Through a series of random and unrepeatable mouse clicks, I've managed to inadvertently move my digital clock and system tray from the right side of the bottom panel to the left (wrong) side. I can right click on the bottom bar and slide them over temporarily, but I'll be damned if they stay there after I let go of the mouse button. My questions are as follows:

1) How the hell do I get the clock and system tray back to their rightful home on the right side of the bottom bar?

2) For all that is holy, how did I manage to move them to the left side without right clicking on the bottom bar and choosing "panel settings"?

3) Why does "user friendliness" have to be so damn hard to figure out?

Which version of KDE SC? If it's 4.x:


Plasma HowTo - Move widget

Note the gray "box" where you drop the widget.
Maybe you accidentally click on the "cashew" (yellow thingy) to the right? That has the same effect as right clicking -> Panel Settings.

Unlock widgets; click on the cashew to open panel; select item and then move

Fresh install opensuse 12.3, KDE 4.10. Ten minutes in and voila. I can positively describe the exact steps to reproduce this exact same problem. This also leads me to a request.

Only I can not put my clock on the right. It snaps to the left, stuck to the pager along with the systems tray. WTF?!

I accidentally opened a large program that was going to slow things down. As soon as I saw a tray item show that represented that program starting up I right clicked on it (in a hurry) and I clicked on a red "X" in the contextual menu. I was sure such an "X" would have represented "Close Program" but noooooooo. Some less than thoughtful person left a "remove from panel "item on a top level contextual menu. Now I have to spend my friday night looking for the needle in a haystack. Can someone please help me get this straightened out? Why the hell are my clock and sys tray on the left? What the hell did I remove?

The previous poster made a comment on ease of use or something similar. I must second this. Who in their right mind would leave a destructive item in a top level menu? Dear god put that thing a submenu or three down. I really miss KDE3 right now. Started my linux experience using Suse Professional 7.4. To date this is my third time revisiting KDE4 and I still think its not ready. Please put KDE3 back in current and deliver this thing only when its usable. I got ten minutes in and wiped out the dock. At the very least force all KDE4 devs to use KDE3 for two years so they can see what the hurdle is. For the time being, a return desktop state to previous boot may be a pertinent idea.

If this is user friendly then .... I just dont know what to say........walks away shaking head.......

quotaholic

darylk wrote:Fresh install opensuse 12.3, KDE 4.10. Ten minutes in and voila. I can positively describe the exact steps to reproduce this exact same problem. This also leads me to a request.

Only I can not put my clock on the right. It snaps to the left, stuck to the pager along with the systems tray. WTF?!

Not WTF, rather "what am i doing wrong here?" It works quite fine usually, and just testing here, i can move the clock to whatever position i like, be it left, right or in the middle. So before you start ranting it makes sense to give a bit more feedback. The mentioned "exact steps" are seriously missing here.

darylk wrote:I accidentally opened a large program that was going to slow things down. As soon as I saw a tray item show that represented that program starting up I right clicked on it (in a hurry) and I clicked on a red "X" in the contextual menu. I was sure such an "X" would have represented "Close Program" but noooooooo. Some less than thoughtful person left a "remove from panel "item on a top level contextual menu. Now I have to spend my friday night looking for the needle in a haystack. Can someone please help me get this straightened out? Why the hell are my clock and sys tray on the left? What the hell did I remove?

I can tell you what is your primary mistake. Thinking that you can just click around in a hurry and expect you won't break anything, especially in a system you don't know that good.
And again, WHAT program slowed things down, WHERE was that contextual menu. Just playing a bit around, and i can't find a hint for what top level menu you possibly could mean. Don't complain about missing context when you do the same.

darylk wrote:The previous poster made a comment on ease of use or something similar. I must second this. Who in their right mind would leave a destructive item in a top level menu? Dear god put that thing a submenu or three down. I really miss KDE3 right now. Started my linux experience using Suse Professional 7.4. To date this is my third time revisiting KDE4 and I still think its not ready.

You tried it 3 times in 4 years. And you click around on things in a rush. And you think that will work out? That won't work with any system available to this point.

darylk wrote: Please put KDE3 back in current and deliver this thing only when its usable.

KDE3 is still available in some distros, and was also forked under the name trinity. You might want to consider that.

darylk wrote:I got ten minutes in and wiped out the dock. At the very least force all KDE4 devs to use KDE3 for two years so they can see what the hurdle is.

I vote for forcing users like you to use KDE4 for at least a month, so they finally are aware of its real pros and cons, and not just complaining after some rushed clicks.
But seriously, KDE3 under the KDE umbrella IS dead.

darylk wrote:For the time being, a return desktop state to previous boot may be a pertinent idea.

That is even possible, you just need to remove ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma* config files (while logged out or plasma not running) and you are back to the default state.
A simple research with the help of the forums search function would have shown that.

darylk wrote:If this is user friendly then .... I just dont know what to say........walks away shaking head.......

quotaholic

Quick reminder of the Code of Conduct that everybody here - user or developer - should honor. See Policies in the header.

In this case it seems you have removed the "Task Manager" applet - if you go to Add Applets you should be able to drag and drop it back into your panel (and then the system tray and clock will return to the right side of the panel, if the Task Manager applet is positioned properly).

bcooksley wrote:In this case it seems you have removed the "Task Manager" applet - if you go to Add Applets you should be able to drag and drop it back into your panel (and then the system tray and clock will return to the right side of the panel, if the Task Manager applet is positioned properly).

This solved my problem. I appreciate this constructive response. I see so many responses where the person "Trying to help" is actually trying to teach the questioner a lesson in manners (telling them to be grateful) or self discipline (telling them to ask their question somewhere else or search harder), but in this case I saw that there are sometimes several causes of a problem and it takes more than one valid answer to solve every possible case of an issue. "Hans" solved one type of issue with the panel being ordered unsatisfactorily, but it took "bcooksley" to solve the one I was having; both being useful help. I wish more forum users would follow the example set by these two, instead of ridiculing people who are asking the original quesition or expanding on the topic by asking more detailed questions of a similar nature.

"bcooksley", "Hans", Thank you.

Not a problem - I have now marked the topic as solved.