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. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org