Launchers vs. icons

[RandomUsername]

Hello,

I'm using Kubuntu 12.10 with KDE 4.9.4 and I'd like to know what exactly the difference between panel launchers and icons is.
What I already know:
I can add an icon to the panel by right-clicking on the application and clicking "Add to Panel".
I can add a launcher to the panel by right clicking on a Task Manager item and clicking "Show A Launcher When Not Running".
But why are icons bigger than launchers and why can't I sort launchers? Please help.

RandomUsername

[claydoh]

My brief guess is not much different.
However, the launcher resides in the taskbar, icons are on the panel Other than that there is little to no good documentation. You might be able to change the sizes in SystemSettings. My brief searches didn't bring up much info. You might want to look at Smooth Tasks, which is a taskbar that might have some features that work like the panel launchers, but better implemented.

[james147]

Launchers are a feature of the task manager, icons are separate widgets.

Launchers are very tightly integrated with the task manger due to this and allows them some extra functionality such as becoming the application icon when clicked.

This is mostly due to how kde evolved, it had icons that you could add to the panel from very early in kde4's development. Later some task managers started to incorporate the unity feature of being able combine the launcher and application task icon into one icon, and so developed the launcher feature the task manager now have but the icon widget still exists. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it allows you to add icons to panels when you don't have a task manager as well as add them to the desktop. But I think some better integration could be done especially with the add to panel option for applications.

The reason they are different sizes is because they are different widgets. You can also change the sort order in the task manager to manual to be able to rearrange them inside the taskmanager.

PS: I recommend trying icon tasks over smooth tasks as they produce similar functionality, but icon tasks is officially supported by kde and does not suffer from multiple abandonment and re-forking issues that smooth tasks does and as far as I know has more active development.

There are differences in the different task managers implmentations of this feature, the default task manager does not allow you to open more then one application from a launcher, but icon tasks allows you to middle click the icon to open a second instance of the program.

[RandomUsername]

You can also change the sort order in the task manager to manual to be able to rearrange them inside the taskmanager.

Doesn't work for me

Also, I tried to change the icon size in the System Settings, but it doesn't do anything...

[james147]

Doesn't work for me

The default task manager is a little flaky at this, but icon tasks seems to handle it better.

[RandomUsername]

I'd just like it to be like in Win7/8, where the pinned items keep their position when starting the program.

[james147]

I'd just like it to be like in Win7/8, where the pinned items keep their position when starting the program.

Yeah, that really bugged me about the default task manager, Icon tasks does this, but does not display the application names. Personally I would like to see the features from the two different task managers merged into one.

[RandomUsername]

I just now found out about Icon Task Manager :facepalm:

The icons I mentioned in the first post were just normal shortcuts... Anyway, Icon Task Manager works well for me.

But I agree with you on merging those together

[ronw]

features from the two different task managers merged into one.

But please leave Task Manager alone.

[james147]

But please leave Task Manager alone.

Why, what do you like about the normal task manager that could not be merged into icon tasks? (or what don't you like about icon tasks that would have to be merged into task manager).

I have thought a bit about a merge and think it would be doable so long as it can be configured to behave (mostly) how the default task manager works as well as how icon tasks works (ie allow icon tasks to display the window title don't think to many other changes would be needed to be honest).

[furykerry]

PS: I recommend trying icon tasks over smooth tasks as they produce similar functionality, but icon tasks is officially supported by kde and does not suffer from multiple abandonment and re-forking issues that smooth tasks does and as far as I know has more active development.

I wonder why KDE do not default to icon tasks. Most modern DE (gnome shell, unity, win7) use icon based lauchers.

[claydoh]

I wonder why KDE do not default to icon tasks. Most modern DE (gnome shell, unity, win7) use icon based lauchers.

Well, maybe a little because we are not gnome shell, unity, win7 , and there are alternatives available I personally do not care for icon-only myself but am glad we can have it. I think it would be nice if it were an option in the stock taskbar.

[james147]

Well, maybe a little because we are not gnome shell, unity, win7 , and there are alternatives available I personally do not care for icon-only myself but am glad we can have it. I think it would be nice if it were an option in the stock taskbar.

I find icon tasks to be much more complete then the default so I would rather see that made to behave like the normal one by default (ie make it show the window titles)

[HalationEffect]

This thread is what finally got me to give Icon Tasks a try, and overall I quite like it. Only one niggle - say I've got Firefox and Dolphin open and maximised, and Firefox is the window I'm looking at... when I mouse over the icon for Dolphin, in addition to getting a tooltip with a scaled down picture of the Dolphin window, I also get a transparent overlay of the Dolphin window over the top of the Firefox window. I can turn off the tooltip and just have the overlay, but my preference would be to turn off the overlay and keep the tooltip, however there seems to be no way I can find of doing that.

[james147]

This thread is what finally got me to give Icon Tasks a try, and overall I quite like it. Only one niggle - say I've got Firefox and Dolphin open and maximised, and Firefox is the window I'm looking at... when I mouse over the icon for Dolphin, in addition to getting a tooltip with a scaled down picture of the Dolphin window, I also get a transparent overlay of the Dolphin window over the top of the Firefox window. I can turn off the tooltip and just have the overlay, but my preference would be to turn off the overlay and keep the tooltip, however there seems to be no way I can find of doing that.

That is a desktop effect unrelated to icon tasks. System settings > Desktop effect > All effect > highlight window.