Hi, so far I like my experience with kde 4, however I still got some issues I would like to see resolved before switching from gnome to kde:
KDE always had that annoying bouncing icon next to the mouse pointer when an application loads. I figured out how to disable that bouncing feedback. But the problem is that the normal busy indicator of the mouse is never shown (hourglass like). When an app loads, the pointer is always the same arrow-icon. Except when it floats over Yast, probably because that is in root-mode. How can I get the busy icon for normal user as well?
KMenu has a rather small start-button compared to gnome and windows. I would like a wider icon or the ability to put text next to the button. I can select a custom icon by right clicking on KMenu, but a wider icon is automatically shrunk to the standard size… How fix this?
Folderview applet: I like it but it has one very annoying feature. If you hover the mouse over a folder it opens a smaller dialog with its subfolders. Even when there are no subfolders!! How can I completely disable this preview as I don’t need it.
Changing the background of the main panel doesn’t seem to be very simple. In system settings > advanded > desktop theme details you can choose another background. However if I select a png file (from kde-look) it does not apply this background, instead it applies another background from a random plasma theme. What am I doing wrong? The same background works in gnome… And if I try to change any setting from the Air or Air Opensuse theme, they don’t apply at all… I really like Air except for the panel background.
[li] KDE always had that annoying bouncing icon next to the mouse pointer when an application loads. I figured out how to disable that bouncing feedback. But the problem is that the normal busy indicator of the mouse is never shown (hourglass like). When an app loads, the pointer is always the same arrow-icon. Except when it floats over Yast, probably because that is in root-mode. How can I get the busy icon for normal user as well?[/li]
Personal settings > Desktop > Launch feedback
[li] Changing the background of the main panel doesn’t seem to be very simple. In system settings > advanded > desktop theme details you can choose another background. However if I select a png file (from kde-look) it does not apply this background, instead it applies another background from a random plasma theme. What am I doing wrong? The same background works in gnome… And if I try to change any setting from the Air or Air Opensuse theme, they don’t apply at all… I really like Air except for the panel background.[/li]
Rightclick on desktop > Desktop settings
Don’t know the answer to the others. Suspect it cannot be done.
When you select a different background for the panel, the new theme is saved as custom. You must then change your theme to custom via right clicking on the desktop and choosing Desktop Settings. Then change Desktop Theme to Custom.
Really? Maybe it’s diff. in KDE 4.3 but in 4.1.3, I get an arrow with two silver balls rotating in a circle under the arrow when it’s “thinking” or loading.
My icon’s pretty big, but I think it’s dependent upon the size of the taskbar.
> - KDE always had that annoying bouncing icon next to the mouse
> pointer when an application loads. I figured out how to disable that
> bouncing feedback. But the problem is that the normal busy indicator
> of the mouse is never shown (hourglass like). When an app loads, the
> pointer is always the same arrow-icon.
hmmm…you are (it seems to me) using old fashioned DOS/Windows-Think,
that is “this machine can do exactly one thing at a time…and, you
(the user) can WAIT”…
the system is always busy doing something…loading an app is no
different than loading a crontab to run updatedb in background…
but, with multi-tasking the user doesn’t have to wait for the
hourglass to go away…
just click to load and go on…i mean, if you click to start
OpenOffice Writer do you need to see the arrow become a Redmond
hourglass to know that Writer has not yet appeared? in those few
seconds it take to load, do something else…
it seems to me you turned off the default indicator (bouncing icon)
but still want an indicator, and you want it to be replaced with a
Redmond styled hourglass…i’m pretty sure that is possible, but i
don’t know to do it…maybe someone else can tell you…
That’s only to deactivate the bouncing icon. But how do I get the hourglass like icon? (It’s not literally an hourglass, it depends on the mouse theme: for DMZ a rotating circle)
changing background:
If it were that easy I would have found it;). There is no way of changing the background under desktop settings, only the theme. And changing to a custom theme with my custom panel icon doesn’t work as I said in the original post.
I know I have to change it to Custom, the problem is that nothing changes if I changed the background of the Air (openSuse) theme. And if I start from another theme, it doesn’t use my custom background but a background from a random other theme… Probably because something goes wrong and as a recovery it chooses some default background.
I dont think you can use custom panel backgrounds in KDE4, you can only use the ones offered to you by the plasma themes you download.
The images it uses are .SVG’s
But then why is the option given to specify a custom file in the select background option? This would be a major drawback to me, since I like to customize my desktop just the way I like it. Especially the panel, since you are looking at that all the time, so it has to look good.
Well I suppose it will be another year or so with gnome then until kde 4.4 is out, hopefully with more customisation options.
I get those circulating balls even in firefox, opera, etc
The icon is NOT a KDE thing, but an OpenSUSE KDE thing. You can undo the openSUSE theme.
And I’m guessing there’s a way to change that icon to your own image file but I don’t know how. Search online in google and please let me know if you figure it out.
[/li]
It’s currently not possible. A lot of people has expressed a wish to have it optional on the KDE bugzilla, so hopefully it will be possible in 4.4.
[/li]
Two things wrong actually.
The image must be in SVG-format.
The SVG-image must be intended for a plasma-theme.
The reason for that is that the files have non-visible items embedded that controls how the image will be rendered. For example, which parts of the widget (in this case the panel) will be transparent and to what degree.
As long as point 1 and 2 above are fulfilled, you can select a custom background file from wherever. I agree it can be a bit limiting (although with a bit of experimenting with plasma-themes you may find a panel that’s to your liking), and definitely not obvious. The fileselector should probably only show svg-files.
Thanx for the explanation! I really think this is a bad solution though. It takes away the freedom to customize the desktop, something I always loved about linux. They really should fix this by KDE 4.4. Or is there a program to create svg’s in a fairly easy matter from an existing png or jpeg file?
It’s a bit of a drawback yes, but have one (IMO big) advantage as well: svg-files scale far better than jpg or png files without becoming pixelized or choppy.
Fairly easy? None that I know of. You could use Inkscape to make a svg with an embedded png-file (which is quite straight-forward) but I somehow doubt that would be enough.
Or I should say: fairly easy depends on how skilled you are at using a vector graphics program. Inkscape seems to be a popular choice among theme-creators. I’m totally inept at using any kind of graphic creating/manipulating software so I’m not really the guy to ask.
Ok I know how to change the background now by following the link provided by SauronXXX earlier.
I still haven’t figured out how to get a wider KMenu button. It seems only square icons are allowed. This is really annoying because this results in a very small, hard-to-click-on button. The only option is to make the panel insanely big:(. Is there really no way to change this?
I also dislike the KDE start menu’s. Especially Kickoff is practically unusable IMO. You have to click all the time to navigate the menu structure. And that vertical bar to go back, jeez what were these developers smoking? The opensuse-Gnome has a much more powerful startmenu (SLAB), which doesn’t use this tree structure at all. It’s simple and easy. In KDE I tried Kmenu, kickoff and lancelott, but none satisfied. Maybe I should try kbfx, hoping that’s a better solution.
