Feature Request: change Icons-Only Task Manager spacing options to numerals

Brainstorm
1

Hello,

I have just installed Kubuntu and the Panel Colorizer. I absolutely love it. I was unhappy however with what seemed to my eye to be excessive spacing between the panel icons. Searching “icon spacing” at this forum led me to a post showing the Icons-Only Task Manager, Spacing between icons section. I discovered mine was set to Large and I changed selection to Small. This however is still too much space to my eye. Is there a chance instead of this arbitrary Small/Normal/Large options that we can set the exact number of pixels of separation desired?

Thank you very much for reading,

Logan

2

I have mine set to small and to be honest much less space and the icons would be practically on top of each other.

3

Either it’s a personal preference or perhaps different systems interpret the spacing differently, but here is the spacing on my panel set to “small”

ok so much for that, I just found I am not allowed to link to an imgur picture.

That’s just too much padding between icons to my eye. I would like the current distance between icons halved.

4

you should be able to post a pic soon (next reply or two)

here is what mine looks like set at small vs large

the gaps are fixed, only the padding between icons is affected.

Screenshot_20250603_044702

Screenshot_20250603_044636

5

Oh I see it’s a new account thing. Thank you for what you posted that is a great example of the difference in settings.

I have to say, seeing this I still would like control of how many pixels of padding are used.

Lets see if I can post that image yet..

nope, I guess I havent posted enough yet.

6

icon size and padding also depends on the thickness of the panel (width in my case) which does have point level control.

you can use that to help square up the icons in conjunction with the spacing choices… they interact thru and auto sizing routine that adjust the padding.

i think exposing point size control to the user for the other direction (along the panel) would trip things up for the auto sizing routine by constraining that degree of freedom.

perhaps what is needed is simply more than 3 size options for spacing, esp on the smaller end.

do you have a particularly large screen?

7

More than 3 size options would be wonderful if exact pixel spacing isn’t possible, but I would prefer to see adjustable number setting.

Currently, I am running Kubuntu 25.10 on Oracle VirtualBox hosted on a Mint 21.3 | Cinnamon machine. I have a newly refurbished system being prepared for me now that I intend to physically host the Kubuntu OS.

At present, I have my virtualbox running at 1920x1080 resolution on a 32" monitor set to 2560x1440 resolution.

8

Let’s see if I can post images yet:

WOOT there we go :slight_smile:

so this is my setup at Small spacing. I would like about half of this padding.

9

Yea you do have a lot of padding there. That would drive me nuts as well since I like to use as little space on the panel as possible.

10

I am glad to read that you see the padding issue. I am very very pleased with this widget, it has made the panel unique and beautiful. I have previous experience with Cairo-Dock on Mint and this widget has almost all the options of expert/advanced mode Cairo. I love that it can float, I love that all 4 corners are independently adjustable and the border has so many options. I believe if it had setting for desired number of pixel spacing it would be perfect :smiley:

11

just so you are aware there is a separate size (spacing) control for the system tray.

plus i think your choice to break the panel up into sections plays into impression of too much space between icons as the border is rubbing right up against them in some cases.

looks far too busy for my taste but everyone has their own aesthetic which is why plasma is the best.

12

is that the 3rd party panel colorizer utility?

perhaps you should send your feature request to them?

13

I am using the panel colorizer, but the setting I am talking about is in the Icons-Only Task Manager Settings. I thought the Task Manager was part of the OS. Is it something that comes with the panel colorizer?

14

I use Panel Colorizer as well. I have for years. The spacing for icons only task manager can be different when Panel Colorizer is implemented. Sometimes so is the icon size. All depending on the theme/config you’re using.

15

Understood. Just to clarify, it’s Icons-Only Task Manager that has the small/normal/large spacing options that I was hoping would be edited into a numerals setting. Am I in the correct forum to request this?

16

you are correct… i was merely suggesting that perhaps the colorizer developer has a way that could be implemented faster.

i still think having more than 3 size options would be a good feature request for Log in to KDE Bugtracking System

17

Check if there’s an alternative task manager for your system. Maybe some has a smaller padding in “small”.
This one’s Fancy tasks on 5-ish.

Regular:
Screenshot_20250603_181125

Small:
Screenshot_20250603_181213

18

I understand that. I’m saying that sometimes Panel Colorizer affects that choice. Meaning if you select “small” in Icons Only Task Manager options with Panel Colorized active it might not look as small as you want it. Deactivate it and the padding might be smaller. Not all the time, just depends on how you have Panel Colorizer configured. It’s happened to me many times over the years.

1 Like
19

I can certainly take the time to post a suggestion to the bugtracking system.

I see the logic of the Panel Colorizer having an impact on the spacing.

It appears chosen font has something to do with it as well. I just switched from the default font to Papirus Light and I believe the icons are a bit closer together than they were.

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20

The margin option in panel colorizer is probably the cause of what you describe, this is because by default the Task manager widget has no margins around, like other widgets have:

Screenshot_20250603_105431

See the light blue border of the task manager touching the edges of the panel, this behavior is controlled by the widget itself and there are other built-in or third party widgets that also have it.

But when you apply a preset that changes the widgets margin the widget becomes smaller as now all the widgets are forced to those margins

Screenshot_20250603_105459

The reason some setups might need this is more noticeable with the panel’s background completely disabled where one widgets being taller than the others will look weird

Screenshot_20250603_110135

Screenshot_20250603_110952

Also, the icons in the panel will resize automatically to the nearest icon size (yes even though themes are SVG icons they are still limited to specific sizes that the icon theme provides, I don’t know the technicalities of it but is to avoid blurry icons) based on the size of the widget and panel, so there is a chance that at some sizes the icons becoming smaller or larger might be affecting how close together the icons appear to be

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