On Mon, 8 Jan 2018 20:04:36 -0500
dep <dep@...> wrote:

> the only "pointing device" it has is the touch screen, which means that 
> i'll need to maximize the amount of stuff i can do with the keyboard. i 
> vaguely remember, but never have used, a kde accessibility package that 
> effectively used the arrow keys to replace the mouse. 

Not KDE, but maybe keynav ( http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/keynav )
would work?  Or xwarppointer ( http://ishiboo.com/~danny/Projects/xwarppointer/ )
plus glue code?

>and because of the 
> screen size, i especially want kicker to disappear when it's not in actual 
> use, i'd like to be able to show/hide it with a key combination or some 
> such.

There are auto-hiding options in the panel configuration.  Then you'd
just need to create a hotkey binding to send the pointer to a specific
screen location to show it again.

E. Liddell