KDE4 desktop or panel shortcuts

[Duncan]

Gere Kiss Zsolt posted on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:02:47 +0200 as excerpted:

> I succeeded finally to create shortcuts on the desktop, by dragging from
> a file manager, like you described, phani. It makes them all right (I
> made links to apps and documents), there is also a "Send To -> Desktop"
> context menupoint in Thunar, fine. I just did not figure out how to
> select icons for my links. I tried their context menu actions, their
> Properties, but could not find any 'icon file' property.

Thunar is of course not a kde file manager, so while it may work, it won't 
be as integrated, and you'll likely not find as much help here.

I'm not familiar with thunar, but from what you post, it sounds like 
you're creating, apparently, symlinks to the files in the original 
locations.  Symlinks are a type of filesystem link (the other link 
alternative being a hard link) to the file itself.  As such, most file 
managers (and the kde plasma folderview) assign them the icon of the 
original file, with a small "symlink overlay icon", often an arrow, 
indicating the symlink status, added.  The icon isn't separately 
configurable; only the icons for the original file type and the symlink-
overlay type are.

What DOES normally have a configurable icon is a *.desktop file.  These 
are plain text files (you can open them in a text editor and view/edit 
them as such) used by graphical desktop environments such as kde as 
application launchers, service descriptors, etc.  As such, they operate at 
the desktop environment level, well above the filesystem.  Each *.desktop 
file has a number of lines, most of them of the setting="value" format.  
For app-launcher *.desktop files, there will be an exec= line that points 
to the executable in question, a name line, often a short description and 
a long description, and, of interest here, an icon= line as well.  There's 
additional lines as well, and as implied, app-launchers aren't the only 
type of *.desktop file around.  As mentioned, you can edit this file 
(including the icon= line) directly in a text editor if desired, or, using 
a freedesktop.org desktop standards aware file manager (like dolphin or 
the folder-view, I'm not sure if thunar is freedesktop.org standards 
compliant or not), you can select properties, and edit them there.

> You can also make shortcuts by opening Kicker,

FWIW...

Kicker was the kde3 panel application.  In kde4, plasma (plasma-desktop) 
replaces both kicker and kdesktop, from kde3.  So kde4 doesn't have a 
kicker app.

What I believe you're referring to based on the below, is kickoff, the 
menu launcher widget/plasmoid.  I eventually figured it out based on the 
context, but for a bit I was rather confused.  Why were you talking about 
kicker, when the subject says kde4?  To make it even more confusing, it's 
actually possible on some distributions that carry (or carried at one 
point) both kde3 and kde4, to run the kde3 based kicker while running an 
otherwise kde4 system.  I did it for awhile, while configuring kde4, one 
app at a time, to replace the kde3 version of the app with the same 
functionality.

So please use kickoff when referring to the kde4 menu launcher, and kicker 
when referring to the kde3 panel app, and avoid confusing both people like 
me, when we think you're referencing kde3's kicker, and yourself, when 
someone ends up giving you instructions for kde3, not kde4, as a result. 
=:^\

> then selecting an
> application, and on a right-click you'll get a context menu, with 'Add
> to Desktop | Add to Panel' menupoints (thanks, Anne!). This will port
> also the graphical icon, but I still don't know how to change/find
> it...:(  Also, when added to the panel, can it be moved there? It seems
> that no.

Phani mentioned the properties thing...

> Apropos: how can I add an application to Kicker? Can I navigate with
> Kicker - or some other launching app. e.g. Lancelot - in the file
> system, to find an app?

Context/right-click on the menu-launcher (kickoff, lancelot, classic menu, 
doesn't matter) and choose Menu Editor.  Or type kmenuedit into krunner or 
konsole or whatever.

That should open kmenuedit.  You can add/delete/move submenus and menu 
entries there, as desired, as well as editing existing entries, changing 
names, descriptions, icons...

Changes aren't saved until you save them manually, either as prompted when 
quitting the app, or using the save icon/menu-entry/keyboard-shortcut, so 
you can edit as desired and simply quit without saving if you make a 
mistake.  There's also a restore to system menu option which can be useful.

> Finally, I am sorry, but I don't know what is a UserBase (?). I found
> the instructions in the great 'KDE Help Center' (khelpcenter), which
> seems to be the official help point on KDE. Unfortunately it does not
> help too much. The only useful thing I found there was the pointer to
> this list;)

Unfortunately, some of the helpcenter documentation is still kde3 vintage, 
I believe.  As such, as you mention, not all of it will be helpful, and 
some may actually be seriously confusing if you don't realize how outdated 
it might be.  Reading it with the caveat that some parts of it may no 
longer apply, tho, it can still be quite helpful, as much of it /does/ 
still apply, and read with that caveat in mind, the still-helpful parts 
can be picked out without the now obsolete parts being /too/ confusing.

Userbase is short for user knowledge-base, paralleling the devbase 
(developer knowledge-base), and similar in idea to the knowledgebases MS 
and others have.  Both userbase and devbase are available on the kde.org 
website.

> Hi phani and Anne,<br><br>Thank you very much, it was really helpful!
> Phani, you are completely understandable, no need to be sorry;)<br><br>I

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Normally having your post ignored or not even seen isn't someone's 
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to help with the question.

-- 
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

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