Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

[Alessandro]

Hi there, I'm a new convertor to Kubuntu from XP - enjoying the trip so far. But I want to get away from the XP look with the taskbar etc.

I've seen a few screen shots with a more OSX look to the desktop. A small line of icons on the bottom (Centred) of the desktop and the task bar etc either to the right of the screen or the top.

I've looked everywhere on how to do this etc, but can't find it?! Is it a different app needed to configure this? or am I just missing the point? I tried the theme manager etc and styles etc?...

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks, Alessandro
Once I get that sorted I'd like to use something like Super Karamba to get some widgets going. (No, I'm not a Mac user)

[analyticalman]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

You have almost endless possibilities here. You configure the bottom panel (kicker) by right clicking on it then panel menu. To get icons only remove other applets from the panel (like the task bar and pager). Then you can go to "configure panel" from the panel menu set the length to minimum and click "expand as required making sure position is in the bottom centre. You can do a lot more here.

You can add new panels from the panel menu - so put it on the right and add the taskbar there for instance. You can also add a top bar by right clicking on the desktop and go to configure desktop, then behaviour then choose an option for "menu bar at top of screen"

You can also do without the kicker altogether and replace it with something like ksmoothdock which you'll need to download

[Alessandro]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

Great ! Thanks - I was in the right place, but just didn't know what I was doing. One more thing - how do I make it so that minimized apps don't drop down along the task bar at the bottom? I just want a row of icons (shortcuts to all the apps etc) along the bottom, but applications to be minimized on a task bar on the right of the screen etc?

[analyticalman]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

Remove the task bar applet from the bottom panel. Add a panel to the right of the screen - add the task bar applet to it. (I haven't tried it but it should work)

[Alessandro]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

Fantastic - thanks!

[joshlfisher]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

If I do replace the panel with ksmoothdock, the Kmenu on ksmoothdock won't work. It is based on kicker. So, how do I start kicker without the panel?

[Snowhog]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

A very simple way to get the effect of having icons without seeing the panel, is to set the panel to transparent.

Right-click on the panel, select Configure panel, select Appearance, and under Panel Background, check the Enable transparency. If you also click the Advanced Options button, you can set the Transparency Tint color or just set the Tint amount to minimum. While still in the Configuration, click on the Taskbar icon and you can select "For Transparency" under Taskbar | Appearance. See my example desktop image with these changes.

[Detonate]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

Also, you can "drag and drop" panels.

[eriefisher]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

The Dream Linux distro might be of intrest to you.

http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/english/index.html

It uses XFCE and the Engage dock. It looks alot like Mac OSX. You can get the Engage dock stand alone package but I haven't tried it. Nice stuff.

[DMurray]

Re: Icons - along the bottom (like Mac OSX?)

It seems to be Gnome-based. You can just install the Gnome desktop, since it has better options to make it behave like MacOS X screen.