Hello, here is kpanel-0.16.

The look&feel of the panel can be modified with System->Panel->Configure

PanelButtons: 
   LMB: invoke 
   MMB: move around (!!!)
   RMB: show little popup for Remove, Move, Edit

TaskbarButtons:
    LMB: UnMinimize
    MMB: Toggle Minimize (this means with MMB-MMB you can move every
            window onto the current virtual desktop!)
    RMB: Shows a window operations menu
  
    Minimized windows are displayed in round brackets.

The K-Button: Hides and Shows the Panel. The K-Button can also be moved
    around with the MMB.
                      

The panel buttons understand drag'n'drop. That means you can drag for
example a file or a url onto a kedit button and kedit will be started
with that document loaded.

You can also drag a KDE Desktop Entry onto the panel and get a new
button then.

Another way of getting new buttons is the System->Panel->Add_Application
menu. You can either put single entries onto the panel (=>usual button) or
complete menues (=> menu button)

Note that a finished KDE Distribution will contain KDE Desktop Entries
for ***every*** KDE Applications which is installed. This means the
menu-tree of kpanel will reflect the complete installations (this
isn't yet done with the distribution).

But you can easily create a new KDE Desktop Entry from a template with
kfm and also edit it with kfm (RMB->Properties).

kpanel reads all KDE Desktop Entries from $KDEDIR/apps/...
and $HOME/Personal/...

If you for example put this file as vi.kdelnk into $HOME/Personal 
---------------------vi.kdelnk---------------
[KDE Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=vi %f
Icon=txt.xpm
TerminalOptions=-vt_bg black -vt_fg green
Path=
Info=The one and only UNIX texteditor ;-)
Terminal=1
-------------------------------------------
and restart kpanel (or just login into your kde), you will get a new
menu-entry for "vi" under a submenu "Personal" although your system
administrator, who is responsible for the system-wide KDE
installation, refused to install vi on the desktop.

It is yet not possible to install further KDE applications in local
directories if you want to run the KDE also from the system
installations. For this purpose we will have to improve the kdelib
to search for pictures, help-files, rc-files etc. not only in
$KDEDIR but also maybe in $HOME/.kdedir.
Also the Makefiles should check this.

This suggestion was made my Torben. I don't think we need this
tomorrow, but we should keep it in mind.

BTW: Don't expect the menu-editor to allow you to add entries like
"foo: exec kvt -e top&" This is stone-age ;-) Low level UNIX command
 editing should only be done IMO in the properties form of kfm (which will
 only be used by real hard-core hackers....). Indeed the menu-editor will allow
 every user to change the order of the menu-items following personal
 preferences and to hide selected items if he feels that there are too
 many applications installed on the system.

BTW2: If you wonder what that strange "K-Button" is (I often got this
question), just try to move into the mind of a user who used to work
with modern graphical user interfaces. What will he do if he finds a
nice looking button and doesn't know what its good for? yes! He will
simply click on it instead of writing a bugreport ;-) Alternatively he
could of course first read the tooltip-help that appears when the
mouse pointers move over this button....

BTW3: for developers: Please read SWALLOW.readme for animated
buttons or swallowed windows. 


Requirements 
==========

qt >= 1.2, and a decent libkde.

It requires also a decent kfm (It won't do much without kfm!)
kfmclient as a part of kfm is also required!!!!!!!!!

And a kwm >= 0.8


Best regards,

 Matthias
 (ettrich@kde.org)
