xfce4-panel and multi-launchers

[Allin Cottrell]

Among the many things I like about Xfce4 there's one thing I'm not 
so keen on. That's when you want to add a single item to a panel 
that contains "launchers" for several related tasks (e.g. terminal 
windows running ssh sessions onto various hosts).

In old gnome you could add a "drawer" that contains the multiple 
items: click on it and the drawer slides out, giving you access to 
the individual launchers.

In Xfce4 -- unless I'm missing something -- you can't do that. You 
can add a multi-launcher to a panel OK, but the first launcher 
itself takes the place on the panel, with a little arrow icon/button 
alongside to slide out the other ones.

I don't like it: to me, there's nothing specially privileged about 
the first of the launchers, that it should occupy the single-click 
slot. I find it more intuitive if single-click just slides out the 
list (with, therefore, no need for a distinct arrow button).

I find myself clicking the arrow button and thinking "Where has A 
gone?", where A is the first launcher I added. The answer, of 
course, is that A is what you get by clicking on the "main" icon, 
not the arrow -- but like I said, I don't find this intuitive.

-- 
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University