Here are the top things that need to be or are being worked on in Kicker.
They are rated as to expected difficulty, from one to five stars.
They are also rated as to desirability, from one to five plusses.

Issues Of Import
----------------
Layout management
    autoexpending panels on the same side of the screen need to stop expanding
        at the point they run into each other.
    make autohiding panels respect layout geometry too? e.g. don't overlap
    autounhiding panels should not obscure other panels
ContainerArea completness
    doesn't autoscroll when moving a container
    doesn't add items near the mouse even position
Bring some standardization to how the various plugins are handled
Allow menubar == mainpanel
Move more of the buttons/ classes into menuext/
Move appropriate applets into menuext/
revisit libtaskbar and libtaskmanager
    coordinate with kasbar authors
    add support for composite
revisit DCOP interface
    remove old/nonsensical calls
    extend with calls to:
        retrieve a panel dcop ref
        hide/unhide
        ... ?
libkicker
    document functions
    namespace it all (KickerLib?)
    prep for binary compat
    move
        Panner -> core/
            does taskbar really need to use Panner?
    rename
        global.h/cpp -> util.h/cpp
    add:
        ServiceMenu?
        PanelDrag?
        KPanelExtension
        KPanelApplet
            allow usage of KickerTip
        ExtensionSettings
        ExtensionButton
            poor name =/
            shouldn't be so menu-centric either
Optimize!
    hiding: it seems there are more geometry calls made than really needed
    get rid of movies (which nobody really uses) in PanelButton
Code clean ups
    remove pseudo transparency in favour of composite
        means handling composite properly, e.g. just the background and not
        the actual icons, text, etc.
    flatten the PanelExtension -> ContainerArea -> ContainerAreaLayout
        hierarchy. perhaps merge PanelExtension and ContainerArea?
    get rid of the insane number of classes in ui/?
A _good_ theming system

Being Worked On
---------------

Applets
-------
Clock
    Use styleclock.nextVersion()
Get rid of swallow applet
Make trash an extension button

Unnasigned
-----------------------
+++++ Keyboard accessability
****
      We will follow the lead of the GNOME panel accessability work:
      http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/keynav/panelnav.html

      To summarise:

      - Ctrl-Alt-Tab cycles focus between panels [Shift to reverse]
      - Tab cycles focus between objects on the focused panel [Shift to
        reverse]
      - Arrow keys move focus within a focused applet
      - Space activates focused control (on panel or within an applet)

+++++ Settings dialog fix up
***   Now that we have TDEConfigXT, use it in the settings dialogs
      Convert the "Arrangement" and "Hiding" modules. "Menus" and
      "Appearance" are done as far as possible.

++++  Floating panels
****  When a panel is set to "floating" the following entries are added
      to the [General] config group:
      FloatingPosition <-- geometry.topLeft();
      FloatingOrientation <-- horizontal or vertical

++++  Drag and drop enhancements
***   Drag and drop behaviour is broken in various ways in kicker.
      A popup menu should appear on drop like in Konqueror and KMail.
      Dropping on buttons like QuickBrowsers, the Home icon, etc should
      behave consistently and like dropping to a file manager window.
      There are many DnD reports on bugs.trinitydesktop.org which can provide
      further inspiration.

++++  Systray icon layout
****  The systray applet does a very basic homebrew layout of the icons
      that currently has several flawed assumptions that break when used
      with certain applications. These assumptions include that all icons
      in a given row will be approximately the same width and that things
      are always LTR (left to right). It should use a QGridLayout and
      do some semi-intelligent packing of the icons.

++    Dialog for adding elements to the panel
***   Context menus are primarily used by advanced users, and yet this is
      the only way to manage the items on the panel. There used to be a
      control panel that allowed turning on or off applets on the main panel
      but this is obviously too restrictive and I'd prefer not to see yet
      another tab in the kicker control panels. A dialog that shows previews
      of the specials buttons and applets and allows one to either drag and
      drop or with a button add items to a given panel would make kicker that
      much more accessable to more of our users.