While familiarizing myself with the upcoming Xfce edition of Solus, I needed to get used to having the bottom panel at the top, and a dock on the bottom. After learning how to use the Xfce dock, I started to wonder what it would be like to configure my Plasma desktop that way. Since everything I've done can be easily undone, I gave it a try.

Right now, it still feels very strange, but I'm determined to give it a chance to grow on me. I'm not ready to get rid of my Workspace Switcher, because it serves a whole different purpose than the dock. And since I CAN easily undo everything I've done, I'm going to give this a couple days to see how I really feel about it. After all, I've been using the traditional Plasma arrangement for years.

I DID, however, remove my icon-only task manager, as it serves the same purpose as the dock. As I wrote, when I was trying Solus Xfce, such an arrangement as this actually provides a bit more usable area on the desktop, since the upper panel is smaller than the bottom panel, and the Latte dock disappears intelligently. And even with an application displaying itself at full-screen, the dock can still be reached when needed.

    WetGeek it's has nice look but too busy. I don't do redundancies anymore. I kept my dock and did not allow pinned apps on the task bar in budgie.

    If I check out Xfce I would pick taskbar or dock not both. if the task bar icons are the dealbreaker then dump the plank and see if you like it.

        brent it's has nice look but too busy. I don't do redundancies anymore.

        There's no task manager. I got rid of it because with the Latte dock (not Plank), it was quite redundant. You may be confusing the Workspace Switcher applet in the upper panel with the task manager. That applet is definitely not redundant, as it does a different job than the dock does. The dock launches applications, the Workspace Switcher decides where they should be launched. Apparently my explanation of that below the image fell short.

            WetGeek more likely my brain fell short. I knew you said workplace switcher but it still walks like and talks like pinned icons. still very busy.
            but I see where the old 1,2,3,4 on the taskbar evolvled into that

              WetGeek good luck. I've always tried to like Plank, Latte, or Cairo, but they never stick around. Visually, I think it's interesting and creates a nice desktop view. In practice, I think the dock just gets in my way and I end up turning it off. I much prefer tiling and workspaces.

                  Brucehankins I think the dock just gets in my way and I end up turning it off.

                  I guess I haven't reached that point yet. The Latte dock hides and reappears very intelligently, and has never gotten in my way at all. In fact, I'm beginning to like it, the more I use it. I think KDE did their usual excellent job with it.

                  But I am having a harder time than I expected getting used to the bottom panel on the top. That still just seems wrong to me. If I'm gonna have a dock, though, that's where it will have to stay.

                      Brucehankins . Visually, I think it's interesting and creates a nice desktop view. In practice, I think the dock just gets in my way and I end up turning it off. I much prefer tiling and workspaces.

                      having both is overkill and I lean the other way, preferring the plank. in fact I made 'em smaller once and scooted them vertically right (tubular man) and I liked it. but at the very end of the day, as you said, its about real estate.

                      WetGeek But I am having a harder time than I expected getting used to the bottom panel on the top.

                      the top panel is my normal. it's funny whay we consider normal. trying someting with a bottom panel gives me heebyjeebies🙂

                            Staudey

                            Well i did use windows since version 3.11.
                            But honestly i don`t miss it a second.

                              8 days later

                              Hello Guys, long time since I posted here!
                              Well, been trying some other iconset + themes + cursors on my setup, here is a few screenshot of it



                              Pop Icon + Bibata cursor + Flat remix blue dark




                              Paper Icon + Bibata cursor + Flat remix blue dark

                              Bonus:


                              Resources:
                              Flat Remix GTK Theme: https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1013030
                              Pop Icons: https://github.com/pop-os/icon-theme
                              Paper icon: sudo eopkg it paper-icon-theme (available in repo)
                              Bibata cursor: sudo eopkg it bibata-cursors (available in repo)

                              How to get Pop Icon theme:

                              git clone https://github.com/pop-os/icon-theme pop-icon-theme
cd pop-icon-theme
meson build
sudo ninja -C "build" install

                              All tested and working correct in Solus Gnome, not yet tested in Budgie but should work, if another distro please refer to your official docs as stuffs like getting Pop Icon theme to work may change or work not as expect at first try.