# The &kicker; Handbook

Dirk Doerflinger

    ddoerflinger@web.de

2001 2002 Dirk Doerflinger
&FDLNotice;
2002-03-01
3.00.00

&kicker; is the &kde; application starter panel and is also capable of some useful applets and extensions. It usually resides on the bottom of the desktop.

KDE Kicker kdebase panel application starter

## Introduction

&kicker; is the application launcher panel of the K Desktop Environment. Besides the K Menu, where you can start applications, &kicker; is also capable of running docked applets like the pager, the taskbar or the clock, and extensions, such as child panels.

&kicker; usually resides on the bottom of the desktop, but it can also be moved to any other border. Please report any problems or feature requests to the &kde; mailing lists.

## Using &kicker;

This is what you see on a freshly installed &kde;, assuming that you skipped KPersonalizer. If you are using lower resolution, some of the icons may not appear immediately. To cater for those smaller resolutions, the screenshot below is divided in two parts.

Here's a screenshot of the left side of &kicker;
Screenshot Left

Here's a screenshot of the left side of &kicker;

And here's the right side
Screenshot Right

And here's the right side

Of course, this is only one way &kicker; might appear on the screen. There are many more configurations available.

### A quick tour for new &kde; users

If you are experienced with this kind of application launcher, you can ignore this chapter and move on to &kicker; basics.

The main use of &kicker; is starting applications. This is done by clicking icons, either from the panel or from the K Menu. &kicker; shows some more things too, so let's see.

Having a look at the screenshots above, there are from left to right:

The K Menu

  It is used for launching applications and some other useful things. Refer to The K Menu for more information.

Application start icons

  Here are some icons of commonly used applications. They can be moved and removed and others can be added. Some of them have a special meaning, which you can read more about in &kicker; basics. Resting the mouse over an icon without clicking shows the name and a short description of that application, if you have set that in the Settings Dialog.

The Pager applet

  This displays a small view of the virtual desktops. Clicking one section of it will activate that desktop. Please refer to Applets.

The Taskbar

  All running applications are displayed as buttons in the taskbar. Clicking an application's button will bring this application on top. If it was on top before, it will be iconized. As always, more information in Applets.

Lock/Logout

  This applet contains two small buttons. The one with the luggage lock on it locks your screen if you ever leave your &kde; and want nobody else seeing or using it, the other one shuts down &kde; and the X-Server.

System Tray

  The system tray is able to swallow some kind of applications like - in this case - &klipper;. There are also more useful apps for the systemtay. You can click the applications either with the left or the right mousebutton and see what's happening.

Clock

  The Clock applet is - of course - a small, useful clock. It can have various styles, have a look at the applets section for more information.

The hide button

  This button lets you fade out &kicker; for having more space on the screen. When &kicker; is faded out, only the hide button will remain in order to fade in &kicker; again.

This was only the description of &kicker; on its initial launch. It can be configured in many ways and styles and more applets can be added. There are even some extensions like the external taskbar you can add. See &kicker; basics, Applets and Extensions for more information.

## &kicker; basics

### General usage

As mentioned before, there are a lot of things that can be added to &kicker;. This section will tell you everything about application starting, folder browsing and adding some kinds of applets and extensions. Lots of things can be done from the context menu or from Configure Panel in the K Menu.

#### Adding applications

There are three different ways to add an application to &kicker;:

Drag and Drop

  Simply drag any file from &konqueror; into &kicker; and it's there. This works also from the K Menu with any entry. You can change the attributes like optional command line parameters or the icon by clicking it with the right mouse button and choosing Preferences from the context menu.

Using the context menu to add a &kde; application

  Click the right mousebutton on any free space in &kicker; and choose Add and then Button . There you can choose an application which will be added in the place you clicked.

Using the context menu to add a non-&kde;-application

  Non-&kde;-applications ⪚ xosview or xemacs.

  Click the right mousebutton on any free space in &kicker; and choose Add, Special Button and then Non-KDE Application . Choose the application you want to add. In the newly appearing window, you can append an optional command line, have the aplication start from a terminal, and choose the icon which will appear in &kicker; by clicking the gear . If you don't choose an icon, the application will use the gear as a default.

Applications can be moved or removed by &RMB; click and choosing Move or Remove. You can also move an icon by clicking &MMB; if you have one. Another way to remove an application is by clicking the &RMB; on any free space and then choosing Remove, Button and then the application you want to be removed.

#### Adding Folders

Folders can be added by simply dragging a folder to any free space of &kicker;. Quick Browsers can also be added from the context menu or the K Menu.

There are two different ways to have a folder in &kicker;, you can choose between them in the menu appearing after dropping. Omitting this menu, it will be added as a file manager URL.

Add as file manager &URL;

  Choosing this will add a link to the selected folder. Clicking this folder icon will open &konqueror; displaying the contents of this folder.

Add as Quick Browser

  If you add a folder this way, it will be displayed as a submenu of &kicker;. This submenu contains Open in File Manager, which does the same as a file manager &URL;, and Open in Terminal, which opens a terminal with this folder as working path. Also, this submenu contains the contents of that folder. Sub-folders are displayed as new submenus like the Quick Browser itself. The maximum number of displayed elements can be set in the Settings Dialog. Quick Browsers can also be added from the context menu of &kicker; and then choosing Add and Special Button.

Both kinds of folders can be moved or removed by &RMB; click and choosing Move or Remove. You can also move an icon by clicking &MMB; if you have one. Another way to remove a folder is by clicking the &RMB; on any free space and then choosing Remove, Button and then the folder you want to be removed.

File manager &URL;s can also be configured from the context-menu, just like any other folder anywhere in &kde;

#### Special Icons

Some icons in &kicker; have a special meaning. They are added by choosing Add and then Special Button of the context-menu.

The K Menu Icon

  The K Menu icon is one of the most necessary icons in &kicker;. As you might guess, it opens the K Menu, which you can learn more about in The K Menu.

The Window List

  Clicking this icon will show the Window List. Its first entry, Unclutter Windows, tries to move the windows on your active desktop in a way to see as many as possible.

  Cascade Windows puts all windows on the active desktop over each others, the most recently on top and the others sorted by the time they where last used.

  Below those entries is a list of all currently running applications, grouped by the desktops on which they are running. Clicking on the name of a desktop will switch to that one, clicking an application will also activate it.

The Bookmarks Icon

  The Bookmarks icon provides fast access to your bookmarks. They appear in the same way as if you click the Bookmarks menu in &konqueror;. Clicking a bookmark in the menu will launch &konqueror; with the URL which is behind that bookmark.

The Recent Documents Icon

  This menu shows the most recently used documents (works only with &kde; applications for the moment). Clicking the element Clear History will remove those entries, what may be useful for privacy reasons.

The Desktop Access Icon

  The Desktop Access icon lets you have quick access to all the things you have on your desktop by minimizing all currently open applications. Clicking it once will toggle it to show the desktop. The icon will remain pressed until you either click it again, what will restore your minimized apps, or reactivate an application from the taskbar.

The Quick Browser Item

  Adding a Quick Browser icon will open a dialog which will let you choose a path and an icon, which will appear as a Quick Browser menu. Refer to the Adding Folders section for more information about quick browsers.

The Non-KDE Application Item

  The Add Non-KDE Application lets you add an application which doesn't appear in the K menu to &kicker;. Refer to Adding Applications for more information about Non-&kde; Applications.

The Terminal Sessions Icon

  This icon provides access to some frequently used terminal styles: simply clicking it will launch a normal console, while holding down the &LMB; provides the same possibilities like the &konsole; gives when clicking New.

The Printing System Icon

  This icon gives you direct access to &kde;'s printing system. Clicking the &LMB; on the icon opens a menu which gives you the following options:

  - Add Printer...:This will start &kde;'s Add Printer Wizard which allows you to simply add a new printer to your system.

  - KDE Print Settings This item will open the KDE Print Configuration dialog.

  - Configure Server

  - Print ManagerThis item starts the Printing Magager, &kde;'s main printing controlcenter.

  - Print Browser (&konqueror;)This item will start &konqueror; with the `print:/` io-slave to browse all kinds of printers.

  - Print a file...This item opens a dialog which lets you easily print one or more files.

#### Removing all kinds of icons

Clicking the &RMB; on any icon, no means if it's for an application, a folder or a special icon, or clicking the small arrow on the handle, and then choosing Remove from the appearing context menu will remove the icon from &kicker;.

Another way of removing icons is clicking the &RMB; on any free space in &kicker; and choosing Remove and then Button or Special Button. You can then choose the button you want to remove in the submenu.

Please note that removing an icon from &kicker; won't remove the application on the disk!

#### Adding Applets

&kicker; comes with a set of applets like the taskbar or the mini-pager. Those can be added either from the submenu Configure Panel of the K Menu or from the context menu by choosing Add and then Applet.

Applets can be moved by dragging them on their handle with holding the &LMB; mouse button, or the &MMB; mouse button, or by choosing Move from the context menu.

You can learn more about the applets in the section Applets.

#### Removing Applets

Applets can be removed by choosing Remove from the context menu, which appears when the &RMB; is clicked on the applet's handle (left or top side of the applet) or in some applets allover the applet. The same menu appears when clicking the small arrow on the applet's handle.

#### Adding Extensions

There is also the possibility to add external extensions to &kicker;, like the external taskbar, the Dock Application Bar for WindowMaker dock-applications, Kasbar, an iconic kind of taskbar and even child panels which behave like new instances of &kicker;.

All extensions can be moved to any border of the screen by dragging them with the &LMB; on the small fade-out handles on the left or top side of the extensions. These fade-out handles can also be used for fading out the extension. The child panel can also be dragged by clicking with the &LMB; on any empty space on it.

More about extensions can be read in the extensions section.

#### Removing Extensions

You can remove extensions by clicking Remove in their context menu, usually located in the fade-out handles.

### Configuring Application Buttons

Every application starter has some preferences you can set from their context menu. Usually applications and folders have the same preferences as in &konqueror;. Only the applications which are located in the K Menu (for experienced users: those which have a `*.desktop` in the `applnk` dir) have a special kind of config dialog.

#### The General Tab

Here you can see some stats about the application link. You can also choose an icon by clicking on the icon button and change the filename of the link file. This may be useful if you want the icon on the panel behave different to the analog one in the K Menu.

#### The Permissions Tab

Here you can set the permissions of the link file. Please refer to the manuals or handbooks of your operating system for more about permissions.

#### The Execute Tab

You can set the behavior of the application when it's executed on this page.

Command

  Usually, there is only the name of the binary that has to be started when clicking on the icon. You can search for another application to be started by clicking the Browse button and/or add special command line parameters to the application.

Panel Embedding

  This feature is not implemented yet.

Run in terminal

  If this box is checked, the application will be executed in a terminal window. You can also add special Terminal options.

Run as different user

  Checking this option will let the application start with the permission of the user you typed in the field Username. You will be prompted for the user's password on application start. This option may be very useful if you want to start some applications as superuser.

#### The Application Tab

If you set a name and a comment, they will be shown as tooltips of the start icons in the style Name - Comment.

In the File Types section you can choose what kinds of filetypes are handled by this application. Please refer to &konqueror; handbook for more about this.

## Configuring &kicker;

This section describes the ways &kicker; can be configured. It's only about the basic &kicker; settings, configuration of the applets are described in their sections

You can change the settings by either clicking Settings in the context menu or the submenu Configure Panel of the K Menu or in the &kcontrol; in the module Look & Feel.

Please note that the settings in the General and the Look & Feel tabs only affect to the main panel while the behavior of extensions is set in the Extensions tab.

### The Panel Section

#### General

In the General tab you can configure some basic functionality of the &kde; panel (&ie; functionality you'd find in other panel applications as well; later we'll come to the more interesting features).

In the Panel Location frame you can choose which screen border the panel should be attached to. Please note that usually the available space is used more efficiently if the panel is aligned horizontally, &ie; attached to the top or bottom screen border. If you want to play around with different settings you can change the panel's position even easier by dragging the panel from one border to the other.

The Alignment group lets you define, where &kicker; is located when the size is set to less than 100%. This can also be done by draging &kicker; with the &LMB; to the place you want to have it.

The panel's style can be tiny, small, medium or large. Depending on which applets you use you may find that some applets work better at different panel sizes. You can also change the size by moving the mousepointer over the upper border of &kicker; (assuming &kicker; is at the bottom of your screen) and dragging it while holding the &LMB;. When you do that, the style settings will switch to Custom

Please note, that switching manually to Custom doesn't have any effect and otherwise that you don't need to switch to custom to be able to resize &kicker; manually.

Some people may not want to have &kicker; take the whole width or height of their screen. The slider Percentage of desktop width/height to be used changes this behavior. If you decrease the precentage, &kicker; will either appear aligned left or top of the screen, depending on its location. Checking the checkbox Expand to fit required size makes sure that &kicker; is at least as big as needed to show every icon and applet.

#### Hiding

Depending on your screen resolution you may find that the panel takes away too much of your precious screen real estate. To save screen space, the panel offers an auto hide feature. When this feature is enabled, the panel will hide when the mouse cursor has not been moved over it for a configurable amount of time. If you move the mouse to the panel's screen border it will show up again. Check the Enable automatic hide option in the Automatic Hide frame to enable this feature. Using the Delay in seconds slider you can configure the amount of time the panel will wait before it hides. The checkbox Show panel when switching desktop makes sure that the panel will be shown on the new chosen desktop. Otherwise, if there are too many applets and icons on &kicker;, two small scroll buttons will be displayed to scroll the whole panel.

When the panel's hide buttons are enabled you'll see buttons on both sides of the panel, with arrows showing to the screen border. If you click on one of these buttons, the panel will slide away in that direction. After that, you'll see a remaining show button in that corner, which will make the panel show again. Check the apropriate checkbox if you want the hide buttons to show up on any side of &kicker;. Using the slider you can change the width of the buttons.

Using the Manual Hide Animation (for the hide buttons) and Auto Hide Animation (for the auto hide functionality) options you can configure whether the panel will softly slide away or just disappear. You can enable or disable both animations using the Enable options and you can change the speed of the animation using the sliders.

#### Look & Feel

Using the Look & Feel tab you can configure the panel's overall appearance.

The &kde; panel supports so-called tiled buttons. This means that the buttons shown on the panel will be drawn using configurable images. To enable button tiling, check the Enable background tiles option in the Look & Feel tab. Then you can configure tiles for certain kinds of buttons.

For every kind of panel button there's a frame offering an Enabled option to enable or disable tiled images. If tiles are enabled for this kind of button, you can choose a tile in the combo box below and the box on the right will show a preview of this tile.

The different kinds of buttons are:

K Menu Tiles

  The icon for the K Menu will be displayed as a tile

Quickbrowser Tiles

  The icons for Quickbrowsers will be displayed as tiles

Application Launcher Tiles

  The icons which start applications will be displayed as tiles

Legacy Application Tiles

  The icons for legacy applications will be displayed as tiles

Window List Tiles

  The Window List icon will be displayed as a tile

Desktop Access Tiles

  The Desktop Access icon will be displayed as a tile

Enabling the switch Enable icon zooming will give you the effect that &kicker;'s icons will grow bigger when hovering with the mouse. This effect will not appear when the size of &kicker; is set bigger than medium.

If Show tooltips is checked, small descriptions of the icons or applets will be shown when the mousepointer rests over an icon for some seconds.

The Background Image is a picture that will be used to draw the panel's background, just like you can use a picture for the desktop background. Check the Enable background image option to enable this feature. You can specify an image file in the line edit box below or choose one by clicking on the Browse button. You'll see a preview of the selected picture on the right.

#### Menus

In the Menus tab you can configure the panel menu's behavior. This affects the K menu you will often use to launch applications, the browser menus you can use to access directories and other menus like the recent documents menu.

The K Menu Layout frame offers you some options to configure the K menu's functionality. The Show "Bookmarks" submenu and Show "Recent Documents" submenu options will enable submenus showing your konqueror bookmarks and the last documents you've opened using &kde; applications respectively. The Show "Quick Browser" submenu option will enable a browser menu. Enabling the Show side image checkbox will display a neat image on the left side of the K menu. If the option Detailed menu entries is set, th K menu will show a small description besides the name of the application.

Within the K Menu Layout you can also define which dynamic menus should be displayed in the K menu by moving them from Available Menus to Selected Menus using the <<. They can be removed the same way by using the >>.

In the Browser Menus frame you can configure whether the panel's browser menus will show hidden files or not (hidden files on unix systems are those whose filenames begin with a dot) as well as how many files at most will be shown in a browser menu. The latter option may be especially useful if you have a rather small screen resolution, as then the browser menus will quickly fill up your screen when you browse directories containing many files.

The quick start section in the K menu offers quick access to programs you have used often or recently. In the "Quick Start" section contains frame you can choose whether this section will show the most recently or the most frequently used programs. Using the option Max number of "Quick Start" entries you can configure how many programs the quick start section will remember.

#### Applets

Applets are small plugins that extend the panel's functionality. &kde; comes with some applets but they may be provided by third parties as well.

Panel applets can be started using two different ways: internally or externally. While internal is the preferred way to load applets, this can raise stability or security problems when you are using poorly programmed third-party applets. To address these problems, applets can be marked trusted. You might want to configure the panel to treat trusted applets different from untrusted ones. Your options are:

- Load only trusted applets internal: All applets but the ones marked trusted will be loaded using an external wrapper application.

- Load startup config applets internal: The applets shown on &kde; startup will be loaded internally, others will be loaded using an external wrapper application.

- Load all applets internal: will load all applets internally, regardless of whether they're trusted or not.

For stability and security reasons, we recommend using one of the first two options and that you mark only those applets as 'trusted' that come with the &kde; base packages.

To mark applets trusted or untrusted you can move them from one of the shown listboxes to the other. Just try selecting an applet in the list of trusted applets and click the >> button. This will move the selected applet to the other list, while clicking the << button will move the selected applet of the list of available applets to the list of trusted ones.

#### Extensions

In this section you can change the behavior of the . Simply choose one of your extensions (⪚ Child Panel) from the listbox on the left side and adjust its settings. Those are very similar to the settings on the and the tabs.

The Panel Location group sets the location of the chosen extension. If the option Enable automatic hide is checked, the extension will be faded out automaticaly after the time in seconds set with the slider Delay in seconds. Marking the checkbox Show panel when switching desktop lets the extension show up after a desktop change.

You can toggle which hide buttons the chosen extension should have with the checkboxes in the group Hide Buttons. The slider Hide Button Size sets the size of the appearing hide buttons.

### The Taskbar Section

This section changes the settings of the taskbar. Changes affect the external taskbar and also taskbar applets on &kicker; or child-panels.

Show all windows

  If this box is checked, the taskbar will show all running apps of every desktop. Otherwise, only the applications of the current desktop are shown.

Show windows list button

  Checking this box will show the small window list button.

Group similar tasks

  This is a feature introduced in &kde; version 2.2. If the option Group similar tasks is set, several instances of the same application are grouped together in one taskbar button.

  You can define the mouse actions of the taskbar buttons with the settings in the Actions. Each action can be one of the following:

  Show Task List

    Clicking with the mouse button will open a menu displaying all tasks in that group. If you click an entry of that menu with any mouse button, the corresponding application will become active.

  Show Operations Menu

    Clicking with the mousebutton will open a menu with all applications of that group, where every application has its window menu as a submenu and there are some group specific entries like Close All which closes all applications of that group, All to Desktop which lets you define on which desktop the whole group appears and Maximize All, Minimize All and Restore All which appends those actions to all applications of that group.

  Cycle Through Windows

    If this action is chosen, each click with the mousebutton on the taskbar button will activate one of that group's applications, one after each others.

  Activate Task

    Activate Task: Clicking with the mousebutton will activate the first application in that group without opening the group menu.

  Raise Task

    The first application of that group will be put in the foreground without giving focus to it.

  Lower Task

    The first application of that group will be put in the background. It won't lose the focus.

  Minimize Task

    The first application of that group will be minimized. If it is already minimized, it will be restored again.

  Please note that some of these settings only have effect if a taskbar button contains more than one application.

Sort tasks by virtual desktop

  Checking this box will sort all taskbar buttons in a group for each desktop, otherwise they are sorted by the order they are started. This will not affect grouped tasks if they are spread over more than one desktop.

Show application icons

  If this box is checked, every taskbar button will have the icon of the running application beside its title.

## The K Menu

The K Menu is one of the central elements of &kicker;.

There are five main groups in the K Menu which will be described now from bottom to top.

### The KDE Group

This group is for the common &kde; things in the K Menu.

Logout

  This entry is used to finish the &kde; session. It also shuts down the &X-Window; session.

Lock Screen

  With this entry you can lock your screen if you don't want anybody else to see your desktop. If you have set a screensaver, it will appear when locked, otherwise the screen will turn black. If you hit any key, you will be prompted for your user password. This is independent from the screensaver's password settings.

Configure Panel

  In this submenu you can change the settings of &kicker;, described in the Configuring &kicker; section, add things to &kicker; (see in &kicker; Basics for more) and start the Menu Editor. You can also reach the Help Menu, but as you are reading this, you probably found it yourself.

### Run Command

This will bring up a small but powerful application start dialog.

In the standard case, you just type in a command and press Enter or click Run. But there is also an Options button which will bring up some starting options to the command window.

Run in terminal

  Checking this box will let the application start in a terminal which means that you aill be able to see any commandline messages the application may give.

Run as a different user

  If this box is checked, you can specify a user with whose permission the application should run in the Username textfield. If you specify another user, you will have to give a password at the box below.

Run with different priority

  Check this option to run with a different priority. A higher priority will tell the operating system to give more processing time to the applications. You can use the slider to change the priority. If you want to give your app a higher priority than the default one (middle position), you will need to enter the root password below.

Scheduler

  The Scheduler is the part of the operating system which processes will run and which have to wait. Usually, an application will run with normal schedule, which means it can use the processing time it gets from the operating system, but you can also set it to Realtime. This means that the application has all the process time until it gives it away. You will need to enter the root password to use Realtime.

  This can be dangerous. If the application hangs and can't give up the processor, the complete system might hang.

### Browsers

This group contains some very useful browsers. It can also contain dynamic menus as described in the Menus section of &kicker;'s settings.

Quick Browser

  This submenu contains quick browsers for three very useful directories: home, root, and system configuration.

Recent Documents

  This menu shows the most recently used documents (works only with &kde; applications for the moment). Clicking the element Clear History will remove those entries, what may be useful for privacy reasons.

Bookmarks

  This submenu shows your personal bookmarks just like &konqueror; does. Refer to the &konqueror; Handbook for more help on this.

### The Application Group

The submenus for application starting are located in this group. You can use &kmenuedit; to add, remove or move the entries. Applications will have a short description if the option Detailed menu entries is enabled in the settings.

### The most recently used applications

This group holds either the most recently or the most frequently used applications. See the Menus Configuration section for more about that.

## Applets

Applets are small applications running inside of &kicker;. Almost everything besides the application starter buttons are applets. They can be added from the context menu or from the submenu Configure Panel by choosing Add and the Applet. Every applet contains a small arrow in its handle. Clicking it will bring up a menu which lets you move or remove it, set the Preferences, if there are any and set the preferences of &kicker;.

### The Taskbar Applet

The taskbar applet shows buttons for the running applications. The application, which has the focus, is shown as a pressed button. If an application is minimized, the title displayed in the taskbar will fade to gray.

If you click on the button of the active application, it will be minimized. This means also that if you click twice on an inactive application, it will also be minimized.

A click with the &RMB; on a button will show the standard application menu. Only the entry To current desktop differs: if you have set the taskbar to show the applications of all desktops, you can move this app to the current desktop.

There is also a small icon on the left or top side of the taskbar, which opens a menu. This is called the windows list icon. The menu's first entry, Unclutter Windows, tries to move the windows on your active desktop in a way to see as many as possible. Cascade Windows puts all windows on the active desktop over each others, the most recently on top and the others sorted by the time they where last used.

Below those entries is a list of all currently running applications, grouped by the desktops on which they are running. Clicking on the name of a desktop will switch to that one, clicking an application will also activate it. You can specify the mouse behavior. Please refer to Taskbar settings for more about that.

#### Configuring the Taskbar Applet

You can configure the taskbar by clicking the &RMB; on the small move handle.

Please refer to for details about the preferences of the taskbar.

### The Mini-Pager Applet

This little applet shows a preview of the desktops and lets you also choose by a click with the &LMB; which desktop you want to use.

There is also a very useful context menu:

Preview

  This option lets the mini pager appear as a tiny preview of the desktops with symbolic rectangles for the running applications.

Number

  If this option is chosen, the pager will show the numbers of the desktops

Name

  This will let the pager show the names of the desktops, which can be set in the preferences or from Control Center.

Enable Desktop Preview

  If this option is checked, a small button will be shown which shows a bigger preview of the running desktops. If you click an application in that preview, it will be activated.

Preferences

  Here you can set the number of desktops you want to have and the names of them.

### The Clock Applet

As you might already guess, the clock applet is a small clock which resides in &kicker;.

A click with the &LMB; on the clock will show a small calendar. You can use the single arrows to switch the months or the double arrows for switching years. This won't have any effect of your date settings, it's just for your information.

There are some things you can do with the clock applet. This can be done from the context menu.

#### Type

There are four ways the clock can appear:

Plain

  This lets the clock appear as a simple text that shows the time in plain text.

Digital

  This lets the clock appear as a digital clock showing the time in the well known seven segment style.

Analog

  If this is set, the clock will be displayed as an old styled analog clock.

  This may only be useful if you set &kicker; to normal or large size.

Fuzzy

  This is a very unorthodox style of time display. Try it out, it is really funny!

#### Preferences

Here you can set some general preferences of the clock applet.

General

  In the Clock Type settings you can choose between the clock styles like in the context menu.

  The Date group lets you pick font and color of the date, which is shown when activated for the specific clock type.

The Plain Clock Tab

  In the Options section you can check if you want to have the date and/or the seconds shown. In Colors you can choose if you want the common &kde; look or your own custom colors and font.

The Digital Clock Tab

  In the Options section you can check if you want to have the date, the seconds and/or blinking dots shown. In Colors you can choose if you want the common LCD-Look or your own custom colors.

The Analog Clock Tab

  In the Options section you can check if you want to have the date and/or seconds shown. In Colors you can choose if you want the common LCD-Look or your own custom colors. You can also set the level of antialiasing, which means that lines will get blurred a little bit to prevent steps in the drawing. High quality antialiasing may catch some system load on low-end systems. Draw Frame will display the clock a little bit sunken in the panel.

The Fuzzy Clock Tab

  In the Options section you can check if you want to have the date shown. There is also a slider to set the Fuzziness. This cannot be described in the documents, just do your own experiments. In Colors you can choose the colors and the font of the fuzzy clock.

#### Adjust Date and Time

This option starts the Country & Language configuration module of the &kcontrol;.

You will need the super user password for adjusting date and time.

#### Date and Time Format

This will open the Date and Time module of &kcontrol; where you can set your formats. There aren't any special permissions needed for that.

#### Copy

If you need to paste the actual date and/or time in another application (⪚ in a text editor), you can copy it to the clipboard with this function. After selecting one of the available formats, the actual date and/or time is placed in the clipboard using the appropriate format.

### The Quick Launcher Applet

This is a compressed application launcher. It is very useful especially if the panel is set to normal or large size. You can add applications by drag and drop or from the context menu. The context menu is also used to remove an application.

### The System Tray Applet

The system tray is used to dock some special applications like ⪚ &klipper; or &kteatime;.

### Lock/Logout Applet

This little applet contains two buttons. The luggage lock is used to lock the screen if you ever want to leave your &kde; box alone and don't want anybody to see it and the off switch to close your &kde; session.

### The Application Launcher Applet

This applet provides a simple command line embedded in &kicker;. Nothing more, nothing less.

### The Runaway Process Catcher Applet

This applet shows a smiley which will get angry when any process catches up too much system resources. If an application uses too much, a messagebox will appear and ask you how to handle that application.

Clicking it with the &LMB; will show a configuration dialog. Here you can set the Update interval, which is set in seconds, and the CPU load threshold. At the moment, there is no real advice for setting this up, you will have to do some experimenting. These settings will probably change in a future release. There is also a section Programs to ignore where you can add applications that use very much resources naturally, ⪚ compilers or 3D renderers.

### &klipper; Applet

This applet does exactly the same like the &klipper; residing in the system tray. It has the advantage, that it consumes a little bit less system ressources, which only matters on really slow systems, but has the disadvantage, that it uses more space than &klipper; in the system tray. You can read more about that in the manual for &klipper;

## Extensions

There are also some features that run outside of &kicker;, the extensions. They are added from the submenu Configure Panel of the K Menu or the context menu by choosing Add and then Extensions. You can move them to any screenborder by dragging them at the small fadeout on their side and remove it by right clicking on that button and choose Remove. Clicking these buttons with the &LMB; fades the extension out or in, just like the main &kicker;.

The style of the extensions can be configured in the section of &kicker;'s preferences.

### The External Taskbar Extension

The external taskbar is just the same as the taskbar applet with the only difference that it provides its own panel. Refer to the taskbar applet section for help about it.

### The Child Panel Extension

This is just a panel like &kicker; itself, where you can add all the stuff &kicker; is also capable. So you can have as many &kicker;s as you want. Just add a child panel and add applications and applets to it.

### The KasBar Extension

The KasBar is an iconic replacement of the taskbar. It always shows the icons of all currently running applications on any desktop, they can be chosen by clicking with the &LMB;. The active window is highlighted, minimized windows will show a little triangle pointing downwards instead of the square in the lower right of the icons. A triangle pointing to the right indicates that the application is shaded.

### The Dock Application Bar Extension

The Dock Application Bar is an external bar which lets WindowMaker applications be docked. Just run your dockable WindowMaker programs, if the Dock Application Bar is running, they will be automatically docked.

## Command Reference

### The Panel

There is only one standard shortcut available in &kicker;:

&Alt;F1

  Opens the K Menu

## Questions and Answers

How can I add applications, applets or anything else to the panel?

Click the &RMB; on any free space in &kicker; and choose Add. From appearing submenu you can choose, what you want to add. See in Kicker Basics for more about that.

Can I have an external Taskbar just like in &kde; 1?

Yes, you can just click the &RMB; on any empty space in &kicker; and then choose Add, Extension and the External Taskbar.

How can I move &kicker; to another screen border?

Simply drag it by holding the &LMB; on any empty space in &kicker; to any screen border.

How can I move extensions to another screen border?

Just drag it by holding the &LMB; on the small handles on the left or the top of the extension.

I want the taskbar to show all applications I'm running, independent on which desktop it is. Is that possible?

Yes, click the &RMB; on the small handle of the taskbar, then choose Preferences and check Show all windows in the appearing dialog.

How can I access the K Menu without using the mouse?

Simply press &Alt;F1 and it will appear.

Is there a way to add a menu containing all desktop icons to &kicker;?

Just fire up &konqueror;, go to your home directory and drag the KDesktop icon to any free space of &kicker;, then choose Add as Quick Browser from the appearing menu.

How can I change the color and style of &kicker;?

You can change the colors of the panel with the global color module of the Control Center or you can style the panel itself, see in for more about that.

Why is the clock showing the wrong time?

On some &RedHat;systems, the clock always shows the time in GMT. This is a bug in the system setup, and not directly related to &kicker;. However, to solve it, just create this symbolic link: ``ln` `-s` `/usr/share/zoneinfo` `/usr/lib/zoneinfo``.

Is it possible to change the K button of the panel to another picture?

Look for `$HOME/.kde/share/apps/kicker/pics/go.png` and `$HOME/.kde/share/apps/kicker/pics/mini/go.png` and replace them. Do not forget to flatten the replacements to one layer, or else you will not see anything. Create the directories if they do not already exist. Then restart &kicker;.

Why is my Settings menu not working?

Your menu entries may be mixed up for some reason. Simply run `kbuildsycoca` on a commandline.

&reporting.bugs;

## Credits and License

&kicker;

Program copyright 1999-2000 The KDE Team (www.kde.org).

- Matthias Elterelter@kde.org

- Matthias Ettrichettrich@kde.org

- Wilco Grevengreven@kde.org

- Rik Hemsleyrik@kde.org

- Daniel M. Duleymosfet@kde.org

- Preston Brownpbrown@kde.org

Documentation copyright 2001, 2002 Dirk Doerflinger ddoerflinger@web.de

&underFDL; &underBSDLicense;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kicker;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &kicker;, you need &kde; 3.x. Actually, it makes not too much sense running &kicker; without the complete &kde;.

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;

### Configuration

Please refer to the `INSTALL` file in the &package; directory for more information about configuration.

&documentation.index;