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