where they want and I cannot find out how to order them the way I want.  Is this possible?  How?

unlock the taskbar/the widgets and in the taskbar cashew? right click and panel preferences, you will have a tool that let you move the icons wherever you want, just move the cursor over the icon you want to move and move it, also you can move all other objevts you have there

"What's a widget?"

have you seen those pretty clocks or those nice trash can or those weather apps in the desktop?  
those are widgets, small apps that will stay running in your desktop, there are many widgets like those, if you have seen google widgets, you can add those too in kde4, there is a big list and increasing constantly with variety, rss, weather, clocks, translators and others more

"The left hand few icons stay put, the right hand ones move around mystically, not such a big deal though"

the icons that move around in the right side together with the "i", this is normal, it just shows what apps are running in the system that can have a module there to configure or call actions

[Georgetoon]

Glad to know I'm not the only onewho's noticed this little hiccup in the the top panel. 

I tied to create three smaller panels and place icons (no more then five) in each.  On reboot, the panels were on top of one another even though all widgets were locked in place.

I've gone back to one panel and just letting the icons run wild where they may.  I'll find them.

[Howard]

1# rule of the forum = Search for the answers before asking questions.

I always do, I can't help it that the search tool is inadequate.  (E.g. no phrase searching only words.)
Try searching for "moving icons in panels" all I get in "no result".

I don't find your videos helpful anyway - they are too small to read on my screen.

[AndrzejL]

1# rule of the forum = Search for the answers before asking questions.

I always do, I can't help it that the search tool is inadequate.  (E.g. no phrase searching only words.)
Try searching for "moving icons in panels" all I get in "no result".

I don't find your videos helpful anyway - they are too small to read on my screen.

Search inadequate, videos too small... oh my... fonts to blurry perhaps?

Double click on any of the videos below to open it on the Youtube site if You want to watch it in the full screen mode.

[CJ]

I am probably wide of the mark, but... this wouldn't be something simple like the Grouping and Sorting that I have in the 'normal' taskbar?
(Right click panel, Smooth Task Settings.)

Cheers!
CJ

[T6]

"I always do, I can't help it that the search tool is inadequate.  (E.g. no phrase searching only words.)
Try searching for "moving icons in panels" all I get in "no result"."

in general, anywhere, do a search for a phrase most times is useless, specially in a forum because most times what you want to express or ask can be interpreted very different by other forum members and probably written different in the subject

all you can do is do a specific search in the specific section of the forum and use your common sense, if you have problems with kde4 the kde4 section sounds like a good limit for your search(the search option can do this)

"I don't find your videos helpful anyway"

now, sir, you are just being rude here

"they are too small to read on my screen."

you can always go full screen you know?  

also youtube has limits to the size of the video and resolution/quality, if you want high definition content, there is no options yet(bandwidth/price)

[AndrzejL]

"I always do, I can't help it that the search tool is inadequate.  (E.g. no phrase searching only words.)
Try searching for "moving icons in panels" all I get in "no result"."

in general, anywhere, do a search for a phrase most times is useless, specially in a forum because most times what you want to express or ask can be interpreted very different by other forum members and probably written different in the subject

all you can do is do a specific search in the specific section of the forum and use your common sense, if you have problems with kde4 the kde4 section sounds like a good limit for your search(the search option can do this)

"I don't find your videos helpful anyway"

now, sir, you are just being rude here

"they are too small to read on my screen."

you can always go full screen you know? 

also youtube has limits to the size of the video and resolution/quality, if you want high definition content, there is no options yet(bandwidth/price)

Thanks T6

Andy

[Bald Brick]

I am probably wide of the mark, but... this wouldn't be something simple like the Grouping and Sorting that I have in the 'normal' taskbar?
(Right click panel, Smooth Task Settings.)

Cheers!
CJ

No, that is something else. "Smooth Tasks" is an improved alternative to the "Task Manager". They both show your running programs.

In KDE3 the predecessor of the Task Manager was called the Taskbar -- which led to all kinds of confusion as former Windows users often talked about "the taskbar" when they meant the whole panel. Today the Taskbar and the Panel are the same thing.

But both Smooth Tasks and the Task Manager are widgets that take up some space on the panel and can be moved in the same way as the panel icons.


And by the way, AndrzejL has put quite a lot of work into his videos, just to make setting up KDE4 easier for others.

[T6]

no, thank you AndrzejL 

"No, that is something else. "Smooth Tasks" is an improved alternative to the "Task Manager"."

the problem is that the icons moving around happens in the original taskbar so any extra suggestion doesn't fix the original problem

the only possible solution could be what already has been mentioned, recreate the taskbar but that didn't helped

maybe a manual edition of the taskbar could help but i am not sure which one is the file

[Bald Brick]

the problem is that the icons moving around happens in the original taskbar so any extra suggestion doesn't fix the original problem

You're quite right. Howard's questions and both your answers and my own took us a bit off topic. The problem is that Howard quite understandably thought that his problem was related to georgetoon's -- and he was probably not alone in that. I only tried to explain the changing terminology, because if that is unclear, the possible solutions to both problems are going to be unclear.

At the same time I'm also trying to replicate georgetoon's problem on my box.

[Georgetoon]

I am probably wide of the mark, but... this wouldn't be something simple like the Grouping and Sorting that I have in the 'normal' taskbar?
(Right click panel, Smooth Task Settings.)

Cheers!
CJ

Thanks.  I'll check that tonight. 

[Howard]

Thanks to T6 and Blackbird for your polite, and informative replies. We have to remember that there are all sorts of levels of expertise using these fora - that's what they are for, so that we can help each other.   There have been occasions when even I know more than a questioner and I try not to talk down to them any more than I did to my students for 40 years.

It took me a little while, but I have found out how to move the icons in the panel around (Panel options>panel settings actually, rather than panel preferences).  

And I now have an inkling as to the difference between a panel and a taskbar, and what a widget is.  (They've been around a lot longer than the name!)  If I've got it right, the taskbar is the middle section of the panel which shows what's running.  So what are the other bits called?  (Icons on the left and widgets on the right I think.)

I much prefer written instructions that I can print off and have by my side when I'm trying to follow instructions.  My 71 year old memory doesn't allow me to keep a copy of the details one of Andy's videos in my mind as I try to work things out.  I do appreciate the time he must have taken to prepare them though and I now know how to see them full screen too..

I do have some searching experience.  I was thinking of the advanced search box in Google, where one can tailor the entries to avoid irrelevant results.  The ones available in this forum only allow a list of words, not even any Boolean operators and I find this restricting.

And, no Andy, I don't find the fonts at all fuzzy when I've got the right glasses on.  In fact I find the KDE4 fonts sharper than those in KDE3.

[T6]

" My 71 year old memory doesn't allow me to keep a copy of the details one of Andy's videos in my mind as I try to work things out."

my 29 year old memory leaves me forgetting birth dates, names, phone numbers and my own name sometimes, perhaps i should be worried now? 

"Thanks to T6 and Blackbird for your polite"

i have been called many ways in my life but i can't remember someone saying that i am polite