Change appearance of panel in KDE4?

[cazort]

This is probably the silliest and most basic question but I can't figure it out.

How can I change the visual look and feel of the panel? I have KDE4 looking exactly how I want except for the panel...which looks ugly and I can't seem to find where to change it. I basically want to get the panel to look like KDE3 and I also want to get that nifty button back that hides it with a single click.

Thanks in advance!
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[rtomek]

The glassified theme is transparent, and I like the way my panel looks with it. In the advanced system settings you can change the settings of the panel in the desktop theme settings. I'm not sure what you're looking for but that was enough to satisfy me.

I don't use the hide settings, I like always having my panel visible. You could also just do without the panel altogether, and make the taskbar and menu, systray, clock, etc. their own widgets. It works quite well and keep that as my permanent setting on my work computer. Something happened to the settings in my ~/.kde folder and reset my home computer so it's not separate widgets anymore but sort of like having an actual panel again since I made it transparent.

[cazort]

I guess the only option for me to change the appearance of the panel is to download a whole new theme.

I don't like eye candy (first thing I did was turn off all effects, including all transparency), and browsing the KDE4 themes, half of them don't even have a single screenshot that shows the panel. So I guess I'll just have to put up with a panel whose appearance I don't like.

I wish the KDE developers would allow for the option of continuity from one major release to the next...instead of having to make me go to great lengths just to get a similar-looking setup. I'm starting to feel like a grumpy old man. Then again, I guess I've always been this way; Apple lost my loyalty when they broke from the visual / UI continuity in releasing OS X after OS 9.

Still no ideas on the hide setting? I use it frequently and I want it back.
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[Gusar]

The panel is skinned by the plasma theme, not by the theme that skins apps. So if you want a different panel look, it's plasma themes you need to look at.

That nifty button to hide the panel I don't think exists anymore, there's just autohide.

[cazort]

I think it's time for me to switch away from KDE. It seems the developers are motivated more by flashy visual effects than functionality. Imagine if the amount of effort put into the visual stuff was instead directed to, say, bring Kexi up to speed (which in my opinion, still lags behind Access 97 in certain ways, and that's an ancient product).

And now they're removing functionality that I use and adding a ton of stuff I don't want!

If a feature doesn't save you time, why add it? I want pretty stuff to be on my walls, or on my plate, or in my garden, not on my computer screen. Pretty stuff on the computer just makes you spend more of your day staring at the screen, which is the last thing I want in my life. Maybe it's my fault for not seeing the writing on the wall sooner...it seems KDE has been moving in this direction for a long time.


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[ppurka]

-deleted mindless post-
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