On 02/26/2010 02:55 AM, Charles Obler wrote:

Since we seem to be stuck with KDE 4 for a while, I decided that I might as well learn something about it. I've found several helpful tutorials, and I'm looking for others.

http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/1 http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/2 ...

I realize that this must sound hopelessly simple-minded to 95% of the people on this list. But that still leaves 5% that may find my experience helpful.

Well, I'm firmly in that 5%, then. Thanks John Perry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Charles Obler said the following on 02/26/2010 02:55 AM:

This suggests that there may be a simple way to add icons to the folder -- just copy the property files from

/usr/share/applications

to

~/Desktop.

However, I doubt that it is really that simple. What if I have several different "Folder" activities, each with a different "opera"? Because there is only one "Desktop" directory, all of these opera property files would have to have unique names. What am I missing?

You are missing the purpose of the property files. I think this is because you are still hung up on icons from 3.5 The property files are not icons. Icons are just a visual prompt. The folder should contain "data", not programs. The attribute of the data should tell how it should be used - "*.odt" uses OpenOffice - and so on. That's an association you set up separately. What you are doing is putting things that directly invoke programs. This is the wrong approach. They don't belong on your desktop or in any of the folders in "My Documents" that you may put on your desktop. Let me show you something that uses the contents of /user/share/applications more sensibly and in a more focused and usable manner. Maybe someone will take this, clean it up, add some more graphics, and put it in blog or wiki ... First, create a new panel. (See the KDE4 documentation and examples on-line, I'm not going to repeat such fundamentals.) Right click somewhere on the blank desktop background and select "Add Panel". Put this new panel on the right and set its width to about 32 pixels - which gives you room to play in - centre it, and for now don't set the autohide. That comes when you're finished. Add one and only one widget - "quicklaunch" In the quicklaunch settings, set the number of visible icons to 30. Now go into the quicklaunch with a right click and take the menu option "Add launcher". This takes you to a dialogue where you can add items from /usr/share/applications Add two dozen or so of your favourites. :-) You can now adjust the width/size to suit. Finally, I set the panel to autohide. The last image of full screen shot with the panel visible I'll send separately because of size limitations. This is using the applets and "icons" in a way that doesn't fight KDE4, frees up screen real-estate and give a great deal of functionality. It makes it clear that these are application launchers - not 'icons' - and focuses them. It means the folders I do have on my 'desktop' contain data, documents, not programs. Personally I think this gets closer to the real desktop analogy. -- This is a general discussion intended for use only by qualified professionals. It should not be taken or used as a recommendation for any specific business, application, or environment. Said recommendations can be made only in a specific context and will be made only for a professional fee.

On 26/02/10 07:55, Charles Obler wrote:

Since we seem to be stuck with KDE 4 for a while, I decided that I might as well learn something about it. I've found several helpful tutorials, and I'm looking for others.

http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/1 http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/2

http://hanswchen.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/how-do-you-use-activities -- 17 Nov 2009

http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma -- 24 Feb 2010

There is a draft one on the SuSE wiki based on a discussion I was having recently on this ML at http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/KDE4/Guide_to_Plasma

The first tutorial got me interested in Dolphin. I found out that I can split the screen, just as mc does. And I also have a konsole panel -- like mc, except that I don't have to do Ctrl-O to see the output. So Dolphin might actually be helpful, now and then!

Dolphin is extremely powerful, and there is no longer an excuse to not include file manager style features because unlike Konqueror it doesn't have to try and be a web browser too.

The other two tutorials introduced me to the "New KDE4 Concept" that we've all heard so much about. There must be something wrong with me, because I think I'm finally beginning to get it.

In KDE 3.5, I organize my dozen or so desktop icons by putting all icons pertaining to a particular activity together on a row. For example, I have a row for configuration applications, a row for office applications, a row for pdf viewers -- believe it or not, there are four of them!

If I understand KDE 4 correctly, I use "activities" instead of "rows" to group related applications together. On my desktop, I would have no applications at all -- only an "activity selector" bar.

Activities are groups of plasma widgets. In the same way that virtual desktops are groups of application windows. So yes, activities can be used to do what you are describing, but also much more. The "how do you use activities" blog post you linked to is a good example.

To get this "activity selector" on the desktop, I click on pager desktop-one twice -- to bring up the desktop -- then I click on the cashew. If I don't like cashews or can't find the cashew, I can right-click on the desktop itself. I then click on "unlock the widgets", and finally, on "add widget".

The "activity bar" is the first widget I see. It's also the most important widget, as I've found out: Without it, there is no way to GET to my "activities".

Technically, there is another way, the "ZUI" but as I've said in other threads, it's terrible and is going away in KDE4.5. The Activity Bar is the way to go. KDE4.5 may introduce some other ways to get to activities.

Now, I can start adding "activities". I do seem to need the desktop cashew for this. I click on "add activity" and a blank green wallpaper comes up. I right-click on the wallpaper and select "Desktop Activity Settings". I then select the "Activity" tab and turn the dummy "Desktop" into a "Folder". I get to give the "Folder" a name. When I close the "Desktop Accitivy settings" icons appear out of nowhere, all nicely aligned!

Who selects these icons, I don't know. I just know that they are not exactly the icons I want.

By default, the Folder View activity - which is what you have added - points to the ~/Desktop folder. So what you see is the default icons SuSE provides. Basically, the Folder View activity (or applet) points to any actual folder on disk (or even a remote url) and displays its contents just as a file manager would. It can be any folder.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to add new icons to the folder. I tried using the application launcher, and right-clicking before starting the application -- but there is no "add to folder" option.

That option isn't available because it is possible to have multiple folder views on the same desktop. In that case you would have to specify which folder view you meant, and things would get complicated. So there is no menu option to add to folder. The ways to add things: 1) Drag-and-drop applications or files from wherever (Dolphin, the application launcher menu) - you get an option "Copy here" or "Link Here" 2) Right-click, create new, as you mention below. 3) Add it to the actual folder on disk, e.g. cp $file ~/Desktop Basically the way to interact with the folder view is just like you interact with a Dolphin window showing some files.

Finally, I right-clicked on the green area again. I noticed that the last option has changed from "Desktop Activity Settings" to "Folder Activity Settings". And I also noticed the first option: "Create New". I selected it and then selected "new link to application" -- the only suboption that made sense. Up came a properties box. I filled in the blanks with opera and selected the opera icon. What do you know?! -- opera appeared on my ghastly green folder!

This works, but is not the simplest way. You could simply have drag-n-drop from the menu. By the way you can change the background away from the "ghastly" SuSE green! Just right click on the desktop and choose "Activity Settings" as before.

The problem is that I hate filling out property boxes. I'm never quite sure what working set to use, what operand codes to add to the command, etc.. It would be nice if there were template files I could just copy. Where would such files be? Probably in /opt/kde4 someplace. Except that they're not. So what about /usr? /usr/share/applications sounds like a good possibility. Yeah, there it is: opera.desktop.

The next question: Where does the new property file end up? I specified a distinctive comment property, to make the file recognizable, and then started searching for it. I didn't find it in .kde or in .kde4 or in .local or anywhere else that made sense. Finally, I noticed a "Desktop" directory, and there I found my new file.

This suggests that there may be a simple way to add icons to the folder -- just copy the property files from

/usr/share/applications to ~/Desktop.

However, I doubt that it is really that simple. It is! I promise! Try it and see, it works like magic! What if I have several different "Folder" activities, each with a different "opera"? Because there is only one "Desktop" directory, all of these opera property files would have to have unique names. What am I missing?

If multiple folder views point to the same folder, they will all display the exact same. Any change you make to one will be a) reflected on disk in ~/Desktop and b) in any other folder views pointing to the same desktop. The key point you seem to be missing is how to configure the folder view activity to point to a different folder. Right-click on the desktop and open "Folder View Activity settings". Here will be a lot of options that will hopefully make things a lot more obvious. For example, on the "Location" tab, you can change the folder on disk that the "folder view" is displaying. It can be any folder on disk, or even a remote url. KDE's kio makes this incredibly useful - you can open smb:// shares, fish:// locations, anything that you can open in Dolphin. In the "Display" tab, you can change the sort order, alignment, etc. just as in Dolphin or any other file manager. In the "Filter" tab, you can ask the folder view to only display files that match a certain pattern or file type. This is extremely useful too!

I discovered most of the procedures above through trial and error. And one of the errors I made was rather scary: I found myself with NO desktop, nothing but a white screen, with no cashews, no right-click functionality, and seemingly no escape. I did have the taskbar panel, however, and clicking on the "Show plasma dashboard" restored things, for reasons I do not understand.

Not sure what happened there, glad you got out of it OK :) Just stick to the activity tab bar ...

My recommendation then is to create a backup copy of the following directories before experimenting:

~/.kde ~./.kde4 ~

Making a backup before experimenting, regardless of the subject, is always an excellent idea.

I realize that this must sound hopelessly simple-minded to 95% of the people on this list. But that still leaves 5% that may find my experience helpful.

Your experience is helpful, all we can hope is that KDE4 becomes helpful to you too :) Regards, Tejas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, Charles Obler wrote:

From: Charles Obler Subject: [opensuse] Making sense of KDE4 To: opensuse@opensuse.org Date: Friday, February 26, 2010, 2:55 AM Since we seem to be stuck with KDE 4 for a while, I decided that I might as well learn something about it.  I've found several helpful tutorials, and I'm looking for others.

http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/1 http://techgage.com/article/ten_kde_4_tricks_worth_knowing_about/2

http://hanswchen.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/how-do-you-use-activities -- 17 Nov 2009

http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma -- 24 Feb 2010

The first tutorial got me interested in Dolphin.  I found out that I can split the screen, just as mc does.  And I also have a konsole panel -- like mc, except that I don't have to do Ctrl-O to see the output.  So Dolphin might actually be helpful, now and then!

The other two tutorials introduced me to the "New KDE4 Concept" that we've all heard so much about.  There must be something wrong with me, because I think I'm finally beginning to get it.

In KDE 3.5, I organize my dozen or so desktop icons by putting all icons pertaining to a particular activity together on a row.  For example, I have a row for configuration applications, a row for office applications, a row for pdf viewers -- believe it or not, there are four of them!

If I understand KDE 4 correctly, I use "activities" instead of "rows" to group related applications together.  On my desktop, I would have no applications at all -- only an "activity selector" bar. 

To get this "activity selector" on the desktop, I click on pager desktop-one twice -- to bring up the desktop -- then I click on the cashew.  If I don't like cashews or can't find the cashew, I can right-click on the desktop itself.  I then click on "unlock the widgets", and finally, on "add widget".

The "activity bar" is the first widget I see. It's also the most important widget, as I've found out: Without it, there is no way to GET to my "activities".

Now, I can start adding "activities".  I do seem to need the desktop cashew for this.  I click on "add activity" and a blank green wallpaper comes up.  I right-click on the wallpaper and select "Desktop Activity Settings".  I then select the "Activity" tab and turn the dummy "Desktop" into a "Folder". I get to give the "Folder" a name.  When I close the "Desktop Accitivy settings" icons appear out of nowhere, all nicely aligned! 

Who selects these icons, I don't know.  I just know that they are not exactly the icons I want. 

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to add new icons to the folder.  I tried using the application launcher, and right-clicking before starting the application -- but there is no "add to folder" option. 

Finally, I right-clicked on the green area again.  I noticed that the last option has changed from "Desktop Activity Settings" to "Folder Activity Settings".  And I also noticed the first option: "Create New".  I selected it and then selected "new link to application" -- the only suboption that made sense.  Up came a properties box.  I filled in the blanks with opera and selected the opera icon.  What do you know?! -- opera appeared on my ghastly green folder!

The problem is that I hate filling out property boxes.  I'm never quite sure what working set to use, what operand codes to add to the command, etc..  It would be nice if there were template files I could just copy. Where would such files be?  Probably in /opt/kde4 someplace.  Except that they're not.  So what about /usr? /usr/share/applications sounds like a good possibility.  Yeah, there it is: opera.desktop.

The next question: Where does the new property file end up?  I specified a distinctive comment property, to make the file recognizable, and then started searching for it.  I didn't find it in .kde or in .kde4 or in .local or anywhere else that made sense.  Finally, I noticed a "Desktop" directory, and there I found my new file. 

This suggests that there may be a simple way to add icons to the folder -- just copy the property files from

/usr/share/applications

to

~/Desktop.

However, I doubt that it is really that simple.  What if I have several different "Folder" activities, each with a different "opera"?  Because there is only one "Desktop" directory, all of these opera property files would have to have unique names.  What am I missing?

I discovered most of the procedures above through trial and error.  And one of the errors I made was rather scary: I found myself with NO desktop, nothing but a white screen, with no cashews, no right-click functionality, and seemingly no escape.  I did have the taskbar panel, however, and clicking on the "Show plasma dashboard" restored things, for reasons I do not understand.

My recommendation then is to create a backup copy of the following directories before experimenting:

~/.kde ~./.kde4 ~

I realize that this must sound hopelessly simple-minded to 95% of the people on this list.  But that still leaves 5% that may find my experience helpful.

Wow! KDE 4.4 is beautiful! -- now that I know what I'm doing. I've set up a well-organized "Activity Tree" -- a "Desktop Activity" at the root, "Folder View Activities" as the branches, and applications, URL's, links, and widgets as the leaves on each folder. I can also use pager to switch to my "parallel world" -- to the same Activities Tree, but with different applications running. This is NEAT! :) :) - - My reply to John earlier tonight explains how I set this up. Here is that reply: I started out confused by KDE 4.4 too, but now I'm coming to love it. Although pager still functions, and is very useful, the "Activity" now takes the place of the pager "desktop". For this reason, it is better to think of the pager "desktops" as parallel "activity trees". The root of the "Activity Tree" is called a "Desktop Activity", and the branches are called "Folder View Activities". The leaves are the things you place on the "Folder" window. They can be applications or files or URLs -- or "widgets". A widget is button or bar that performs a special system or KDE function. The "Clock", for example, is a widget. There are widgets that monitor system resources, dictionary widgets that look up words, and KDE widgets that do window switching for you. Finally, at the edge of the screen, you have "Panels". The Panels remain fixed, as the Activity changes -- i.e., the Panels are accessible from every activity. The taskbar, for example, is a panel. It's only one of several kinds of panels you can create. pager tree 1: --> Desktop Activity: ----> Folder View Activity (Internet) ------> Browser 1, e.g., opera ------> Browser 2, e.g., firefox ------> URL 1, ------> kconsole ----> Folder View Activity (Preferences) ------> YaST ------> KDE 4 preferences ------> KDE 4 help etc.. To switch between Activities, you need an "Activity Bar" widget. I recommend, at least initially, that you have a separate panel for the "Activity Bar" -- then you can access any Activity from any other Activity. Later, you may want to adopt a more compact approach: Put the Activity Bar on each Folder, and put a little "Show Desktop" widget on your taskbar panel. You can then right-click on the "Show Desktop" widget and add a shortcut key that takes you directly to your current Folder, where you have your Activity Bar To create these Activities and Panels, you right-click on a screen, and select "Unlock Widgets". Then right-click again: You now see additional options, such as "Add Panel", "Add Widget". If you click on "Add Widget", the "Activity Bar" widget is the first widget in the list. The list groups widgets by category -- other window-related widgets are in the last category. If you right-click on a Panel, Unlock Widgets, and right-click again, you will see a "Panel Options" option. If you select this and then click on "Panel Settings", you will get a form that allows you to resize the Panel and move the icons around inside the panel. Panels and Activities have what is called a "Cashew" at the corner of the screen. If you click on the Cashew, you get a list of options that includes the options you get when you simply right-click on the screen. To close the list, click on the Cashew again, once or twice. One additional option the Cashew gives you is "Add Activity". Use this to extend your activities tree. The Activity you add comes up as a "Desktop Activity". Since you already have a Desktop Activity at the root of the tree, you probably don't need another. What you want instead is a Folder View Activity. Right-click on the screen, select "Desktop Activity Options", then select the "Activity" tab in the dialogue box. Open the pulldown list and change to a "Folder View Activity". The dialogue box then changes. You get to specify the "Location" of the folder and the folder name. The "Location" is the directory where the folder items will be stored. The default is "Desktop". You should change this. I use "Desktop" subdirectories as my folder locations, but you can use any directory you want. The dialogue box allows you to set your wallpaper. This is another thing I like about KDE 4: I use paintings as wallpaper, and have a different painting for each Folder. Close the dialogue box and you have a Folder View Activity. The folder shows whatever is in the Location directory. If it's a new directory, the folder is blank. To add things to the folder, right-click and select "Create New". Then select URL or link or whatever. To add applications to the folder, open the kicker application tree (if you're using classic KDE), but instead of opening the application, drag it to the folder -- i.e., press, drag and then release. If you are using pager, with multiple pager trees, each Activity has a separate screen for each tree. When you do the pager switch, you get the same Activity screen, but a whole new set of open applications. That's why I call the pager trees "parallel". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org