Let me explain.
Today on BeOS the deskbar hides programs that are behind it. This annoyes sepcially when it’s dragged to screen bottom. When I want to use Be menu, the deskbar is under some program. When Deskbar is on the top, part of a program is hidden behind it.
Solution would be from Windows - when Deskbar is dragged to screen bottom, programs are maximised to deskbar edge, but not further.
Don’t know what should happen when deskbar is at the upper-right corner tough…
Maybe it should retract upwards?
Edit: or maybe it should be semi-transparent when not in focus.
vootele wrote:
Let me explain. Today on BeOS the deskbar hides programs that are behind it. This annoyes sepcially when it's dragged to screen bottom. When I want to use Be menu, the deskbar is under some program. When Deskbar is on the top, part of a program is hidden behind it. Solution would be from Windows - when Deskbar is dragged to screen bottom, programs are maximised to deskbar edge, but not further. Don't know what should happen when deskbar is at the upper-right corner tough... Maybe it should retract upwards? Edit: or maybe it should be semi-transparent when not in focus.
A minimized deskbar in the upper-right corner that retracts/dissapears as soon as the mouse leaves its menu would be the same as Windows.
This option could perhaps be added for those who want it, though I find it very annoying to start back at square one when you place your mouse outside the menu by accident !
When i used to use BeOS extensively, my Deskbar was on top.
So, even when windows are fully extended, a part of the Deskbar is still visible, you then just have to click on it and drag to pop-up the Be’s menu.
I hope than i’am clear 
But your idea would be nice to implement.
In Windows, ‘auto hide’ is an optional setting. The Deskbar retracts, if the ‘auto hide’ option is set. If retracted, a mouseover makes it visible and a mouseout retracts it once more.
If this were available in Haiku, no matter where you place the Deskbar, bottom, right, left or top, the functionality applies.
Another setting is ‘always on top’. When the Deskbar is visible, any window sharing the same space is occluded, if ‘always on top’ is selected, otherwise; the Deskbar is occluded by any window sharing the same space.
The two options are independent of each other.
There is an easy solution that should make this problem less of a problem, which is for all BWindows by default to not maximize so that they cover Deskbar. Windows will still be possible to move in front of Deskbar (or behind it), but when “zooming” a window (pressing the icon on the right hand side) it will maximize just enough to not cover Deskbar. Applications are of course always free to override this default behaviour, but I think it would be a sensible default.
If one truly wants a Windows-like desktop experience, Deskbar itself, by way of standard BeOS interface scripting, could resize and move application windows, when Deskbar is moved around.
Yes, preventing applications from covering the deskbar when they are maximized makes a lot of sense (to me). The maximize button becomes rather silly if you have to manually adjust the window’s size anyway.
I’m pretty sure the “always on top” option is already there…
I’m not so sure about auto-hiding or transparency, though. I don’t think they’re very good solutions, but I don’t have much to back that up with.
That’s exactly what I thought.
There are lots of people who don’t like auto-hiding and transparency has a fokus problem.
The deskbar contains stuff people might instantly want to see, like quick start buttons, time, icon for new mails, … . Auto hide would not be an option there.
Transparancy has other problems (beside it usually is ugly -> KDE-Menu). How should the deskbar know if a klick was supposed to hit it or the button underneath. If there is text it’s a lose/lose situation anyways, because the text on deskbar and application is bad to read.
Hey this finally got implemented in hrev51623 11 years later… woo!
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sometimes it takes years to become good