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    #16
    Re: Customizing the desktops

    Originally posted by toad
    If you want to add a panel you get the choice of whether you want a "normal" or a "fancy" one
    Are you on 4.4? I definitely don't get the fancy panels option.

    Originally posted by toad
    And I don't even get your two screens per virtual desktop Sounds mind boggling to say the least!
    In theory it's relatively straightforwards, I was maybe just saying it awkwardly but exposing, in my language, the awkwardness that's going on behind the scenes. I have two monitors, but although Linux is aware that they are separate monitors it treats them as a single screen. Thus browser windows can span between them and etc.

    The problem is that the way the KDE4 devs have designed desktops versus activities is somewhat schizophrenic (or in other words, they don't seem to care about multi-display setups like mine...it's gotten much better though, until 4.2 plasma would just crash whenever I tried to move the panel between monitors). So each monitor counts as an "activity" and I can set all the Plasma Workspace Desktop Settings individually, but this leads to several usage scenarios that Plasma seems to have been designed completely oblivious of.

    For one, if you add an Activity Bar widget to switch activities you now can switch to the same activity as the other monitor. Guess what happens if you switch one monitor to the activity that the other monitor is currently on? Yup, Plasma crashes.

    The second usage scenario I've run into is that Plasma completely stumbles over the "different activities for each virtual desktop" feature. In past versions it has simply crashed; once I got home today I gave things another whirl, and I'm happy to report that it doesn't usually crash now However, the feature remains so buggy it might as well not exist. For one . . . well, a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is what generally happens if I zoom out, enable the activity-per-desktop option then zoom back in:

    [img width=400 height=150]http://www.ualberta.ca/~keithz/misc/resource/broken_desktop_1.png[/img]

    If you think about it it's doomed from the start, eh? There's an activity per monitor, which thus means two paired activities per screen (or "virtual desktop") in theory when the option is enabled. But the zoom-back-in buttons are for each individual activity, not for the pairs of activities. Plus the Activity Bar widget's functionality is disabled while activities are linked to desktops, so one can't even manually correct which activity is on which monitor on which virtual desktop.

    To make matters worse, something that's either lazy coding or an outright bug fouls things up further. I've managed to skip the doomed zooming-back-in stage by zooming out to get the option, opening the plasma settings dialog (shouldn't that just be, or at least also be, in KControl/SystemSettings somewhere instead of hidden away?) and then zooming back in before I click on the option and hit okay. But if you think about it it's not surprising what goes wrong next. When Plasma is pairing activites and desktops, because there are four virtual desktops . . . it only creates four activities. But since there's two activities per virtual desktop, that means half of the activities are missing. Precisely which half seems to be random; on my current attempt it's both monitors on virtual desktops 2 and 4. I had created a spare activity in my fiddling (after having wiped the config files yet again) so on virtual desktop 2 the right-hand monitor has a plasma desktop, but otherwise it's blankness (cannot add widgets, and no cashew to zoom out to then zoom back in on an actual activity even if one is created; Catch-22).

    ------------------------


    ....sorry if that all was long-winded and ranty. I'm just seriously disappointed that, years later, KDE 4 STILL isn't ready for my main desktop computer. And I really do mean disappointed rather than angry; KDE 4 works perfectly fine on pretty much every other computer I've thrown it at, and I've done that to quite a few. I'm a KDE lover, not a KDE fighter! And I'd love to be able to really use this fancy KDE 4 thing on my primary desktop. But the further we get from getting meaningful results from editing text files, and the further we go trying to depend on GUI drag-and-drop settings and automatic configs, the more my idiosyncratic setup causes the DEs to stumble.

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      #17
      Different backgrounds for different desktops

      Originally posted by toad

      @ pwabrahams

      Just giving different colors to different desktops shouldn't be that hard.
      Did I read the "should" word? There should be no global warming, petrol should be cheaper, all transport should be free and I should lose a couple of pounds. And it is all true, you know, don't you know!
      Well, KDE3 had the ability to (straightforwardly) assign different background colors to different desktops, and more. For instance, in KDE3 you could shade a desktop from one solid color to another. So KDE4 has at least in this area regressed.

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        #18
        Re: Customizing the desktops

        Even with my Intel GPU, and running 9.04 w/KDE 4.3.2, I can opt to have different wallpapers (or solid colors) on each Desktop.

        One just clicks on the Cashew on the Desktop, click on Zoom Out, then on Configure Plasma..., and then check Different activity on each desktop.
        Windows no longer obstructs my view.
        Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
        "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes

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          #19
          Re: Customizing the desktops

          Originally posted by Snowhog
          Even with my Intel GPU, and running 9.04 w/KDE 4.3.2, I can opt to have different wallpapers (or solid colors) on each Desktop.

          One just clicks on the Cashew on the Desktop, click on Zoom Out, then on Configure Plasma..., and then check Different activity on each desktop.
          To be fair he was talking about KDE3 being able to shade automatically from one solid colour to another. Otherwise though you're correct (except, as aforementioned, for my setup . . . but my setup breaks everything haha).

          Edit: I was just looking through the KDE 4.4 Feature Plan trying to figure out if some of the issues with the Marble desktop plugin have been fixed yet (for example, the satellite view in Marble itself has clouds, but the "globe" plugin for the desktop does not) and I noticed "DONE Color Wallpaper Plugin add support for gradients". So very very shortly I suppose that won't be an issue any longer! It's always reassuring when something reaches feature parity in KDE4.

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            #20
            Re: Customizing the desktops

            Just a quick update on the fancy panel: I am running vanilla KDE, not the kubuntu packaged KDE. Sorry about the confusion. Anyway, I hope it works its way into kubuntu sooner or later 'cos it is nice.
            Once your problem is solved please mark the topic of the first post as SOLVED so others know and can benefit from your experience! / FAQ

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              #21
              Different backgrounds for different desktops

              Originally posted by Snowhog
              One just clicks on the Cashew on the Desktop, click on Zoom Out, then on Configure Plasma..., and then check Different activity on each desktop.
              I finally got this to work when I realized what the missing last step is: click on the "+" under one of the multiple windows on the desktop (probably doesn't matter which one). That brings you back to a single window on your desktop (with the option of choosing a different desktop later, of course).

              Thanks.

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                #22
                Re: Customizing the desktops

                the color gradent desktop background is back in kde 4.4. also alot of items have been moved around config wise.things are mostly where they should have been when kde4 started.

                and if i am not mistaken you need fancy tasks installed in order to get a fancy panel. you can get fancy tasks from rog131's ppa.if you have kde 4.4beta fancy tasks will break your plasma.
                Mark Your Solved Issues [SOLVED]
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                  #23
                  Re: Customizing the desktops

                  Originally posted by kubicle
                  Originally posted by pwabrahams
                  Or click on the plasmoid in the upper right corner, zoom out and use the subsequent menu to change the desktop setting so when you are back to your desktop you can set each one up different, color, pictures, slideshows many different things. The settings for the different screens then will be found by right clicking the desktop and changing the desktop settings.
                  That changes all the desktops, not just the current one.
                  If you want different settings for different desktops, you need to link activities to desktops (this will give each desktop it's own activity, which also means each desktop will have it's own set of widgets...you can of course put the same widgets on all desktops if you wish), this thread should get you started: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3100408.0 (the steps to take depend on which KDE version you are using.
                  I have KDE 4.4 beta and you can now set different wallpapers on each virtual desktop from Desktop Activity Settings, which is much better than using the cashew thingy.

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                    #24
                    Re: Customizing the desktops

                    Originally posted by sithlord48
                    if you have kde 4.4beta fancy tasks will break your plasma.
                    Hope you didn't find that out that one out to your detriment And thanks for clarifying the point. I must have inadvertently installed it.
                    Once your problem is solved please mark the topic of the first post as SOLVED so others know and can benefit from your experience! / FAQ

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                      #25
                      Re: Customizing the desktops

                      Originally posted by toad
                      Hope you didn't find that out that one out to your detriment And thanks for clarifying the point. I must have inadvertently installed it.
                      no i found that out after i installed the beta.. and plasma-desktop kept crashing.. then it was pointed it out to me in another thread.. i was also told i mearly need to compile it from src w/ the newer kde libs to get it to work, i'm just lazy and have not done so yet, but if i do i will package it up for all to enjoy.

                      i am not 100% on fancy tasks being needed for a fancy panel. but i know for sure it came w/ a widget .i am rather certian it was fancy tasks.
                      Mark Your Solved Issues [SOLVED]
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                        #26
                        Re: Customizing the desktops

                        Originally posted by tomp01

                        I have KDE 4.4 beta and you can now set different wallpapers on each virtual desktop from Desktop Activity Settings, which is much better than using the cashew thingy.
                        I hadn't tried this before but you can now install separate widgets for each desktop using Add Widgets, I have to say I am really impressed with this feature. Installing widgets has always been hit and miss in the past but it looks like they have finally cracked it!!

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