honestly my problem isnt not enough vertical screen real estate its too much horizontal screen real estate for the level of vertical. might have to install a tiling script for kwin

@georgia your problem is too much computer and not playing outside and having fun

@georgia have you tried right click on the bottom bar, show panel configuration, set position, and move it to your left or right? it can feel weird, but that's the default of MX Linux on XFCE, and once you get used to it it the same as comfortable as a panel below, and I would add it's faster because moving the mouse to the sides... IDK, felt faster for me

@anokasion i tried this briefly but it bothered me. i can try it again

@georgia turn your monitor 90 degrees

@georgia I know that feeling from the first time I wanted to use MX Linux as it came configured with XFCE. I think it took me only 2 or 3 days to find it not only usable, but found some advantages that having the bar at the bottom doesn't give you -of the top of my head, notifications and mini widgets are easier to notices.
Now I want to setup the bar vertically myself haha; I remembered another advantage were that you had 100% of the entire vertical area of the monitor, while always having the bar on the side all the time (as obvious as it sound I wanted to make it clear).
Finally, you can give MX Linux a try, I don't know if it will work on your Mac so check before on the forum, but it's based on the fusion of 2 distros (MEPIS and Antix) who wanted to make a stabler-than how stable it's Debian. They also introduced many useful tools like USB making, Kernel setup, their own GUI for package system... and it comes with XFCE vertically aligned as I was saying - I got used thanks to that super ultra stable distro.