Help ! Desktop, apps , minimised windows and tak bar have vanished ?

[kdeuser]

Hi again,

I bring you all yet another problem which i don`t understand . How i miss my faithful 8.04, what a travesty...

Ok, i don`t now exactly what happened , i just don`t know where along the chain of disasters my desktop disappeared . It was a default black and i dragged and dropped apps into it . The apps have also disappeared - you might have guessed !

The task bar at the bottom of the screen pops up when my cursor goes off screen then the bar performs a snail effect .

This point is very annoying, when i minimise any app to the task bar i can`t see it there , i get no reference to where it has gone . Minimised windows used to be visible in the task bar under desktop 1 or 2.

How do i get all this back - PLEASE, i have little patience left and my sledgehammer is looking ever more tempting.

Help really needed here.

Thanks.

[ronw]

The panel going offscreen sounds like auto-hide is enabled.

When the panel is displayed, click the cashew (panel tool box icon), usually at the far right, go to More Settings, then click on Always Visible.

[Snowhog]

A bit dated, but still a good introduction to Plasma and Panels: KDE UserBase Wiki

[kdeuser]

The panel going offscreen sounds like auto-hide is enabled.

When the panel is displayed, click the cashew (panel tool box icon), usually at the far right, go to More Settings, then click on Always Visible.

I have made a snapshot of the whole desktop page , this might help. I will say that in no way did my desktop resemble this. It was black with a logo in the center . i can not replicate this.

I went to the cashew (panel tool box icon) , but there`s no ` Always Visible ` setting for the task bar ( not that i can see ).

That elongated bar , center-right of screen is actually what i want in my task bar at the bottom. It was placed next to that yellow star. However , on minimising any app , i lost the virtual desk top associated with it.

Thanks for helping though.

[kdeuser]

Thanks Snowhog, I had a look and i don`t see where it allows me to insert my virtual desk top.

I apologise for my limited use of the pc as the terminology is daunting .

[Snowhog]

That elongated bar , center-right of screen is actually what i want in my task bar at the bottom. It was placed next to that yellow star. However , on minimising any app , i lost the virtual desk top associated with it.

That is the 'Pager' widget. To have it on the Panel, right-click on a blank area of the Panel and select Panel Options > Add Widgets... and in the search window type Pager. Then just double-click on the Pager icon and it will be on your Panel. You can just delete the on on the Desktop.

[kdeuser]

Thanks for that knowledge . I am slowly getting icons , apps etc back. When i typed `pager ` , what i got was the klipper board which i have. Through luck i found an app called `window list `, now this gives me information as to what i`ve minimised . This is actually better than the original that came by default.

My next obstacle / problem is the task bar at the bottom of the page ; In Desktop mode as per my uploaded image , the task bar is always visible. This is what i would like, however, when i switch to a web page the bar vanishes . For the bar to appear i have to drag the mouse pointer to the bottom of the page ( off screen ) .

I would like this bar to be permanently visible.

I hope you can help me on this Thanks.

[Snowhog]

Right-click on the Panel and choose Panel Options > Panel Settings and then click on More Settings. Under Visibility select Windows go behind.

What version of Kubuntu are you using?

[kdeuser]

Definitely moving , thanks again Snowhog. On reaching ` more settings ` a menu called ` visibility ` popped up and instead of ` windows go behind `, an option called ( would you believe ) ` always visible ` was there.

Back came the bottom task bar. Thank you for solving this problem.

P.S. I am using the 10.04 Lucid distro , just updated from 8.04 which i now regret ever leaving.