Hi, I've recently "switched" to KDE from GNOME, and I really like it. The only thing I don't like so far is that it looks too much like Windows. To avoid this, I want to have the panel on the side of the screen. But I don't know which side it "should" be on.

So, general usability question: In your opinion, if the panel were to be on the left or right side, which side "should" it be on? And why?

Thanks!

the top

Personally I wouldn't have the panel on the left or right side at all, but if I had to choose , it would be the left side.

It feels natural to have menus etc. on the left side. For maximized windows, the close button and scrollbar is on the right edge, which makes them easy to hit with the mouse pointer. (This is also why I have the right monitor as my main screen).

I've kept/added stuff to my default panel, but I also have a panel on the left of my screen with other stuff. For example, my bottom panel has a task manager that only shows tasks on the current desktop, with the left panel showing tasks on all desktops.

I agree: having tried using both the right and the left of the screen, the left seems to feel more natural - even if you put it on the right and move all the buttons around in the titlebar of windows, it just feels weird.

Well I have three panels one on top which is always visible, one on bottom in the middle where the task bar is and one on right edge where I have activity bar etc...

It looks like this:

On singleheaded setup I have a vertical panel on the left side.
On dualheaded setup I have a vertical panel on the right side of the left screen.

KDE4 is not good at any of these setups. Pager is is nearly unusable, taskmanager is "intersting". Anyway, I do not use KDE4 for everydays work, I'm just evaluating.

If you put it on the right side it can interfere with scroll bars in windows, so I recommend putting it on the left. Also, you should probably use smooth tasks or a wide panel since the task manager does not work well on narrow vertical panels. I personally use 3 bottom panels per screen, 3 side panels (2 on the right, 1 on the left), and a 3 top panels (2 on one screen, one on another).