Charles Obler said the following on 02/26/2010 12:55 PM:
Thanks for the suggestion. I now have a presentable quicklaunch panel.
:-)
My initial attempt did not go well, however.
Now I come to think about it, months ago when I did this it took a bit of experimentation.
[...]
Here is where the problems started. Since I already have my taskbar panel on the right, and did not want to overwrite it, I created the new panel on the left.
Duh! (-; ylisae egami rorrim a seod gnihtyreve toN
Then I added quicklaunch. But the quicklaunch widgets were not properly aligned -- they were at the extreme right edge of the panel, and were partially cut off by the panel edge.
Did I say to centre the panel? There are drag points where you can expand the panel and set where the centre goes. If the panel isn't big enough funny things happen. Pretty much like this. I've attached a screenshot of the drag points for adjusting the 'length' of the panel. And if your quicklaunch applet inside the panel isn't big enough for all the launchers you put in it, funny things happen.
I tried to grab the launcher and move it, but it had no handle.
I think you mean the quicklaunch applet. No, you adjust the size of the panel to "move" it and insert spacers around it and adjust the size of the spacers. But first adjust the size and centering of the panel!!!
The individual applications were also unmoveable.
I think you mean the launchers inside the quicklauncher. You don't move them by drag, and yes that is counter intuitive. Go back to the screenshot of the control or the quicklauncher I attached to a previous mail. You CAN sort then ascending or descending.
Finally, in desperation, I moved the panel to the top edge of the screen. Some of the quicklaunch icons
you mean the launcher
went with the panel, and others gathered in the top right corner of the screen, some sitting atop others.
Ah. Well that means they hadn't been put in the quicklauncher, which also explains some of your previous problems.
I think the initial problem occurred because quicklaunch insists on creating two rows or columns of application icons.
Now why would it do that? Because you hadn't set the size of the panel to be "tall and thin". Oh, top of screen. "long and thin". See the adjustment using the controls in the screenshot I've attached.
I wanted to keep the panel width to a minimum, since panels monopolize screen real-estate -- they appear on every screen.
:-) That's why I set "autohide" when I was finished. In the control for the quicklauncher you can control the size of the icons that appear in it. I had a screenshot of that control panel in a previous post. As you can see from that, I've set the icon size to 24px and I've got 23 icons in my panel on the right. You could set the icon size to 16px if you have better eyes than I do. But DO make sure there is space enough for all the icons you put there. I've set it for 30 even though I only have 23. If you set it too low funny things happen.
I would increase the width to see all of the quicklaunch icons,
No, that's not the way to do it. See what I've said before about making the panel "long" enough to accommodate the size of the quicklauncher with all the launchers in it. Use the grey arrows like in the attached screenshot
then decrease it, expecting the icons to flow into a single column.
When you adjust the panel - not the quicklauncher - to adjust its length along the edge of the screen (as opposed to 'width' - how far it protrudes into the screen), don't you see little grey triangles with arrows in them? make sure its long enough.
Could I put quicklaunch in a folder? Do I need to have a panel? Maybe I should explore autohide or something like that.
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I like the quicklaunch capability. However, I'm not sure that I agree with your philosophy.
At the risk of being flippant, I would say that programs ARE data -- e.g., "*.desktop" uses the launcher or kicker or whatever.
The nice thing about programs is that they remain relatively constant, whereas my *.html files, for example, change every day and every hour. Once I add the program "opera" to the folder, I can access a vast range of html files without having to change the folder.
On a real desktop, one has a mixture of data and tools. One has a stapler, a pencil, a pen, a ruler, a typewriter (remember those?), an in-box, an out-box, a blotter, etc., along with a few documents.
-- "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." -- Plato, _Phaedrus_
