[Lxde-list] LXPanel 0.5.3, vertical panels

[Marty J. <mar...@co...>]

There has been some unhappiness on the forum about the vertical panel changes in 0.5.x.

There was a fairly severe bug that prevented vertical panels from honoring their configured size.  This is fixed in 0.5.3, which I released a few minutes ago.  With this fixed it is possible to configure a vertical panel as small as 16 pixels.  It is a pity that this was not discovered sooner.

If you choose you can configure the taskbar as "icons only, tooltips" and access the window title by hovering over it to see the tooltip.  I am skeptical that returning to the "text sideways" mode as some have suggested should be optional is helpful for the taskbar since this uses a considerable amount of height, which is also in short supply on small screens.

I have added a feature to the clock plugin that allows you to have it be represented only by an icon if you wish, and access the time by hovering over it to see the tooltip.  This makes the minimum size of the clock as small as 16x16 pixels.  You can also use the new \n feature in the clock format string to stack the time vertically as you see fit.

I have added a feature to the desktop number plugin that allows you to use the number rather than the name to make the required size fit in 16 pixels.

Hopefully this will alleviate most discomfort with vertical panels as they exist in 0.5.x for use on smaller screens.  Please feel free to discuss further.