Future of the Panel?

[Jasper Huijsmans]

hey Ori,

Ori Bernstein wrote:
> I was recently working on some patches for the iconbox, so that moving it would
> make it more managable on multihead (make moving it behave similar to moving
> the panel), but in light of the fact that the panel is likely to be recoded, I
> am wondering if it's worthwhile.
> 
> Should I invest more time in fixing the iconbox, or will it be
> deprecated/reimplemented as a panel plugin in the next release anyway, meaning
> that fixing it is a waste of time? IMO, this is the nicest way of doing it -
> add an "maximize over panel"/"maximize under panel"/"do not cover panel" set of
> options, and anything vaguely panel-ish is a panel plugin.
> 

If you check out the CVS version of the panel, you will notice that both 
the taskbar and the iconbox are now part of the panel sources. At this 
moment they are not really integrated yet, but they probably will be.

The iconbox has been completely rewritten, so working on the old iconbox 
certainly is a waste of time.

All of the CVS code is very much a work in progress and I've only just 
started, trying out some ideas.

> Also, is there any way I can help out with the modifications to the panel,
> making multiple simultaneous panels possible?
> 

Well, I'm really not yet at a point where I can start doing that, it 
needs to be done one step at the time -- for my own sanity ;-) -- and 
currently I'm working on the design for a new plugin system, using 
external plugins. Check out 
http://www.myoo.de/xfce/index.php/Panel_Design , I'm trying to keep it 
up-to-date.

Multiple panels and proper multihead support is certainly one of the 
major goals for 4.4 and since I don't have a multihead setup I could use 
some help testing things. It's just a little too early in the 
development for that.

Ideas and suggestions are always welcome, either here or on the wiki.

Thanks,
	Jasper