Favorite KDE Tricks?

Nat asks: "Here I am, plowing along at work on an ancient machine, and thanking heavens for how much easier Open Source makes my life. In particular, I've ended up settling with KDE and its main tools due to its ability to be configured into a relatively fast and lightweight environment, despite its number of features and useful tricks. I have discovered a good few of those already, but would like to ask you guys for further illumination: what are your favorite KDE tricks?"

"I am personally very fond of multi-key shortcuts, which I base on the otherwise useless Windows key: Win-A for fast access to my most used applications, Win-W for all window management operations, and so on. I have other time-savers like: KIOs for upload, download and remote edition of files over SSH, and for access to locate queries from right within any file dialog. I have many more; but what are yours?

Conversely, what non-KDE tricks make your daily work easier and faster? What currently non-existing tricks would you like to see implemented? What are the worst time-wasters you've encountered?"

Re:Launching programs with Kapapult

[GeeksHaveFeelings]

BTW, OS X's Spotlight is used in exactly the same way, including the keyboard shortcut (on a mac mini with a normal keyboard, the cmd key is mapped to alt, so it'd be alt-space too).

multimedia keyboard + xbindkeys

[rwa2]

xbindkeys is often used to do keyboard shortcuts under the X Window System. I used to use hotkeys (it has the OSD showing you what it's doing), but xbindkeys seems to be a bit more powerful.

I usually like to get a good multimedia keyboard with extra keys and use xbindkeys-config to bind them to some command. It's been a bit tricky to find one where all of the buttons work as expected, though. I'm happy with the current Dell multimedia keyboard (SK-SK8135 , ~$22) - the volume/media keys are backlit, and they didn't do anything stupid with the layout (like tranpose the ins/home/pgup block like in their /last/ multimedia keyboard). On some of the older keyboard models I've tried (HP 5219, Antec K361), all the keycodes wouldn't register, and the "sleep" button (which I usually bind to 'xset dpms force suspend') would send two events for some reason and usually wake itself right back up again (the dell mm kbd doesn't have a sleep button at all though).

I also have an X10 / ATi wireless usb remote that I've programmed some of the buttons on. Unfortunately, it has six buttons labelled 'a' through 'f' that just send those letters instead of keycodes, so it's hard to do anything with them.

Anyway, sorry for throwing out mostly hardware suggestions :P

Re:Launching programs with Kapapult

[JohnFluxx]

I have added konversation (IRC) and kopete (msn, icq) support to Katapult.

Run konversation or kopete. Right click on a nick. Chose addressbook->add contact

Then launch katapult with: alt-space then you can type in the nickname or the full name and then enter and that will start a chat with the person in konversation or in kopete, which ever is most appropriate (if the person is in both, it compares away status etc.)

Another cool trick is in konqueror you can type:

kde://radio

and it goes to the kde radio site :-)

JohnFlux

Focus management!

[Mad Merlin]

One of my favourite things about KDE (or, more specifically, kwin) is the way it handles focus. In particular, it doesn't enforce that the window in focus must be the window on top. Using the default (at least they were default the last time I did a fresh install) KDE settings, scrolling the mousewheel can be used to change the the focus to the window you're scrolling in, but without changing it's z positioning. Furthermore, once you've given a window this state in this manner, you can interact with it normally without fear of it popping on top again, until you a) left click on the titlebar, or b) it loses focus (and then gains it again).

While a similar effect is possible by using focus-follows-mouse, it also requires you to keep the mouse cursor inside the window you want to have focus, whereas with this method, the mouse cursor can be anywhere.

In the same vein, the alt+(left|right) mouse button combos, which by default are mapped to moving and resizing a window, don't give a window focus either. Thus, you can move and resize any window without fear of it a) coming into focus or b) changing z order.

A KDE must-have

[kimvette]

This is a must-have for any konqueror user.

Are you fed up with those "smart key" tooltips that keep popping up in konqueror?

edit ~/.kde/share/config/konquerorrc

add this section:

[Access Keys]
Enabled=false

Now konqueror will provide an enjoyable experience without those obnoxious tool tips. :)

Things I do

[Bralkein]

I have heard a few people here and there complain that Konqueror is of no use to them as a file manager, because it is only single-pane. One thing I never noticed until recently is that Konqueror can actually have as many panes as you like! This is really useful. I have set up the hotkeys for splitting the view panes so that Alt-S will split to the side, Alt-D will split down and Alt-X closes the currently-selected pane. Now, normally I like using single-pane, but sometimes two or more can be easier. Whenever I need that, I use the shortcuts to do that. For example, since I use Konqueror as my browser too, I can go to a website with some images or files that I want, split the pane in two, navigate to my home directory in one of the panes, then it is as simple as dragging and dropping the items I want from the website to the folder.

For KDE apps that have functionality exposed via DCOP, you can tie mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts to DCOP calls using the dialogue found in Control Centre->Regional & Accessibility->Input Actions. For applications you use regularly, this can be really useful. There is a DCOP browser you can use to explore the things that you can do with DCOP-enabled applications. Have a play with it and see what you can do. I personally use it for controlling Amarok. (an amazing app for anyone who hasn't used it BTW)

Have you messed around with the storage media notification configuration? When this feature first appeared, I worried that it might be useless and annoying, all popping up dialogues when you insert a disc, but some of the stuff you can do with it is quite cool. For example, if you use an external hard drive to back up your data, you could add an option to do that on the notification. Then, when you plug the drive in, the notification will pop up, and all you need to do is choose the newly-created option to back up your data. The dialogue you can use to do all this is found in Control Centre->Peripherals.

I hope some of these suggestions are of use to someone, and I also hope that nobody I know ever reads this post, as it is by far the most disgustingly nerdy thing I have ever written.

My favorite KDE/X/ALSA tricks

[gameforge]

I own a Logitech Cordless MX Duo, which includes an MX700 wireless mouse with Internet buttons (forward/backward), as well as a wireless iTouch keyboard which has multimedia and Internet buttons everywhere. None of these buttons are recognized under Linux, with any of the distributions I've used (SuSE, Kubuntu, Gentoo, older RedHat (4.1+) and Slackware (3.0+)). I've had similar, older Logitech models with the same problem.

While I don't much use the 'Shopping' button under Windows, I do use the multimedia buttons quite heavily. Thus, one of the little things that was keeping me on Windows [slashdot.org] was not having the very easy and convenient volume control & player controls. I use my soundcard as a preamp/mixer for a fairly nice stereo system with limited volume control. I also use my PC for DVD playing, TV, gaming and recording my guitar, so these buttons are more than convenient.

Additionally, I could never get the Win key to behave exactly like it does under Windows.

So, after lots of scripts and man page viewing, and some KDE control panel fussing and ALSA documentation reading, I've got it all glued together. The post ended up being huge, so I turned it into a journal entry:

X/KDE/ALSA Trick [slashdot.org].

I hope somebody finds this useful; it was a little more than trivial to put it all together. I realize this is more a series of general Linux/X tricks, but KDE is involved; and you did ask for non-KDE tricks as well.

gameforge

ioslaves...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Someone else already mentioned fish:// (remote filesystem access over ssh). the audiocd:// ioslave is nice as well - put in a music cd, type "audiocd:/" into konqueror, and you get a "virtual" directory of WAV, MP3, and Ogg-vorbis files. Drag and drop and it automatically encodes them to "real" mp3/ogg/wav files as desired.

And, of course, k3b is one of the handiest GUI programs ever - normally my nerdly pride insists on using command line tools, but k3b is just too nice.

Time Zones Display

[netsharc]

I like KDE's clock with its built-in multiple world clocks display, practical if you have friends in different timezones. Use the scrollwheel over the clock to change the timezone, or just mouseover it to see the tooltip showing what time it is in all the zones you have. You can even put 2 or more clocks beside each other. :)

Re:Focus management!

[Mornelithe]

Configure -> Desktop -> Window Behavior

        "Focus" tab:
                Uncheck "Click raise active window"

        "Window Actions" tab:
                Left button: Set to "Activate & Pass Click" instead of "Activate, Raise & Pass Click"

Solved.

Make Konqueror Start Faster

[EEPROMS]

It's very common for people to complain that konqueror is slow, but there is a simple trick to speed it up

Look up the top of Konqueror, click on Settings->Configure Konqueror

Now on the right hand window were the icons are scroll right down to the bottom, look for a icon marked Performance, its rocket shaped one, right click on the icon.

Now on the left side pane, turn on "Preload an Instance after KDE has started up"

Set the pre loaded amount to "2"

Regarding the memory section I have it set to "File Browsing Only"

Click on "OK" or "Apply", thats it all done.

Clipboard history search

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I know it is bad form to promote what you have been heavily involved in but...

Configure Klipper to store more than the few items which is the default. Somewhere in the 500-1000 should be a nice number.

Now, when you need something you snipped a few days ago again, try ctrl-alt-v, write a bit (it's a regex, btw). Instant typeahead search in the clipboard history. I love it! :)

Also, fullscreen apps, and making the panel wide, horizontal and coverable are nice tricks :)

Check out the gentoo forums

[Mark Clegg]

The same question was asked on the Gentoo forums some time back, and generated quite a long thread.

See here [gentoo.org]