I am using KDE Plasma 5. Look at the panels at the bottom. They are from the attached monitor on the right, and my laptop on the left. They have full tab sized sets for the programs that I've opened. I don't want them in that way. I want the panel/taskbar to have just icons of the open programs with maybe a counter on top of them to represent the number of instances open of the specific program. How do I achieve this in KDE.
KDE Taskbar – How to Change View for Open Programs in KDE Taskbar
kdekde5paneltaskbar
Related Solutions
KDE Plasma Themes
The KDE TechBase : http://techbase.kde.org/Welcome_to_KDE_TechBase
The KDE taskbar (panel) is a plasma object so its configuration is through the KDE plasma theme configuration - the Development/Tutorials/Plasma/Theme is tellling:
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/Theme -> http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/Theme#Theme_Colors
Theme Colors
You can provide a plasma color scheme that will allow text, selected backgrounds and other items to blend well with your theme by supplying a colors file in your theme folder. See the colors file in the default theme for an example.
If the colors file is omitted, plasma will take on the current KDE system colors. Note: Theme SVGs will not be colorized unless they contain the 'hint-apply-color-scheme' element.)
More can be found from the Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ThemeDetails
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ThemeDetails -> http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ThemeDetails#Colors
From the KDE mailing list - [kde] settings for font colors
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/KDE/2010-03/msg00011.html
The desktop, aka plasma, has its own themes. However, in a couple places, they seem to interact with the normal kde colors as well. Well either that or the themes I run don't have a couple things set too well. This can be bad if like me you have a strong "reverse color scheme" (that is, light text on a dark background) preference, as that's uncommon and the assumption would be dark text on a light background.
Unfortunately, unlike kde, where most of the colors are set specifically, with plasma one has to choose a theme -- altho individual components (, general color scheme, panel background, desktop widget background, analog clock, etc) can be set to different themes if desired. Editing individual elements within a component, however, requires editing the text-based config files themselves, unfortunately...
KDE Brainstorm
http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=83
A wish: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=101989
I would
I would use the non-transparent panel.
Opaque panel
Background
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ThemeDetails#.22Opaque.22_folder
"Opaque" folder
In the folder share/apps/desktoptheme/opaque the same hierarchy can be found: when compositing is disabled files in this folder are preferred over the corresponding ones listed above...
But you could use the opaque plasma object with the compositing.
Another theme
The KDE System Settings > Workspace Appearance > Desktop Theme has the "Get New Themes". There are themes with the opaque panels - the Aya seems to be one of them.
Mixing theme components
KDE System Settings > Workspace Appearance > Desktop Theme -> Details tab. Pick the opaque panel from another plasma theme. Note the panel background is not working at here. Maybe this is working there.
How it should work - tested with the KDE 4.10.2 - Air (default) desktop theme with the opaque Air theme panel
KDE System Settings > Workspace Appearance > Desktop Theme -> Details tab; Panel Background: File=/usr/share/kde4/apps/desktoptheme/default/opaque/widgets/panel-background.svgz -> Apply
Now the selected theme with the customize opaque panel background should be copied to the ~/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme/.customized/.
BUT this doesn't seem to work with the panel background. I tried this with the "Translucent Background" (for the other plasmoids) - it was working.
How to get the customized panel background to work (working at here)
1) Set the plasma desktop theme off from the "Customized"
2) Copy panel-background.svgz from the ~/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme/.customized/opaque/widgets/ to the ~/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme/.customized/translucent/widgets/
3) Remove/clean the plasma theme cache from the /var/tmp/kdecache-[username] (same as ~/.kde/cache-[hostname]). The KDE is caching things like a mad - and using the information from the cache.
4) Log out - log in (or kill the plasma desktop and restart the plasma-desktop)
The panel background should be opaque - at here it is.
A PNG image as the panel background: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=101989 -> http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php?56120-Customize-plasma-desktop-theme
Not all programs have icons, but certainly for custom desktop entry, there won't be an icon, you have 2 ways to solve this
GUI Right click kde menu -> edit applications -> scroll to the appropriate application, you will see the icon, as shown in the attached image
text right click on the desktop entry icon, click open with a text editor (as kate), you will see all info for that entry, edit "Icon" as shown in attached pic
Best Answer
Click the
Hamburger
-icon at the right end of the panel, remove the 'Task Manager'-widget, then clickAdd Widgets
, scroll the widget-list down to find theIcons-only Task Manager
-widget and drag it to the panel.