[kde-linux] Re: Two gripes with KDE under openSuSE 11.4

[Duncan]

todd rme posted on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 02:58:03 -0500 as excerpted:

> On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 2:27 AM, Thomas Taylor <linxt at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Hi fellow KDE users;
>>
>> Sent to both lists for wider consideration.
>>
>> I installed openSuSE 11.4 Milestone 6 a couple of days ago and have two
>> gripes with the KDE desktop.  This has KDE version 4.5.95 (RC2).
>>
>> 1)  Upon starting, whether from cold boot or restart, the "Mail
>> Notification Properties" popup appears.  I've searched through
>> "Configure Desktop" but haven't been able to find how to turn it off.
>>  I don't use the KDE mail program (kmail) and don't want to be notified
>> about new messages.  How can I turn this annoyance off?
> 
> I haven't seen this.  Can't you just uninstall kmail if you don't use
> it?

My thoughts as well.  Uninstall kmail.

>> 2)  Is there a way (as in Winblows) to turn the sound off for ALL
>> notifications without having to turn off every single "play sound"
>> button on every single program, EASILY at a single click?  Winblows at
>> least allows one to click on "no sounds" for system notifications and
>> still have audio available.
> 
> Set the notifications volume to zero?

In kcontrol (kde3 name, what kde4 incorrectly calls system settings, 
incorrectly as, at least as shipped by kde, it's mostly kde-specific user-
specific settings, having little to do with the system in general, 
exceptions such as setting the system time aside), common appearance and 
behavior, application and system notification, you can set many options, 
such as the above, but see the system bell setting noted below, as well.  

(Specific kcontrol location is based on kde 4.6.  How that might 
correspond to some particular version of OpenSuSE I don't know, as I run 
Gentoo and the kde version wasn't stated, but 4.5's layout is similar, tho 
changed substantially from 4.4 and previous.)

For notifications, note that the manage notifications kcontrol applet has 
two tabs, applications and player settings.  If you set "no audio output" 
on the player tab, that should turn off notification sounds (but again, 
see system bell, below) entirely.  It should *NOT* affect normal sound 
output, as the setting here is specific to notifications.

>> 3)  Guess I lied!  Is there a way to turn off the VERY annoying buzzer
>> sound that occurs in some programs when bad keyboard input occurs (such
>> as trying to delete beyond/before a fill-in box?  It annoys my wife
>> when she's sleeping and I'm working at the keyboard.
> 
> 
> I personally don't have this.  It is probably one of the entries in
> "KDE Workspace" in the notifications.  In that, I have all the "Text
> completion" sounds off, you can try doing the same.  You also want to
> make sure the system bell volume is set to "0%" (you need to enable it
> if it isn't already, set it to 0%, then disable it).

Under the system bell applet in the same location (application and system 
notifications), you can set it to use the system bell instead of 
notifications, which should have the same effect of turning off system 
notification sounds, BUT, by default, they'll play as the standard system 
bell, instead.

You can either set the system bell volume to zero as suggested above, or...

In a rather different location, still kcontrol, but under workspace 
appearance and behavior, choose the accessibility applet.  On the Bell 
tab, you have settings for both audible and visible bell.

I prefer visible bell, invert screen, here, tho it did take a bit of 
getting used to.  FWIW, I keep notifications as notifications, but set the 
bell to visible instead of audible.  So the bell flashes the screen, but 
notifications play their usual configured sounds, for my workstation, at 
least.

(For my workstation, my computer sound is hooked up to my 5:1 home audio 
system.  The sound effects are fine, altho I don't always hear them, 
depending on whether I have the home audio on, what's playing, and the 
volume, but I don't like the harsh system bell, tho I still want to know 
when it goes off.  Thus keeping audio notifications but setting the bell 
to visual only works best, for me.  On the laptop, setting notifications 
to bell instead, and visual bell, works best, as I often have audio 
entirely disabled for it, and its audio isn't very loud in any case.)

Finally, it's also possible to set audio routing individually for the 
various categories of audio output (notifications, music, video, 
communication, games, accessibility).  This is done in the kcontrol phonon 
applet, which appears under hardware, multimedia.  You can set 
notifications to use the "dummy" output there, if desired, while leaving 
music/video/games alone.  (Caveat:  I'm not sure if system bell 
functionality is considered accessibility or notification.  A bit of 
experimentation may be in order.)  If you have multiple sound cards, 
perhaps one on-board and another of those new USB-based headphones, you 
can route some functions to one, some to the other, as well.  This is 
actually what this whole applet was designed for, but the dummy output 
makes it easy to simply shut an entire category off, too, without 
affecting the other categories unless you want to (using the apply device 
list to... dialog).

So there's actually several ways to do it, depending on exactly what you 
want to accomplish, and how you want to go about it.  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman