KDE4 Konsole Transparency

[Zerix01]

Does the background transparency in KDE4's Konsole work for any one? When I'm in the profile > appearance settings it does not seem to make any difference what I set for the transparency level, nothing changes. Is this feature still in the works?

I'm trying to have nothing but console text on the desktop so it looks like I'm just typing on my desktop and not in a console, so far I have eliminated all boarders and menu's so now all that is left is making the background transparent.

Thanks

[dibl]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

Interesting. I never played with the Konsole settings before.

I'm gonna guess that compiz, with its window decorator, is a problem when it comes to making everything but the text disappear. I don't think I can make the window borders disappear as long as compiz is running.

It also looks like the background color(s) of one's desktop is going to make a big difference in how well that works. My KDE4 Konsole seems to allow me to have a lot of latitude with the background and foreground colors, but I do not see a "transparent except for text" option here. :P

[Mikimike]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

I set mine to 100% transparency and it doesn't change either, so it's not just you

[Zerix01]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

I'm not using Compiz only the built in KDE4 compositing.

To get the transparency option you need to go to Edit Current Profile > Appearance tab > Edit , then you should have a transparency slider at the bottom of that window. Problem is it just doesn't work.

[anthon]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

To enable transparency, you have to launch konsole with the --enable-transparency option, but you will have to do this for the first instance of konsole (that means if you open a konsole and call konsole --enable-transparency, it's not gonna work).
I personally call konsole --enable-transparency with alt+F2.
Now I would love to launch a transparent konsole from the kde4 menu, the problem is I don't know how to change the command in this menu
So if anyone knows...

[Zerix01]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

I tried to add the --enable-transparency to konsole in K > settings > Menu Editor but it didn't seem to change anything.

Alt-F2 worked great though, but the konsole still isn't fully transparent but the border less shadowy look is very cool. Hmm maybe a shadow effect is still on... I'll check this out in a bit.

[dibl]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

OK, well, I've got good news, and errr OTHER news.

Running KDE4, I parked the Konsole (KDE 4) on the panel. Right-clicked it and chose "icon settings". Went to the "Application" tab, and in the "Command" window, I added "--enable-transparency" to the command, so now it reads "/usr/lib/kde4/bin/konsole --enable-transparency". Clicked the panel icon and up it comes in transparent mode! Of course, since I'm running Compiz with the Emerald window decorator, it still has a frame around it. I assume if I changed to the Kwin decorator, then I could fiddle with the window frame --- I'll leave that experiment to others.

Now here's the other news: The icon changed from the Konsole icon to a dumb piece of paper with a question mark on it.

I've no idea about that ......

[anthon]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

I think the Menu Editor thing doesn't work because it concerns the kde3 menu...
But I finally succeeded in what I wanted to do, by modifying the file
/usr/share/applications/kde4/konsole.desktop
I changed the "Exec" line with the right command.
There is also an "Icon" line in this file, dibl, try to change this line with:
Icon=utilities-terminal
maybe it will work...
I'm not familiar with all that KDE4 background yet, but I think all those .desktop files are used for all the shortcuts on the panel or in the menu.

And for the frame things, I'm sorry I have no idea

[Guest]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

Hey all, I got it to work

For whatever reason, you can't go in and edit the command for the Konsole link that's already in the Menu Editor. So instead, I created a new one (inside the System menu), and it works perfectly! Thanks for the tips!

Also, regarding the "question mark" icon, I know in the menu editor you can click on the icon (to the right of name and description) to change the icon to anything else besides the paper with the question mark on it. Theoretically you should be able to do the same under the icon properties, but it looks like a lot of settings are still missing?

[dibl]

Re: KDE4 Konsole Transparency

Heyyyyyyyyyy -- here's something (I'm glad this thread came back up!).

OK, so I right-clicked on the silly-looking piece of paper with the question mark on it, now a little 4-item menu comes up. The first item is "Icon Settings" so I chose that one. A "Properties for konsole.desktop" dialogue window pops up, with 4 tabs "General, Permissions, Application, and Preview". On "General" there is a picture of the piece of paper with the question mark in the upper left corner. I clicked it, and lo and behold a new dialogue window opens, named "Select Icon - Plasma Workspace" and here are all the KDE 4 icons, so it's easy to scroll down to the "Terminal" icon and select it.

At first, the panel icon didn't change after I executed this maneuver, but when I hovered the cursor over it, then it changed and looks right now.

Very cool! 8)