[kde-linux] KDE-4.10.1 - Pager sort of a mess

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:38:10 -0700 as excerpted:

> Hi,
>    I updated to KDE-4.10.1 last week when it became stable on Gentoo.
> It's working but I find the new version of Pager not as useful as
> previous versions. In this version, instead of making the current
> desktop noticeably lighter in color, it seems I'm only getting a few
> white pixels at the corners of the selected desktop. To me this isn't
> visible on a 1920x1080 screen at an arm's length. I have to lean forward
> and change focus to find out which one is active. Using the older
> version I only had to glance to the bottom left and I'd see which was
> selected very easily.
> 
>    I wonder if anyone has found any settings that might make this more
> readable for me? The Desktop Name & Number features don't help but maybe
> there's something buried elsewhere I haven't found.

LOL.  You can do what I did:  Back in February I bought two 42-inch TVs 
to use as monitors.  (LED-backlit, full-HD 1920x1080 each, $400 each on 
sale at Fry's Electronics... plus mounting hardware and taxes, came in 
just below $1000 total; had my eye on something like that for over two 
years, since they were $800 each low-end, but only now could manage it.)

Stacked for 1920x2160 total resolution.  I got 42" as that was the 
biggest I could practically fit on the wall they're now mounted on.

I was previously running two 21" monitors (also LED-based, once I tried 
it there was no going back to standard CFL-backlit!), same resolution and 
stacked configuration, so I doubled both height and width -- just one of 
the two is twice the area of both, previously.

Of course some versions ago xorg began defaulting to 96 DPI (AFAIK that's 
what MS Windows has done since "forever") regardless of actual size.  On 
the old ones that wasn't /too/ far off, but it's obviously way off for 
the new ones.  However, I'm in my mid-40s now, and it's nice not to have 
to worry about putting on reading glasses or whatever to see, while still 
having enough actual pixels to get a reasonable amount of information on-
screen, so after trying the "correct" settings, I decided the default 96-
dpi was more to my liking anyway.

So now everything's big enough I can actually *SEE* it again! =:^)

Plus they came with a nice bonus feature I didn't actually buy them for, 
but I certainly won't argue with it now that I have it. =:^)  The model I 
got, apparently like most LGs, not only has 3D mode, but has 
/synthesized/ 3D mode from 2D, as well.  As I was getting them for 
monitors not TVs (I don't even have the TV hooked up, just the computer 
signal coming in on one of the HDMI ports), I didn't pay any attention to 
the 3D features.  But the synthesized 3D from 2D is nice indeed for 
either still images or when viewing video (minitube or whatever).  Turn 
on the 3D on the TV and put on the polarized glasses (they came with four 
pair each so I have *EIGHT* pair of 3D glasses now!), sit back at least a 
meter and a half (~5'), and enjoy! =:^)  Of course it's not so good when 
doing anything with text, but I just don't have it on then, and 
everything's fine. =:^)

To bring it a bit back on topic, I have plasma's picture-of-the-day 
wallpaper setup, one monitor running epod (earth-science pod), the other 
running flickr-pod.  (I have another activity with the comic-strip 
plasmoid full-screen on one monitor, with apod (astronomy-pod, from nasa) 
setup as one of the "comics", so I get it too, just not as wallpaper, tho 
the full-screen comic-strip-plasmoid is close enough.)  Both the epod and 
fpod images are often /perfect/ for the synthesized 3D viewing, full-
screen 3D across a full 42-inch monitor, bringing out picture details I'd 
have never noticed otherwise.    =:^)

So anyway, that's /my/ solution to the aging eyes trying to pick out tiny 
single-pixel-sized feature details issue!  A rather nice solution too, if 
I DO say so myself. =:^)

-- 
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