task manager and panel locks

[James the Third]

Hello all, I am missing having my icons position locked. I searched several hundred postings and have not seen any mention of locking the panel or TM settings after edit.

Thank you for your time .

[claydoh]

Which Kubuntu release,. or rather which Plasma version?
Which icons are not staying put -- the ones in the Task Manager panel widget? If so, which style (icons-only, icons-and text)?
There hasn't been a 'lock' option in ages and years now (not really needed)

Now, if you mean the icons on the system tray widget -- on the right side of a defualt panel -- those are dynamic, as they always have been, and cannot be reordered. You can change the visibility/disable the individual items.

Now, if you really want to have certain system control icons always in the same place, you could disable/hide them in the tray, and add individual widgets to the panel for most of the system-type entries, like wifi, bluetooth, etc.

[James the Third]

I am sorry for lack of preamble.
Kub 24.10 fresh
Plasma 6.1.5

I may be wrongfully using the task manager. But I am using it as a quick launcher. And the panel is auto-hide.
I have it in icon only mode. As a launcher a lock is handy.

[claydoh]

So you want to have a lock for the panel's autohide feature? That makes sense
But I do not see such an option or a third party widget for that.

You are not the first to look for something like this, though

https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comment..._toggle_panel/
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158556

There was a widget to toggle this, iirc, but it won't work in Plasma 6, nor will the scripting in my first link. I imagine someone could discover the current commands to do it.

You can set a keyboards shortcut for it, if that helps

[James the Third]

No not quite, I have no problem with the auto hide yet. But the positions of the icons in the task manager widgit.
I left a poor screenshot will try again. As I said I am using the TM as a quick launcher but the icons drag very easily.

[claydoh]

I don't see a way to lock them.
One can use the No Sorting option in the Task Manager settings, which DOES prevent them from being moved with the mouse, But.......the pinned icons move once the application is opened.

It might be worth a bug report/wishlist on KDE's bug tracker as I am guessing others might be having the same issue, perhaps. I am not quickly seeing any similar mentions in the usual KDE corners, but it only takes one person to spotlight it, sometimes. Especially if you can explain your workflow and how it gets messed up by this.

[James the Third]

If not this way of creating a quick launch like ubuntu has what do KDE people do for a quick launch?

[Snowhog]

If I understand what you are wanting, just launch the application. Then right-click it's icon in the Panel and select Pin to Task Manager

[claydoh]

If I understand what you are wanting, just launch the application. Then right-click it's icon in the Panel and select Pin to Task Manager

I *think* the OP finds it too easy to accidentally drag the pinned icons around on the task manager.
Another option is to drag an icon from the menus to the panel, which creates a standalone launcher. This will of course have both the launcher icon as well as a task manager icon on the panel when the app is open.

[James the Third]

I have been right clicking the apps icon without even opening it and choose "pin to task manager". Yes Claydoh you have it. I will try making the launchers. Thanks for all the thoughts.

[James the Third]

I have reconstructed my launchers. I drug them into a new panel in left corner, all are working. But I see a an unexpected detail. In properties, they all say open with text editor. I missed something.

[claydoh]

I have reconstructed my launchers. I drug them into a new panel in left corner, all are working. But I see a an unexpected detail. In properties, they all say open with text editor. I missed something.

That is correct. A menu item or launcher icon is a ".desktop" file, which is most definitely just a text file. It is of course a bit odd to show this, and I can't say why, or why these files aren't set to open in the menu editor, other than the txt file is probably easier in most cases to edit than using the menu editor tool, plus the launcher icon is not a menu item.

[James the Third]

okay, sometimes it displays text editor's header in the panel also. I see since the file is txt and not exec. Thanks again for unraveling small mysteries.
I think this will be my last post for a while. Traveling to Austin for family.