Reduce clutter on your desktop with a second panel


If, like me, you like to keep your most frequently used programs on your desktop for fast easy access, then before long, you will find your desktop so thoroughly covered with icons that you can barely see your wallpaper. Here's a little trick I learned recently which can reduce or eliminate that clutter.

In Xandros you can add additional panels like the one which appears, by default, at the bottom of your desktop. Actually you can have one panel on each edge of your screen, top, bottom, left, and right side, but that may be over-doing it a bit. I chose to put my second panel at the top of the screen, and set it to hide automatically, a few seconds after the cursor moves away from the panel. This way I get the added convenience, without sacrificing a lot of screen real estate.

To create your new panel, right click on an empty spot in your existing panel. (Just to the right of the Launch button is a good spot).

 

 

Scroll down for illustrations, and more of the tutorial.

 

 

Mouse-over Panel Menu > Add to Panel > Panel > Panel, as depicted in the above illustration, and click the final iteration of Panel. In the Configure - KDE Panel control which opens, you can set the size, location, hiding and other characteristics of your new panel.

 

Once you have set the Position, length, size, and expand as required sttings, click on the Hiding tab, and set the way you would like your new panel to hide when not in use.

 

 

 

Once you have the hiding characteristics set to your liking, click Apply, to save your settings, and OK, to exit. That's it! Now you can move your desktop icon on to the panel by clicking on them, and holding the left mouse button down while you drag them onto the panel, then releasing the mouse button. Note: This will copy the icons to the panel. The originals will still be on your desktop. Once you have all your icons arranged in the new panel, you can delete the ones on the desktop, by right-clicking them, and selecting Delete. When you are finished, your new desktop should look something like this: