Increasing maximum panel size does not cause panel to resize

[Alan Jenkins]

Environment: Kubuntu 9.04 Live CD
Package version: kdebase-plasma 4:4.2.2-0ubuntu4

Decreasing the maximum panel size to smaller than it's current size will cause it to resize appropriately. However, it will not resize if you increasing the maximum panel size back to where it was.

[Alan Jenkins (aj504)]

Here's a screenshot of my panel after reproducing this.

Observe that the panel is "squashed" to the smallest size allowed; the caret is overlapping the Kickoff icon, which it would prefer not to do, and of course there is lots of hidden panel content which you can't see because it's too small.

But if you look at the maximum size indicator, "->|", there's plenty of space for the panel to expand into. But it doesn't :-).

BTW, in order to recover from this, just move the minimum size indicator and the panel will expand to follow it.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Well, it's not really supposed to. The maximum size defines how much a panel can grow on it's own. If a plasmoid inside the panel were to get bigger, for instance, the maximum panel size would prevent it from getting bigger once it hit that size.

[Alan Jenkins (aj504)]

I think you're missing the point. If you increase the maximum panel size, _and the panel had previously been constrained from growing_, it should then be free to grow, up to the new maximum. I'm not seeing it do that.

...hmm, well, it is doing that _now_...

Right, I thought it was working properly for a moment, but I wonder if it's just being masked by something else.

Have a look at this screenshot. I've moved the minimum and maximum sliders to their extremes, so the panel has complete freedom to choose it's size.

It's decided that it's preferred size is about 3/4 of the screen width. There isn't a taskbar on it, so that can't be responsible. I thought the panel was pretty figure-hugging; I've not seen it grow just to provide empty space before. I'm not objecting if that's what it's supposed to do, but if so I'm puzzled that I didn't notice it earlier.

[Alan Jenkins (aj504)]

Ok, on a fresh LiveCD boot it exhibits the first behaviour ("panels don't grow"), and not the second ("panels grow to ~3/4 screen width to provide empty space").

When I say "panels don't grow", it doesn't seem to grow even if widgets want to grow. Here's another screenshot. I fiddled with the minimum and maximum to get a panel which is relatively small. It has a small amount of free space which is occupied by an empty taskbar. The maximum is way over on the right so it's free to grow if it wants to.

After resizing the panel, I fired up 3 applications. They look really cramped in the taskbar - so it should try to grow - but the panel is just staying the same size.