--- On Fri, 2/26/10, Charles Obler <joyinstruggle@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Charles Obler <joyinstruggle@yahoo.com> 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