KDE 4 (yes, again...): what features are you using?

[Anne Wilson]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 09:38:53 Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 March 2009, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > Then they should fix the panel first. _This_ is pivotal in my use of a
> > > desktop. The panel takes too much place
> >
> > You can choose whether to have it full width, smaller, or using a
> > separate taskbar elsewhere on the screen
>
> Not what I meant. It's too high, I'm used to "tiny" ins KDE 3. Now, the
> smallest possible size is just acceptable.
>
The smallest size is just right for me.  I *think* I used to use 'small' 
rather than 'tiny', but my memory is hazy.

> > You can't control which items go in the systray - you never could - but
> > you can control everything else.
>
> Well - I just lost about one hour until I figured that you can't add a
> program to the panel unless you are in "kickoff menu style". Even then, the
> systray eats up one third of my panel, the clock moves depending on the
> number of programs I add 

I wasn't aware of this problem until yesterday.  It seems that when you don't 
have a task manager on the panel a bug causes the system tray to expand to 
available size.  I'm not sure about your clock problem - do you not have it at 
extreme right?  If you don't, that expanding systray will be pushing it 
around.  I'm sure the bug will get fixed, but at this moment I can't think of 
a workaround other than the one you propose.

> - oh, and it took a lot of googling to discover
> that I have to choose those program icons can't be moved. But I would have
> seen it if I had read the help, so RTFM :)
>
Not sure what you mean here.  Launcher icons can be moved with the panel 
options.  System tray icons can be hidden in 4.2.  Would you like to give me 
some more detail about what you want to achieve.  It might help to know the 
distro and version too.  Am I mistaken, or are you a Mandriva user?  2009.0 is 
badly out of date on these things.

> the only way I find to "control" the size of the systray and clock is not
> to let the panel use all the width of my screen - sort of OS X dock, I can
> live with it, but I'd prefer being able to set each icon at a fixed place.
>
Apart from systray icons you can do that, but is that what you mean?  Once I 
know about more I may be able to help, or at least to tell you what is and 
isn't possible.

> I don't use the taskbar, so I just deleted it
>
That's the cause of a lot of your problems.  It shouldn't be, and presumably 
will get fixed, but you may find that adding it back is better than trying to 
find other work-arounds.

> Yes, if you have and take the time to discover KDE 4 it gets more usable,
> but I'm not convinced of many points:
>
> - the "Device notifier" is usable, but I'd like to get rid of the
> notifications (I _know_ when I plug something in and I hate these pop up
> notifications à la Windows Vista).

I believe that this is being worked on - I'm not sure whether it will just 
give a much smaller popup or be capable of being switched off.

> What's more, you can only _eject_ a
> CD/DVD, not unmount it.
>
At this point it does assume that you want to eject a CD/DVD when you unmount 
it.  I don't know whether that has been bugzilla's as a wish or whether any 
change is in the air.  If it is important to you I could ask.

> - about mounting: you can add a link to a device in a folder view, but it
> does not work for mounting ("only root can...), so what's the point? 

It's not so easy for me to explore this, as my netbook doesn't have a DVD 
drive, but I'll try to find time to fetch the external one and see if I can 
solve this one.

> The
> side bar in Dolphin is not an option - I want no side bar, only two panes.

That one is easy. Go to View > Panels and uncheck Places.

> So for the time being the notifier is my only option.
>
You can mount and unmount in either the notifier or Places, but if you are 
going to remove Places  you will need the notifier.

> - since no icons are available on the desktop,

Launcher icons can be on the desktop, but if you want Link to Application etc 
you need to run in FolderView desktop setting.  I don't use it, so I only know 
that these context menus exist in that desktop but not in my Desktop setting.  
Again, if you give me detail of what you want to achieve I'll try to help you 
do it.

> I can put a folder view, but
> there is no option to get rid of the ugly grayish background.
>
That's probably due to the theme you are using.  I have Blue Curl on this 
laptop and Naked on my netbook.  In both cases the folderview is transparent, 
so  my chosen background shows through.

> - while playing with KDE 4, I noticed that some dialogs tend to be modal:
> you can't start any application before you close the dialog. I did not
> write down when this happened however
>
Yes, I've noticed this, but like you I haven't kept any sort of log.  Maybe 
they are applications that depend on that input, such as passwords?  I don't 
know.  I should log them to try to see a pattern.

> Thanks for the advice. You see I did take some time learning :)
> That's the difference between KDE 0.4 (back in 1999) and KDE 4.2: at the
> time, KDE was a leap forward and we where happy at every new feature. Now,
> we have a working desktop (KDE 3) so instead of looking for new features,
> we look at missed ones.
>
Absolutely right.  I first saw KDE in 2000, but then there was a gap of about 
2 years before I saw it again and started to use it regularly.  All the same, 
I've seen quite a lot of changes in that time :-)

> I wish both sides understand the other better: KDE 3 users must acknowledge
> the work of the developers, but the developers should have more (official)
> understanding for the fact that KDE 3 users won't accept to be left in the
> rain with missing features that may, or may not come in some (distant?)
> future. How about a clear list of badly KDE 3 features we want in KDE 4 and
> a clear answer from the KDE 4 team (comes soon, comes later, won't be
> ported)?
>
The developers have acknowledged the problem (I wish users would too :-) ).  
As a result, a year ago a very small (5-person) team called the Community 
Working Group was set up.  One of our tasks is to act as a middle-man in these 
issues.  Developers not only are short on time, most having a day-job as well 
as developing, but are actually not very good at communicating with users who 
can't use their geek-speak.  The CWG members try to cover, between us, quite a 
lot of mailing lists and forums to answer questions, and to pass back to 
developers things that we can't answer.  Because this is not too demanding of 
developer-time we often can get information that's not so easy for the user to 
find.  We then pass it back to the lists/forums, and if we think it is a FAQ 
we add it to UserBase (see the link in my sig).  

UserBase is a wiki, and we hope that in time it will have a huge amount of 
user-oriented information, hints and tips.  For the moment, though, there are 
not enough contributors, and growth is slow, but happening.  Some pages are 
very detailed, though.  In particular, look at 
http://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials#File_Management

Anne
-- 
New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
Just found a cool new feature?  Add it to UserBase
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