Vertical Gnome Panels

[Nickolai Toupikov]

Hello,
After pestering for over a year about the ever-shrinking vertical screen 
space available on modern laptops (16/10th down from 4/3 is not so 
pleasant when all one wants is to read a webpage comfortably), I tried 
pushing my Gnome panels to the sides in hope at least not to waste the 
little vertical space I have. Here, I can easily spare 140 pixels and 
have my window list displayed vertically. It looks actually very 
comfortable. However apart from the fact that the list behaves a bit 
weirdly when one opens new windows, I realized I can not tile 
horizontally launcher icons on the vertical bar. Instead of fitting 
neatly in lines of three, the 30px icons are expanded to their maximum 
size, which turns out to be an even bigger waste of space.

Would someone know a solution to this problem?
Oh yes, I use Jaunty(Gnome 2.26.1), not sure if it matters that much 
here though.

Thanks!

Nickolai.