ON THE DOCKS

The Kicker is the KDE command

base. Kicker launches programs,

switches desktops, and adds

applets to the panel. Besides these basic

functions, the program also offers a few

graphical tricks. Kicker supports transparency

and animated program launch

icons with a magnifying glass effect

when you hover the mouse over an icon.

Unfortunately, the default KDE taskbar

cannot match the graphical elegance of

the Mac OS X dock. Matias Fernandez,

Francisco Guidi, and Stefano wanted

more than the default design. Matias

and Francisco developed an add-on

KDE taskbar that resembles the

Mac OS X dock, and Stefano also

developed an OS X-like taskbar for

KDE. In this article. I’ll describe

KoolDock [1] and KXDocker [2]

and reveal how you can enhance

your KDE desktop with one of

these taskbars.