Global change to kontact shortcut.

[Duncan]

John McMonagle posted on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:28:45 -0500 as excerpted:

> Running kde  4.4 debian squeeze.
> 
> Setting up for use with ltsp.
> In the mail part of kontact if you press f5 to check for mail  in a
> folder it reports that f5 is ambiguous.
> This can be fixed by Settings -> Configure Shortcuts Removing the F5
> Shortcut under "Check Mail in this Folder".
> 
> I can't seem to figure out what what changed so I can put it in our
> profiles.
> What do I need to change  so it affects all users?

First, just in case you didn't already know this...

kdepim 4.4 (kdepim includes kmail and kontact) was the last pre-
akonadified kmail version.  The akonadi change was a big one that a lot 
of folks left kmail over, tho if you're using the full kontact, it might 
be more worth it as eventually, all of kdepim/kontact is set to be 
akonadified, which will save memory, etc, as everything will be using the 
same akonadi backend.  But from reports (I dumped all of kdepim in 
4.7.0/4.7.1 era) only with 4.8 is the akonadified kmail getting semi-
smooth, and parts of it are apparently still bugged.

So while the problems will hopefully be worked out and it'll be smooth 
sailing when you finally upgrade from kdepim 4.4.x, do plan for some 
extra time and testing for that upgrade, as you may need it.  
Alternatively, if you're considering switching to something else, now 
would be the time, since the next upgrade will essentially be a switch in 
any case, even if the new version has the same name as the last one.

But you probably already know that, as it has been making news in kde 
circles every since 4.6, so for a year now...


To the issue at hand...

One nice thing about kde is that for most settings including hotkeys, the 
user and system config locations mirror each other, path and file-wise, 
altho the system location generally has less files and less detail in the 
files than a well customized user config.

Distros differ a bit in their default dirs, but they can be overridden by 
environmental vars in any case.  Here's the official kde sysadmin guide:

http://techbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration

In particular, you'll want to pay attention to the file system, kde and 
xdg hierarchy,, and desktop sessions, env vars sections.

In short, you'll find that the KDEHOME (defaulting to ~/.kde if unset as 
shipped, but some distros change that to ~/.kde4) and KDEDIRS (AFAIK 
defaulting to /opt if unset as shipped, but many distros change that to /
usr, /usr/kde(4), /usr/local, or...) vars and the locations they point to 
of primary interest.

Here on gentoo, the default unset KDEDIRS is /usr, and IDR what the 
default user location is, one of ~/.kde(4) , as I've long had it set to ~/
kde (dotless/unhidden) here.


As I said, those locations, whatever they are, mirror each other.  Thus, 
if your user hotkey config for kontact is in ~/.kde/share/config/kontactrc 
(I'm saying if... when I had it installed I used kmail, never kontact, so 
don't know for sure where it is), and the system KDEDIRS location is 
/usr, then the parallel system config   (kaddress book was already 
akonadified with 4.4, there wasn't a kdepim 4.5 release, 4.6 came out 
with akonadified kmail... I dumped it by 4.7.1 so don't know what 
happened after that, but akregator, knotes, k.)file would be
/usr/share/config/kontactrc.

If the system file doesn't exist, you can simply create it, with settings 
taken from a sample user file as desired.  It will read the system config, 
then override it with the user config, if different.

It's worth noting that the KDEDIRS var is plural.  That allows you to 
stick both the distro's config dir, a site level config dir, and if 
necessary, an individual machine config dir, all system level configs, in 
the variable (colon-separated), so all three locations will be read.  
That way you don't have to touch the distro locations, and thus don't 
have to worry about updates undoing your config.  The first directory 
listed takes precedence if settings conflict.


Also, note that for kde4, while /most/ kde settings can still be found 
under the KDE* variable locations (and the defaults as shipped by the 
distro if those vars aren't set), a few have migrated to the standard 
freedesktop.org XDG_* locations.  With the coming kde5 aka kde 
frameworks, it's likely more settings will use the XDG_* locations.  So 
if you don't find what you're looking for under the KDE* locations, check 
the XDG_* locations too.  You can read more about that in the sysadmin 
guide linked above, or for that matter, on freedesktop.org and otherwise 
around the community.


OK, but how do you find out the user location?  You can either simply 
browse around in share/config/* and share/apps/* (the two subdirs that kde 
normally stores config in), or you can use strace or the like to capture 
the file activity of a config change run.  In a konsole window or the 
like (change the grepped path as necessary):

strace -feopen systemsettings 2>&1 | grep /home/user/share/

That would be the way I'd start.  I assume as a sysadmin you're familiar 
enough with grep to refine the grep as needed, and/or know enough about 
shell redirection to redirect the output to a file for further 
examination, if necessary.  You likely know about strace as well and I 
didn't need to mention it, but just in case...

-- 
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.