How to add a second panel in IceWM?

[Member hughtmccullough]

Is it possible to have a second panel running along with the IceWM taskbar that doesn’t cause any errors or conflicts?

Background – Previously I ran Debian LXDE and as well as the bar along the bottom I had a simple panel down the left side of the screen. This was basically an application launcher with a vertical row of icons for launching my most-used applications and an auto-hide feature. If I wanted to run something, I just had to move the cursor to the left of the screen. The icons would pop up and I would click on the one I wanted.

Requirement – I would like to replicate something close to this using the IceWM in antiX. I am happy with the IceWM taskbar as it is and just need the panel down the left side of the screen.

Problems – I tried to run Lxpanel and also Plank. However, in both cases, most of the settings didn’t seem to work and they looked rather ugly. Also, Plank tended to flicker a lot.

Questions – Is this possible or am I expecting too much from IceWM? Are there any things I am missing about setting these up (the videos I have watched seem to suggest that all you need to do is run the panel/dock application and everything should be fine). Has anyone done something similar to what I want and is there a guide to which panels/docks work along with IceWM and how to configure them?

[Moderator christophe]

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I like the ROX Panel. It’s already installed (well, actually it’s part of rox-filer).
rox --left=PANEL
Will place the panel on the left. To move it to the top, you change ‘left” to “top,” and so forth.

You add that command to your startup, in your ~/.icewm/startup if you only want this for icewm (and you boot to different desktops sometimes), or in the ~/.desktop-session/startup file, and it will start on all icewm, jwm, and fluxbox sessions.

You just drag & drop from rox filer to the panel. .desktop files as well as regular files. Play with it & see. And it’s tailor-made to work well on antiX.

😉

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Anonymous]

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a couple other candidates for your consideration:

screenshots.debian.net/package/stalonetray

screenshots.debian.net/package/fbpanel

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: From skidoo

[Member hughtmccullough]

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Thank you both for your suggestions.

I tried Rox Panel and it was the easiest to set up and use. However, when I placed the panel down the left hand side, it extended all the way from top to bottom and partially covered the antiX button on the toolbar. I couldn’t find a way to change the size or make it auto-hide.

I looked at stalonetray but the documentation I found was rather confusing. So, I set it aside.

Then I tried fbpanel. The documentation was straightforward but only the basics of the panel can be set up through a GUI. Adding applications to the panel has to be done manually by editing a configuration file. I persisted with this and now it does everything I want and looks fine. I don’t intend to change it often. So, hopefully the effort of setting it up won’t have to be repeated.

[Moderator christophe]

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Excellent. Thanks for letting us know how it turned out! 😉

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

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