The Location group lets you choose where the Kicker panel is displayed. You can choose left, right, top or bottom.
![]() | You can also use the mouse to move the panel. You can learn more in Drag and Drop chapter. |
The Size group gives you choice of panel sizes. You can have tiny, normal or large panel.
Use the Hide Buttons to remove and redisplay the main Kicker panel. You can enable the Hide Buttons if you check the Enabled checkbox. Uncheck it to disable the Hide Buttons.
If Highlight on mouse over checkbox is checked, Hide Button will appear in brighter color when your mouse pointer is over it.
Use Size field and slider to make Hide Buttons smaller or larger. Please note that if the size is smaller then 10, no arrows will be drawn on the buttons.
![]() | There is a smarter way to change the panel size. Do not display the configuration window, just right click the panel, click Configure, click Panel Size and choose your preferred size. |
![]() | You can read more about the Hide Buttons in Hide Buttons section. |
You can get more space on your screen if you tell the Kicker panel to hide itself when not used. In Auto Hide Panel group, click on Enabled to activate time-based panel hiding. Specify Delay in seconds using your keyboard or the slider.
![]() | Some legacy X-window applications may not recognize whether Kicker panel is hidden or not; when maximized, such applications may always hide the Kicker panel. |
In the Miscellaneous group, use the Terminal application field to choose your preferred terminal emulator. Kicker will use this terminal emulator in two situations: when your application should be started in a terminal window, and when you use the Quick Browser to start a terminal window in a directory that you are browsing.
![]() | You can learn how you specify that application should be run in a terminal emulator in the section that describes adding items to the panel. |
Use the Hide animation checkbox to specify if manual panel hiding should be animated. Use the speed field or slider to change the animation speed. Manual panel hiding is accomplished by clicking any of the Hide Buttons.
The panel can hide itself if it is not used for some time. You can enable this feature by checking the Auto Hide checkbox on General page. If the Auto Hide feature is indeed enabled, you can enable animation of this action. Check the Auto Hide Animation checkbox if the automatic hiding should be animated. You can also change the animation speed with either the speed field or slider.
![]() | Please note that panel will only hide itself if you move your mouse pointer away from it. |
You can change the panel background, if you click Use background theme checkbox. Click on the Browse button and find a picture that will become the background of your panel.
The handles used for moving and configuring applets can be hidden if you prefer. Check Fade out applet handles to remove Handles from your panel. They will still appear when your mouse pointer hovers over them.
![]() | You can learn more about the handles in Drag and drop operations chapter. |
The Clear menu cache checkbox specifies whether the menu cache is ever cleared to save memory. With the Clear after n seconds: field and slider you can set how often the menu cache gets cleared. More information about the menu cache is in the Glossary.
If you check the Show hidden files checkbox, hidden files will be shown when you use the Quick Browser
You can limit the maximum number of displayed files and directories with the Maximum browser menu entries field and slider. You should choose a reasonable number depending on your computer speed (so that performance is good) and your screen size (so that your display is not cluttered).
![]() | If you specify this number too small, you will not be able to use Quick browser with heavily populated directories. Instead of displaying files in such directories, Kicker will display a "Too many files to load" error message. Increasing Maximum browser menu entries will let you see all the files. |
Check Merge different menu locations checkbox to mix together global menu and your personal menu entries. Your K Desktop Environment has global menu which all users of your machine can access. Each user then has a personal menu. If menus are not merged, your personal menu appears as a separate entry in menu. If menus are merged, then your personal menu entries are integrated into main menu.
![]() | An example: Main menu features five applications under "Internet". You download and install two more Internet applications, and you add them to your personal menu. If merge is inactive, your new Internet applications will appear under Personal menu->Internet. But when merge is active, there will be seven applications within Internet (in the Main menu): five default applications and your two applications. |
![]() | Technically, Main menu is stored in $KDEDIR/share/applnk, and personal menu is stored in $HOME/.kde/share/applnk. You can find more information in Kicker for Admins chapter. |
Kicker can show a choice of documents that you recently opened, for your quick access. You can forbid it by unchecking Show recent documents submenu
You can disable the Quick Browser by unchecking the Show quickbrowser submenu.
Icons on the panel can have different backgrounds, or tiles, depending on the type of icon. If you enable this feature by checking the Enable background tiles checkbox, you can then modify background tiles of certain panel icons. Your panel will be more colorful, and you may find that applications can be easier located with color separation, especially if you sport many icons on your panel.
Some applets are trusted, some are not trusted but they are available. You can choose which applets you want to load, and which applets you trust.
You can choose to load only trusted internal applets, to load startup config panel internal applets, or to load all internal applets.
You can move applets from Trusted Applets to Available Applets and back, but only if your choice is Load only trusted applets internal.
At the bottom of Kicker configuration windows there are six buttons: Help, Default, Reset, Apply, OK, and Cancel.
Click the Help button to display KDE context-sensitive help.
Click the Default button to return to Kicker default configuration. Do this if your Kicker configuration is a mess, and you want to return to vanilla "factory" configuration.
Click the Reset button to return to the configuration that was in effect before you opened Kicker configuration window. Do this if you want to cancel changes that you just made. All buttons, fields, and sliders will go back to their previous values.
Click the Apply button to immediately activate your new configuration. Consequently Reset, Apply, and OK buttons will be dimmed out until you change your configuration further.
Click the OK button to activate your new configuration and close configuration window.
Click the Cancel button to call off the changes to your configuration that you just proposed. Consequently, the configuration window will be closed.