Running oS 13.1, KDE.
Last night applied update which included KDE update to v4.11.3
That resulted in my entire screen with a black background and the default oS 13.1 gecko on the right.
The Desktop folder in the upper left used to have a contrasting color. I can just barely see the outlined border of that Desktop folder after this upgrade.
I don’t really recall what color the background used to be, only that it was an offsetting color and easy to observe.
I’d like to know how to change the background color of my Desktop folder.
For clarity of what I am referring to see this screen capture of the upper left corner of my screen: it shows faint outline of Desktop folder… SUSE Paste
Just click on an empty space on your desktop and choose “Settings for Default Desktop” or similar.
You should be able to change the desktop color to your liking there…
What you display is the Folder View widget, not the Desktop Folder. The Folder View widget displays the Desktop Folder by default but you can change this by right clicking on the Desktop and selecting Folder View Settings. I don’t have KDE running at the moment, but I don’t think you can change the background colour of the widget. Anyway, have a look - it’s a while since I looked at the settings.
I already tried that, it opens “Desktop Settings - Plasma Desktop Shell”. It changes my screen wallpaper, not the Desktop Folder, which is black. I want to change the background settings of
~/Desktop
It is possible my terminology is poor and I am not expressing myself correctly. Before updating KDE the Desktop folder was a different, distinct color, possibly characterized as being somewhat transparent against the default oS wallpaper.
Also, there is a selection for folder settings but there is no choice for appearance, background, or whatever.
Then you cannot do it. I get round this problem by using a wallpaper which happens to have a different set of shades in the top left hand corner giving the Folder View widget a different background from most of the rest of the desktop.
OK. Since the KDE version that comes with the oS 13.1 DVD has a different color, or at least is easy to see the edges of the folder, I thought there was a setting. I guess that got changed with the KDE update.
I just use a full folder view for the whole desktop. I guess I’m a traditionalist
IMO the little folder view does not make sense unless maybe you had multiple folder view widgets pointing to different directories. But that’s what I use multiple dsektops for.
I just got used to the default and have not explored other options. So not seeing what was familiar to me I figured I could modify it to return to what I’m used to.
Guess that is not possible any longer. I do see that the full folder view being useful. It also resembles prior OS’s I’ve used.
I always set things the way I want them but am confused about exactly you are saying about having color set in a folder view widget. I have never seen that it was always semi transparent black here (still on 12.3) with no option I see to change it. But since I now use full folder view desktop it is not an issue.
You really should explore a bit KDE has more bells and whistles then you can shake a stick at.
Did you check the suse paste link? That only shows the upper left quadrant of the screen but at the bottom you can see part of an icon that is outside that ~/Desktop folder. My point is that there is not a definitive boundary or edge to that default ~/Desktop folder view. With both 12.2 & upgrade to 13.1 there was a clearly defined boundary - I perceived it as transparent but that may be an inaccurate description. I could see the ‘window’ and what it contained, it appeared to me as if the background (wallpaper) was not hidden by it’s existence. Since there doesn’t seem to be a solution I’ll explore other options or learn to live with what I have. I thought I was overlooking an easy fix.
You really should explore a bit KDE has more bells and whistles then you can shake a stick at.
Yeah…I need to do that, and much, much, more with oS in general.
Depends on which type of desk top style. In KDE there are 5 or 6 different styles. Some allow onty widgets and some allow icons. A MS Windows like style would be a Folder View pointing to the ~/Desktop directory. But in no way are you limited to that.
The box you see with the desktop folder in it is a folder view widget. You can have as many as you want on the screen just unlock widgets then add widgets find folder view and drag to the desktop. Each can point to a different folder/directory
To make things even more interesting you can have a different style, widgets stuff on any number of different Desktops
And then you can also save a desktop config as an activity and jump between activities
The background color of the Folderview widget (and all other widgets) depends on the plasma theme.
You can change this in “Configure Desktop”(Systemsettings)->“Workspace Appearance”->“Desktop Theme”. “Air openSUSE” was the default in earlier versions (upto 12.2 I think), that one has a bright background.
I find it extremely useful for presentations at my local Linux group and at conferences. I point the Folder View at the folder which contains all the files relevant to the presentation so that I have easy access to all of them throughout the presentation.
The background color of the Folderview widget (and all other widgets) depends on the plasma theme.
You can change this in “Configure Desktop”(Systemsettings)->“Workspace Appearance”->“Desktop Theme”. “Air openSUSE” was the default in earlier versions (upto 12.2 I think), that one has a bright background.
Wolfie323:
That is exactly correct. I guess there is a reason it was changed since it turns out that “Air openSUSE” doesn’t look good with the task manager bar. I see that I can download more themes, I find most of them rather busy. For now I’ll stick to the theme that came with 13.1.
Thanks** everyone** for a great tutorial on KDE possibilities. I’m gun shy about making desktop changes because in the past I’ve royally screwed it up and had to ask here how to return to the default. I guess I need to go find a KDE for Dummies! I’ve already started a file of seldom used but important things such as ‘chmod’ and ‘systemctl’.
