plank.md

Plank

Warning

Plank is not supported on desktops running Wayland such as KDE Plasma 6.

Note

Certain parts of this guide assumes that you are using the KDE Plasma desktop environment.

Description

Plank is meant to be the simplest dock on the planet. The goal is to provide just what a dock needs and absolutely nothing more.

Directory

• Plank
  • Description
  • Directory
  • References
  • Setup
    • Description
    • Steps
  • Dual Monitor Setup
    • Description
    • References
    • Steps

References

• Plank

---

Setup

Description

This guides how to install and setup the Plank dock.

Steps

1. Install the Plank (plank) dock using yay.

2. Configure the Plank dock:

   • Run the Plank dock.

   • Ctrl + right click on the dock.

   • Click the Preferences option.

   • In the Appearance tab, set the following values:

     • Theme: Default
     • Position: Bottom
     • Icon Size: 48
     • Icon Zoom: 130

   • In the Behaviour section, set the following values:

     • Hide Dock: Disabled
     • Pressure Reveal: Disabled
     • Show Unpinned: Enabled
     • Restrict to Workspace: Enabled
     • Lock Icons: Disabled

   • Remove any Docklets from the Plank dock.

3. Set the Plank dock to autostart upon boot.

4. Add applications to the dock by launching the application while the Plank dock is running and right clicking the application's icon in the dock and selecting the Keep in Dock option.

---

Dual Monitor Setup

Description

This guide details how we could have a Plank dock for each of our 2 monitors.

Note

This guide assumes that you have already followed the Setup guide.

References

• Fun tip: Have plank run on multiple monitors!
• Plank - Configuration

Steps

Important

Keep all the applications that we wish to keep to the dock before proceeding with the following steps.

1. Create a new dock named dock2:

   plank -n dock2

2. Get into our plank configuration directory:

   cd ${HOME}/.config/plank

3. Create a symbolic link to the dock1 directory as dock2:

   ln -sf dock1 dock2

4. Create a dump of our Plank dock config as docks.ini using dconf:

   dconf dump /net/launchpad/plank/docks/ > ~/docks.ini

5. Edit the docks.ini file and add a new set of configuration for dock2.

   Edit the docks.ini file we had just dumped:

   nano ~/docks.ini

   Duplicate dock1's configurations as dock2's configurations. Change only the monitor value of dock2 to be our secondary monitor:

   [dock1]
   alignment='center'
   auto-pinning=true
   current-workspace-only=true
   dock-items=['org.kde.dolphin.dockitem', 'org.mozilla.firefox.dockitem', 'firefoxdeveloperedition.dockitem', 'org.mozilla.Thunderbird.dockitem', 'org.kde.kalendar.dockitem', 'com.visualstudio.code.dockitem', 'org.telegram.desktop.dockitem', 'org.signal.Signal.dockitem', 'com.discordapp.Discord.dockitem', 'org.kde.kasts.dockitem', 'com.slack.Slack.dockitem', 'notable.dockitem', 'fr.handbrake.ghb.dockitem', 'tv.plex.PlexDesktop.dockitem', 'com.spotify.Client.dockitem', 'anydesk.dockitem', 'org.eduvpn.client.dockitem', 'steam.dockitem', 'com.obsproject.Studio.dockitem', 'Alacritty.dockitem', 'systemsettings.dockitem']
   hide-delay=0
   hide-mode='none'
   icon-size=48
   items-alignment='center'
   lock-items=false
   monitor='DP-4'
   offset=0
   pinned-only=false
   pressure-reveal=false
   show-dock-item=false
   theme='Default'
   tooltips-enabled=true
   unhide-delay=0
   zoom-enabled=true
   zoom-percent=130
   
   [dock2]
   alignment='center'
   auto-pinning=true
   current-workspace-only=true
   dock-items=['org.kde.dolphin.dockitem', 'org.mozilla.firefox.dockitem', 'firefoxdeveloperedition.dockitem', 'org.mozilla.Thunderbird.dockitem', 'org.kde.kalendar.dockitem', 'com.visualstudio.code.dockitem', 'org.telegram.desktop.dockitem', 'org.signal.Signal.dockitem', 'com.discordapp.Discord.dockitem', 'org.kde.kasts.dockitem', 'com.slack.Slack.dockitem', 'notable.dockitem', 'fr.handbrake.ghb.dockitem', 'tv.plex.PlexDesktop.dockitem', 'com.spotify.Client.dockitem', 'anydesk.dockitem', 'org.eduvpn.client.dockitem', 'steam.dockitem', 'com.obsproject.Studio.dockitem', 'Alacritty.dockitem', 'systemsettings.dockitem']
   hide-delay=0
   hide-mode='none'
   icon-size=48
   items-alignment='center'
   lock-items=false
   monitor='DP-2'
   offset=0
   pinned-only=false
   pressure-reveal=false
   show-dock-item=false
   theme='Default'
   tooltips-enabled=true
   unhide-delay=0
   zoom-enabled=true
   zoom-percent=130

   In this example, the primary monitor is DP-4 while the secondary monitor is DP-2.

6. Load the new docks.ini configuration for Plank to use:

   cat ~/docks.ini | dconf load /net/launchpad/plank/docks/

7. Add Plank to Autostart in the System Settings app. Refer to Step 3 from the Setup guide on how to do so.

8. In the same Autostart page, update the added Plank's Properties.

   • In Plank's Properties, click the Application tab.

   • In the Arguments field, add the following argument:

     -n dock1

   • Click the OK button.

9. Duplicate the created plank.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart as plank2.desktop:

   cp ~/.config/autostart/plank.desktop ~/.config/autostart/plank2.desktop

10. Update the following attributes as such in the plank2.desktop file:

    Exec=plank -n dock2
    Name[en_US]=Plank 2
    Name=Plank 2

    Now, we should have Plank and Plank 2 in our Autostart page. This will launch dock1 and dock2 in their respective monitors upon boot.