LXDE Forums

I'm new to LXDE and I'm really enjoying the lightweight and fast experience it offers on my older hardware. However, I'm having a bit of trouble customizing the panel and menu to suit my preferences. I hope someone can guide me through this.

1. Adding and Removing Panel Items:
I'd like to add a few more items to my panel, like a weather applet and a CPU monitor. I've tried right-clicking on the panel and selecting "Add/Remove Panel Items," but I'm not sure which applets to choose or how to configure them once added. Any recommendations or step-by-step instructions would be greatly appreciated!

2. Customizing the Main Menu:
I want to organize the main menu by adding some of my frequently used applications to it. I've found the menu files in /etc/xdg/menus and ~/.config/menus, but editing them manually seems a bit daunting. Is there an easier way to add or remove items from the main menu? Perhaps a graphical tool or a simpler method?

3. Changing Panel Size and Position:
The default panel size is a bit too small for my liking. How can I adjust the height of the panel and move it to the top of the screen instead of the bottom? I've seen some references to editing ~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/panels/panel, but I'm not entirely sure what to change in that file.

4. General Tips for LXDE Customization:
Lastly, if you have any general tips or tricks for customizing and getting the most out of LXDE, I'd love to hear them. Especially any tweaks that can improve performance or usability would be fantastic.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi plunkredwing,

Would like to know which distro you are using?

1. Adding and Removing Panel Items:
I found that experimenting with your own LXDE setup was the best way to learn and you will find that it so easy with a mouse right click either on screen to access obconfig or right clicking the left side or the right side of the task bar.
Back in November 2022 I made a simple screencast video from my old 2008 HP G60 laptop running Debian based antiX-22 OS to show those silly people who say LXDE is difficult to customise the menu – just how simple it can be.
This movie should get you started - https://imgur.com/a/XnArxCB

You will see that I show adjusting the first ‘spacer’ as the first variable, then moving on to the application launch bar to add your preferred ready to launch applications. Removing an application from the task bar is just as easy – just right click the icon and you will find same menu – ‘Application launch bar settings’ – highlight the launcher and select ‘Remove’
From here you can reorder any application on the task bar panel – simple.
Be careful not to click – Remove Application Launch Bar from panel – as this will entirely remove the launch facility.

3. Changing Panel Size and Position:
This is very easy – right click the task bar panel and choose ‘panel settings’ where under the the first tab – General – you can up the size of panel in number of pixels as well as the size of the icons. Also here you can change the location of the panel.

Hope that has helped you a little Good Luck with a right click in the right place

Let me know when you are good with this and I will move on to items 2 & 4