Upgrade to KDE 4.5 makes additional items on taskbar

[Duncan]

Frank Weng \(a.k.a. Franklin\) posted on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:15:57 +0800
as excerpted:

>> I just upgrade to KDE 4.5 (Mandriva package)
>> 
>> Then after re-login I found that there are two more items on my task
>> bar.
>> 
>> Then I found that these two item, one is gcin, which should just
>> minimize to tray only, and the other is plasma-desktop, which would
>> make my plasma desktop disappear after killing it.
>> 
>> Even if I rename my .kde4 to initialize a new KDE environment, there is
>> still one item exist (but I didn't see if it is gcin or plasma-desktop.
>> I guess it should be gcin).
>> 
>> Would anyone please give me a hint that how can I make it not appear on
>> my taskbar?
>> 
>> The screenshot is attached.

> Does anyone have the same problem?

I'm not seeing it here.  Gentoo, 4.5 from the gentoo/kde overlay.  Thanks 
for attaching the screen shot, BTW, or it'd have been difficult to believe 
that plasma-desktop would be showing /itself/ -- it certainly doesn't do 
so by default.  FWIW, I've no idea at all what gcin is.

Why it's doing it, I don't know, but provided you're using kwin as your 
window manager at least (not something like compiz fusion), you SHOULD be 
able to tell it not to.  You certainly can with normal windows, but as 
this is behavior I've not seen, I can't be sure exactly what sort of 
windows these are, or that the below will work.

Open the window behavior dialog (available from the window-menu in any 
title bar), scroll to the bottom of the pic-list on the left and choose 
window rules.  If you don't already have an entry for the apps you want to 
modify the behavior of (you probably won't, unless you set one up at some 
point, tho there have been a few default rules from time to time), choose 
new, and a new dialog will popup, this one for a specific app.

Now ensure that the target window is displayed somewhere (not minimized), 
and hit the detect window properties button.  The pointer should turn into 
a pair of cross-hairs.  Aim it at the window in question and click.  You 
should get a third dialog, listing a bit of information about the window 
you clicked.  Make the appropriate choice (probably specific window, you 
can adjust later if desired) and hit OK.

That should return you to the specific window settings dialog, now with a 
bit of info about the window you picked filled in on the first and second 
tabs.  Again adjust these as appropriate.  You want to always match the 
window in question, but not match too much... perhaps other windows of the 
same app, etc.  So if the title changes, you can't use exact match on 
that, tho you might be able to use contains, or simply ignore that.  
Similarly with the other items, except they shouldn't be as likely to 
change.  On the top of the first tab, be sure to fill in an appropriate 
description, as this is what it'll be listed with in the window rules 
dialog.

When you're finished adjusting the settings on the first two tabs, which 
describe the window and determine how it matches, move on to the next 
three, which describe window behavior that you might wish to change.

In this case, what we're looking for is on the preferences tab.  The items 
you're interested in are the "Skip..." items.  You obviously want to skip 
the taskbar, and may wish to skip the pager and app-switcher, I'm not 
sure.  Select the left-hand checkbox to activate that line, change the 
drop-down box from do not affect to either force, or possibly, apply 
initially.  Be sure and select the checkbox on the right as well, or it 
negates the instruction (do NOT skip...).

Set anything else that might be of interest, and hit OK.  Then hit Apply 
in the window behavior dialog, and see if it worked...  If it didn't, you 
may have to go back and fiddle with things a bit.

With gcin I think it should work, at least if you can get a window to 
show, for you to click on.  With the plasma-desktop window... I really 
don't know, as I'm not sure what part of it is showing up in the taskbar 
that shouldn't be, and thus, am not sure exactly how it's going to work.  
Certainly, you can click anywhere on the desktop or panels, and that's 
plasma-desktop.  No problem there.  But the question is, is that the 
window that's showing in the task manager?  Or is there something else 
going on, some other window associated with plasma-desktop, showing up?

I hope that helps...

-- 
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

___________________________________________________
This message is from the kde mailing list.
Account management:  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde.
Archives: http://lists.kde.org/.
More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.