Announcement

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:25 PM

A COMPLETE SCENARIO About how KPS can be used in a “party scenario” and the roots thereof.

The original impetus was a statement about the use of PMC at the KDE discussion of the app.

And, with all deference to the designers, the emphasis of their discussion has been, with the obvious exception of being pointed toward the tablet form factor, on the wrong things, the very first discussion is about PMC use on a laptop.

In any case here is the sentence which formed the impetus for KPS.

Jane is at home and wants to show her dinner guests pictures from the recent weekend trip she went on.

Here is what this writer thinks is a more plausible scenario FOR THE MODERN MEDIA CENTRIC and YOUNG user.

Jack and Jill and “the gang” come boiling into the apartment and while Jack and the gang are pulling a lot of prepared veggies and other foods from the fridge and opening coolers of ice and various libations, Jill is is powering up the wall screen television and popping the sim card from her CAMERA.

After the computer is stable she pops the sim card into a reader and while the OS is interacting with it she is using KDE connect to transfer a few select CELL PHONE photos and a short video of their day at the beach to the computer.

While this is occurring she and the girls head for the powder room to change from swimsuits and shorts to something more comfortable and later so do the guys.

The media has AUTOMATICALLY loaded into PMC so, Jack, while holding a coaster of veggies and dip grabs an airmouse and cursors over to the kicker and launches the Plasma Media Center ( PMC ).

The PMC has automagically placed the pictures from the beach in the pictures section and the video in the video section. Jill and Jack had previously placed some surfing music in on the machine and it has picked up the three selections, along with metadata, and the albums are displayed with nice images in a grid on a black glassy tone screen.

The music is started and folks are settling into various couches, chairs and floor pillows.

Jack , from across the room at the sidebar, clicks the first image and suddenly a slide show starts and everybody is commenting about how awesome the volleyball game was.

After that, since Jack’s hands are full now with not only the coaster but a libation, Jill, who is standing with a friend looking out at the patio sees that the slide show has ran several times and picks up the wireless air mouse and, from across the room, selects the video, taken that day, of a bunch of surfers atop the curl and everyone oohs and aaahs to that while listening to the surfing music.

While part of the gang is setting up card games Jack closes PMC “safely removes” the sim card from the three year old, but modded, computer that is nestled on a book shelf, and inserts a usb drive and opens the awesome looking Dashboard and clicks a preselected internet radio stream and it begins to play in Gmerlin. He minimizes that and in another minute a “desktop slide show’ of beach and surfing music is playing.

One of his buddies says: “Ya know, Jack, one of these days I will just HAVE to set up a system like yours!”

After he has minimized the player he opens the desktop settings and selects Gwenview and selects the OFF BOARD folder of preselected images of “surfing, beautiful sand beaches and images from previous outings” of ‘the gang”. Every minute thereafter, the images rotate through the slide show function on the t.v. which people can glance at while playing cards.

If the party is a theme party Jill opens Tunapie2 and shows the bunch the absolutely AMAZING varitey and number of worldwide stations that are free streaming and selects a station which is appropriate for the party and it opens in Gmerlin ( preset as default for Tunapie2 player) and starts the absolutely awesome “Mvisuals” that run with Gmerlin.

Here is a rather simplified version of how KPS can be used “before going to work”.

The normal activities are: feed the juicer and get the juice or start the coffee, start the toaster oven or whatever, go turn on the computer and go back to get stuff and return to the computer. Make space for coffee or juice and bagel on the computer table, sit at the table mousing through stuff.

The KPS scenario.

Turn on the computer by pushing the power button and while moving to the dining room power on the television and select the computer input, RGB or HDMI.

While things are settling down with the computer and T.V. get veggies and fruits out for the juicer or set up the Keurig and get a bagel out of the fridge.

Peek around the corner and see that the computer is ready to go, it was left at QuiteRSS. Using the airmouse refresh the feeds and get the juice. Lean against the corner and, from across the room because the text was EASILY enlarged to an appropriate size scan the feeds. If one is of interest, using the air mouse select it. Go back and get more juice or a granola bar, or get the now heated bagel and coffee.

Walk to the couch and sit down, read the feed in detail and then using the air mouse change to the Gmerlin screen and load click a favorite for listening while reading e-mails.

While munching the bagel or granola bar SCAN the e-mails to determine which to actually interact with when one gets to work.

IF NECESSARY, use the wireless keyboard to type a reply to someone.

While listening to the music go to the bathroom for ablutions.

If one has Firefox set to a “news feed” from a station one could instead listen to it.

This because the SOUND SYSTEM of the television and associated hardware can easily produce a volume which is heard in other parts of the apartment or house.

Walking back THROUGH the living room to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee or juice TO GO, Kde connect pops a text from the CELL PHONE …...ON THE TELEVISION SCREEN and one reads it as one is popping dishes into the dishwasher or disposables into the compactor.

After dressing for work and while taking a last sip of whatever to check the temperature, one turns off the television from across the room and may or may not move to the computer to turn it off.

No sitting at a table spilling coffee or juice on the keyboard and peering at a small screen while NOT DOING ANYTHING ELSE.

end of section 2

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:29 PM

This section explains the “philosophy” and “workability” of WHY particular apps were chosen and why they are CONFIGURED in the suggested manner.

It is arranged in a relatively straightforward manner….BUT because of the cross over of functions (party and before work) sometimes things are “out of order” and sometimes there is repition.

This paradigm shift requires several things to complete it:

a) rethinking where media is stored and why
b) use of a remote mouse that does not have to be on a table to function.
c) attendant applications to facilitate the functioning of PMC and also the why of what other apps were selected for inclusion (some because of ease of change of display to a large screen t.v. some because of ease of use with an air mouse at a distance).
d) reconfiguring a few items on the desktop itself.
e) hardware

We now consider the above in detail.

A) The rethinking of where media is stored and why.
B) the particular app which best optimizes interaction FROM A DISTANCE WHILE DOING OTHER THINGS...

We will address the “why” first.

To repeat AND explain.

The intent of the PMC was never to be “yet again another media player”. It was not intended to be a “repository” and “indexer” of huge amounts of media.

It was intended to deal with “one off” short term USE of media which is stored elsewhere on a device such as a tablet which does not have “fine grain” control using the finger to swipe and a virtual keyboard.

PMC’s strength is for “macro” use and that from a distance.

Images, video, etc. are aggregated and displayed “en masse”. Folders are not displayed.

Using a remotely operated mouse which is waved “in the air” is not conducive to stepping through folders and such is also very tiring and prone to error.

The strength of PMC is the large PREVIEW display of images and video and the easy selection of “the first one” or the “fifth one” or the playing of a slide show or a video.

To that end, there should be NO media kept in long term storage on the physical machine except for things like “.pls” files.

PMC’s GREAT STRENGTH is that when a sim card is inserted into a reader on the physical machine the PMC ATOMATICALLY finds the media, whether an image or a video, and places it into the appropriate “section” of PMC.

That is imortant to note. It does so automatically, no effort is required by the user.

If the practice of restricting PMC to use of what would “seem” to be a very small amount of data –- the user can easily view all of the available media with little use of the mouse AT A DISTANCE.

Since the previews of the media are large, the selection of an appropriate item FROM A DISTANCE, is easily facilitated.

To this end, when the session is ended the media is then MOVED to a storage usb device or an external hard drive.

This MOVE then allows any NEW media to be the ONLY media actually on the computer itself and the cycle can be restarted.

The use of a normal “wireless mouse” is a waste of money and effort for using the PMC.

The normal wireless mouse requires that it be laid on a surface. The user may be on the other side of the room visiting with friends and suddenly has to leave the conversation to move to a table to interact with PMC.

Yes, the wireless “waiving in the air” mouse may be “on a table” or it may be laying on a cushion or it may be in the user’s pocket.

The fact that the “waving in the air” mouse is not tied to a table brings a quantum change to the uses of PMC with a wall mounted television.

C) Most “Linux” people revel in having a variety of media players and image handlers and using exactly the right tool for a certain purpose.

That is not the paradigm of KPS.

Only two other applications are necessary.

PMC defaults to Kmplayer but the default is changed to Gmerlin for video and audio and the Mvisuals are installed as “screen displays” not “screensavers” for the party function.

Gwenvew is the default player for “slide show” images and it will also play video but it can also easily access “off board” media.

When a slide preview is clicked in PMC the application automatically invokes Gwenview.

Gwenview is preconfigured with a VERY LARGE upper bar which shows previews of the images.

Gwenview will offer to allow search of folders, but, it is tedious in terms of the size of the controls.

The very large upper “slider bar of images” in Gwenview makes using the “wireless wave in the air mouse” very easy to use to slider through images, or, if one is near a wireless keyboard, one has to only tap the arrow keys to slider through the images.

When a video preview is clicked in the file menu Gmerlin is automatically invoked and all controls are available, including that of “looping”.

If one wishes to view a slideshow of multiple images one need merely invoke Gwenview and one can view a slide show.

One can ALSO view all videos as a connected video “slideshow”.

EXCEPTION; Of course it is up to the reader to determine just which media apps are installed.

What is important here is that the previously mentioned are all that is NEEDED for the system to function

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:33 PM

WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE KPS WORKABLE AND IMPRESSING FRIENDS. NOT HOW also listing of apps and hardware and the whys of that. Also the why of activities.

One of the “cool things” about the setup in terms of having “friends and family” over is that the whole system has a very “dramatic” appearance to it at all times. And, again, being to “walk away” while the system automatically does it’s job is a very impressive thing.

D) Configuration of the DESKTOP etc. ( not configuring apps or activities).

I) The kicker menu MUST BE CHANGED be changed to the Dashboard variant.

The two other menu variants are too small for the user to easily “hit” an item using the “wave in the air” mouse at distance.

The Dashboard, in and of itself, presents in a very dramatic manner when viewed on a large screen television. And it also is pre-configured with very large icons which are easily “hit” with a “wave in the air” mouse from a distance.

II) To facilitate use with such a mouse one is required to resize the vertical height of the lower panel. This writer has resized the vertical height to be 6 centimeters or approximately 2.5 inches. This, on a 48 inch diagonal wall mount television.

Of course this will vary by case, but being able to quickly and easily “set the mouse on the kicker” is the point of the size change.

For purely cosmetic reasons, this writer sets the panel to be in autohide mode in some cases and to be continuously displayed in other cases, again, a user preference.

III) The cursor should be set to “48” one can choose whichever style one likes.

IV) The size of folders and preview in Dolphin / Control / Configure Dolphin / View Modes, should be doubled.

V) The downloads folder icon has been changed to “folder-red” so that it can be quickly seen from a distance.

VI) This writer has chosen to stay with the “stock” theme because that is probably what the “new user” would probably use for the initial uses.

VII) Activities.

This writer has, in addition, to the above minimal items, several other apps that are on dedicated activities each with different wallpapers.

a) the original desktop.

b) An activity for an app known as “QuiteRSS”. This app has only one feed, and that is “breaking news” .

The advantage of Quite RSS over the RSS feeder in Koffice is that it can be configured to present “full screen” with large text, etc. and is unencumbered with other apps on the desktop.

The REASON for the addition of “breaking news” feed is that when one is working with a….television….it is possible to change to view the television, cable news, whatever.

Instead of changing the TELEVISION’s controls to move back and forth between the “television” and the “computer” one has to only change the activity to QuiteRSS, and if something that is worthy of note has occurred in the world then one can change the television input to cable.

One could, of course, have an activity with a News Feed from Google, it is all a matter of personal tastes.

c) Gmerlin which will be the default video and music player for PMC. (changed from the default of Kmplayer.

d) Gwenview for viewing images, doing slideshows and also can display video if the required codecs are installed extra.

e) VLC use “casually” to watch downloaded videos or DVDs etc. on the couch in the evening.

f) Tunapie2 because this author likes world music and also to impress friends about what Linux can do “for free”.

c) E-mail.

KPS is NOT about actually DOING e-mail.

That is best done on a desktop/laptop “work” computer.

KPS is about VIEWING e-mail to get a general idea about what will need to be done “at work”. It was originally desired ( for purist reasons) that KPS use Kontact but it is just not workable at this time. This user makes use of a web browser that has a tab pinned to the appropriate e-mail apps.

However, this is up to the user, and the e-mail app can be constrained in size, etc. using the same techniques as for any of the above apps such as Quite RSS.

d) One can, of course, add activities for say, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Corebird is an excellent analog for Twitter.

Ekiga is a really GREAT app for doing video chat on the television. However, DO NOT let the pet be running rampant behind you when you are visiting online for a business situation or you may lose a client. For family friends having the whole room in view is a different experience FOR THEM.

In terms of TWITTER, this writer HIGHLY RECOMMENDS…..ChoQok. The very simple reason for this is that the font size can be massively increased from WITHIN the app, whereas other such apps have configuration settings elsewhere and are more oriented toward the Gnome desktop.

GAMING… depending on the speed of the computer and the power of the video card games like Extreme Downhill racer can be played with ease.

OF INTEREST IS THE NEWER very high definition televisions which “should” give the same sharpness of display as a “video game player’ on a smaller desk screen.

e) The author has an activity for Tunapie2, QuiteRss, Gwenview, Gmerlin, PMC, VLC and Desktop in addition to default.

E) Hardware

I) Television

It is assumed that one will have a large screen television. Such devices presently are designed with only “cable/t.v” input and HDMI input.

However, if one searches around. as did this writer, there are devices which also still will take “RGB” (the red / yellow / black / green plugs). This writer was fortunate enough to find one new and purchased it so that either computer hookup can be done.

II Mouse and Keyboard.

This writer purchased a “Gyration Air Mouse” ™ and keyboard ( now ten years old) but the mix of software and hardware operated in a very cumbersome manner. The PMC and increased hardware capability has changed this.

This author “assumes” that a “Wii” remote might be able to be used, and there is a driver for the device in Debian repos.

III) Computer.

This writer is using a ten year old AMD “game machine”, which would seem to be “under powered”.

That is NOT the case.

Aside from the random times when the “screen goes black” it does a great job AND, more importantly, the KDE desktop will “rebuild itself” after such a situation. This writer has NEVER experienced a “fatal crash” with this hardware and PMC / Dashboard on Kubuntu.

An interesting side not is that when such a black screen does, rarely, occur, one can actually watch the process of the KDE desktop rebuilding itself within half a minute.

This is, of course, not a fault of PMC, or the Dashboard, it is a lack of power in the hardware./

This author has also tested the whole setup with a modern machine and never has a failure occurred.

Summary.

The KDE Plasma Media Center, working with Gmerlin and Gwenview, in conjunction with a wide screen, wall mounted, television and mouse provide a very visually dramatic, easy to operate, and “click and walk away” entertainment environment.

If one makes the paradigm shift to having only a limited amount of media in temporary storage on the computer; again, the combination of PMC, Kplayer and Gwenview make interacting with the media both enjoyable, easy and almost automatic.

The “wave in the air mouse” in combination with PMC truly does create a “click from the other side of the room” paradigm.

The expansive nature of the GUI’s for the Dashboard and PMC make the use of a “wave in the air” mouse very easy to use when certain adjustments are made to the GUI.

The dramatic appearance of the Dashboard and the PMC interface are always pleasant to behold and are of great interest to friends and family when they visit.

The user does not need to “think about” the computer when using it and a wall mounted television in the context of PMC and the Dashboad. The combination of tools then become an enhancement and not a distraction from the more important activities of interacting with family and friends. KDE Dashboard and PMC truly are for the enjoyment of our lives.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:34 PM

HARDWARE list, appliction list, library list that may be needed depending on the distro.

A widescreen television
A reasonably powered computer and a “better” video card.

An android phone and KDE connect
or
other phone and a usb attachment to the computer.
A “data card” reader for a camera’s card.

An “airmouse” and keyboard

or one could trial run an install of the software with just a plain “wireless mouse” and keyboard with the caveat that one will STILL have to have one’s hand on the mouse on a “surface”.

Required software

KDE connect
Streamtuner
Mplayer
Gmerlin
Gmerlin skins
Plasma Media Center
Gwenview
QuiteRSS

other miscellaneous apps

Tunapie2

Possibly twitter and facebook analogs

Possibly video chat or a chat app such as Pigeon.

Required libraries

Mplayer ffmpeg phonon
ffmpeg
libavdevice-ffmpeg56
libcdio-cdda1
libdio-paranoid
ffmpeg thumbnail
ffmpeg thumbnailer
libvisual-0.4-plugins
projectM-pulsaudio
projectM
gmerlin incoders ffmpeg
gmerlin encoders good
qmmp-plugin-projectM

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:36 PM

SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS ABOUT PLASMA MEDIA CENTER AND GMERLIN as a case study "en fine" before one embarks on the totality of the tweaks, the last post before the wallpaper post.

After installing Plasma Media Center ( same for Gmerlin)

Setting up Plasma Media Center

System Settings / Window Management / Window Rules/

Application settings for plamashell_org.kde.plasma.mediacenter

modify

Size and position

tick activity then change “does not affect” to “apply now” The designated name for the activity which will hold bind for the Plasma Media Center.

Maximum size change to “force” and the numbers to 1600, 1000

Click ok and apply.

WARNING: If you go back into change other settings the “application” will default back to “all activities even if you did change it.

For the Gmerlin player change the activity to the name of the premade Gmerlin activity from “all desktops”.

THE REASON FOR CHANGING the size of the Plasma media center is so that you do not have to do they keystrokes “ald-f3” to change to another acticity.

Other settings, for another mouse click for the activities and also scroll to change activity so can scroll or click in the provied empty space for PMC

This is a matter of taste but I have found it convenient in terms of changing things from a distance.

ALTERNATIVELY one can alt – f3 and choose “ special application settings” toward the middle there is a button for “full screen”, if it is ticked there is a set of choices and yes or no, if one wishes one can tick “no” and then one of the settings such as “force” or “start now” as desired. This will enable the normal top panel on the app and allow it to be dragged.

However, even if it is resized or whatever, if the PMC is clicked anywhere it will maximize.

This user has personally found that making it somewhat smaller and being normally to the top left that it is “easy to hit” the empty part of the desktop to the left to scroll to other activities.

Desktop settings / mouse actions /

change the left button to “switch activity”, it will display a small white menu on the desktop and one can change to the desired activity.

Add action, click it and spin the scroll wheel and then choose “switch activity”, this is of assisance especially when wanting to change from the PMC, yes one has to ‘step through” the activities but it is very easy to do from across the room.

To reduce the amount of time fiddlling with the computer during the hustle and bustle of returning to the beach, the computer should be pre-set with the permanent storage device and KDE connect and an SSD card reader for the camera.

The wallpapers for the various activities are stored on the usb drive because if they are stored elsewhere, they will appear in the PMC, thus interfering with a casual party goer finding the pictures from the beach.

When the people have arrived, the computer is turned on if not already on and the ssd card from the camera is inserted and someone makes a “selection” of the good pictures, not just “all of them dragged over” and possibly video depending on the camera.

These are dragged ONTO THE COMPUTER itself NOT into the usb drive or external hard drive.

IF DESIRED the rest of the pictures can be placed in the USB drive or external drive so that they will not be seen by PMC.

PMC will automatically find the pictures and videos and place them in the appropriate section so that people can easily view them with the swipe of a mouse o arrowing with arrow keys.

Gwenview is automatically invoked for this and the images are viewed in Gwenview.

Gwenview can also view videos but the default is to Kmplayer.

Videos will default to play in VLC and / or Gmerlin depending upon the user’s wishes.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:38 PM

POWER SETTINGS for a DESKTOP COMPUTER - these have to be done to get a satisfactory experience.

To have it run on startup

For Plasma media center

Power Management

Activity settings, change “don’t use special settings” to “act like” “define a special behaviour” to “never shutdown the screen

Gmerlin

Never shutdown the screen

for PMC

window matching

in window types all are ‘blue” click and pick normal window may change to desktop

window title exact match thype in Plasma media center

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:40 PM

TWITTER analog comments

Twitter is a staple of life for the the younger party crowd and also, surprisingly, for things like colleges, such as whereat this user teaches.

It is becoming a "staple" of "getting information out" in addition to "tweeting to friends".

Corebird versus coquoe

a) could not find any setup instructions options for corebird
b) have to scroll manually to get latest tweets in corebird
c) coquoe provides a popup notification and the tweets are automatically scrolled up
d) corebird shows a truncated image if included in tweet, conque shows a link
e) no commercial tweets in coque
f) can easily change size of font and background color in conque so can see from a distance
g) Corebird filter blocks people while other filters FOR them to be the only one seen

h) settings for corebird are in the icon in the Unity bar or ctrl-shift-p

I) there are NO appearance settings.

Coquoe has a button for refreshing the tweets.

Coquoe defaults to having a notification and to scrolling of the tweets corebird has them in settings.

Corebird allows dragging an image into the bottom of a tweet and it will appear in the tweet, truncated unless smalle.

also has a themed sidebar

has ability to change background colours and font sizes

Big take away is that for KPS

they both get the basics of the job done, I just happen to like Corebird.

If one wants the full tweet experience then use the twitter online stuff including stuff like tweetdeck
which would be IMPRESSIVE

But, mine is about “appearance and getting the obvious stuff done from a distance and easil easily seen and controlled from a distance

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:41 PM

FOLLOWING IS A COMPLETE, STEP BY STEP OF HOW TO SET UP KPS SO THAT IT WILL WORK FIRST TIME OUT.

IT MAY SEEM TO “WANDER” BUT IN REALITY IT DOES NOT, IT IS A STEP BY STEP OF HOW THIS USER DID THE SETUP FOR A LARGE SCREEN TELEVISION.

HOW TO:

Add activities for at least Plasma Media center, Gmerlin , Tunapie, VLC, Gwenview, QuiteRSS, and your preferred e-mail client.

If there are other apps which would be used in a "party setting" or "morning getting ready for work" manner please add activities for those also.

Cashew / actrivities / +activity

Set all activities to always on

System Settings / Power Management / Activitiy settings / define a special setting / tick never shut down the screen

Be sure to click "apply"

Using the internet download a wallpaper that is appropriate to each of the activites and place them in a folder which is appropriately named for convenience in finding the wallpaper. If one does not choose to have previews enabled, rename the files for each of the activities such as: "VLC wallpaper".

Making it easy to switch between activites from a distance

Settings / desktop behaviour / activities / switching / tick Remember the current virtual desktop for each activity ( needs restart )

NOTE this MAY change the setting for how the screen renders and one may need to patiently work through the sometimes fractured desktop settings module to get to display and rendering

All of the applications have to be set to an activity before one can enable the workable method of changing activites.

The following may seem to be laborious but it is the ONLY way to get each application locked to the appropriate screen ( it is most assuredly possible to do this in other ways, but this methodology is designed for the person who is new to Linux/ Kubuntu / or who is not comfortable using command line) .

One problem with different apps is the window that is presented to the user. Not all developers provide the "top left button to modify" so we will start with VLC which has all of the appropriate controls.

Go to VLC activity and open VLC.

Click th elittle box at top left go to activity and it should show VLC to be colored.
More actions / special window settings / size and position / activity / change does not affect to force / change all activities to VLC / click ok leaving VLC open - Reboot

Upon reboot using cashew go to the desktop and open VLC. VLC should NOT appear on the "desktop", using the cashew go to the VLC activity and it should be open on the VLC activity.

Right click on the desktop / configure desktop / wallpaper / open / naigatge to the folder and find the appropriate wallpaper / click the desired wallpaper / it will appear in the panel showing wallpapers / click the wllpaper so that it has a coloured border / apply / ok.

The desired wallpaper should now be on the desktop beneath VLC.

Close VLC.

Using the cashew go to the desktop activity. reboot the computer. It should open to the desktop activity. Using kicker / VLC open VLC it should NOT be on the desktop activity . Using the cahsew open the VLC activity. VLC should be on the VLC activity desktop and the appropriate wallpaper should be present.

Leave VLC open on the VLC activity and using the cashew go to the desktop activity. Right click on the desktop and repeat the procedure to set a wallpaper to the desktop activity, Reboot the computer WITH VLC still open on the VlC activity.

Upon reboot one should be on the desktop activity and the approprite wallpaper should be present. Using the cahew open the VLC activity and VLC shoulld NOT be present but the appropriate wallpaper should be present.

THE METHODOLOGY

Some of the previous series of steps may have seemed to been unnecessary but they serve one very useful purpose.

The subsequent directions to this will have new steps added and some discarded but the above method assures the user that if those steps are followed then the desired result will be obtained. This in consideration of the myriad posts which litter the internet about "why is Plasma desktop so hare to configure".

Actually, the Plasma desktop is not hard to cofigure but because it is so extensible, people forget to do this tep or that which affects other settings and then the person gets mixed up and reset things to normal and then complains.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:42 PM

FOLLOW ON SETUP for the initial setup and verification that everything works.

Because of the idosyncracies of different applications, as per the developers, some general instructions can be given for some of the applications, however others, such as the Plasma Media Center require very definite settings for things to work smoothly.

THERE IS A SCREEN where many "all of the apps" can have their settings applied one by one and easily, however, one has to "BUILD" the screen by tying apps to ther activity one by one first. After that is done then changing settings for one or many of the apps can be done easily from that one screen.

WE NOW MOVE TO THE OTHER APPS.

Go to the Gmerlin screen and open Gmerlin. Please notice that there is NOT a "little box at the top left" which allows one to change the window settings. The change of window settings can be done with other screens but since Gmerlin is typical in it's configuration of many apps it will be used to illustrate another point of useage of the Plasma destkp.

Using the cashew switch through several activities to verify that Gmerlin is on all of them and go back to the Gmerlin activity.

if one goes to Gmerlin in the panel one sees that it is on all activities and if one tries to "move it" to the Gmerlin desktop nothing changes.

Setting Gmerlin to the Gmerlin activity will be dealt with later as an example for other such apps.

Click the "little box at the top left" of Gemerlin and one will see a drop down menu.

Go to: window / media tree and click it.

One will see another box open for navigation to find media and on the top left is the configuration box for stuff, navigate to more actions / special application settings / tick activity / then change do not affect to "force" and then "all activities" to "gmerlin".

AS AN ASIDE, if one does this on ANOTHER activity, the Gmerlin app will immediately disappear and only be found on the Gmerlin activity.

Right click on the desktop and set an appropriate wallpaper for Gmerlin activity.

Tunapie2.

Go to the Tunapie activity and apply an appropriate wallpaper.

Open Tunapie2.

DO NOT RESIZE it if it appears in the center of the screen and covers possibly 3/5 of the area.

Using the little box at the top left force it to the Tunapie desktop as with VLC and Gmerlin, and then reboot.

Tunapie2 defaults to the size setting provided, but it may be changed later depending on the desires of the user and, again, will be used as an example for other such apps.

QuiteRSS

Go to the QuiteRSS activity and apply a wallpaper and then open the QuiteRSS activity.

NOTICE that it defaults to the center of the screen.

PAY ESPECIAL ATTENTION to the following. Click the little icon and go to apply special application settings and then activity and then FORCE and then to the list of activities.

NOTICE THAT THERE ARE TWO ACTIVITY ENTRIES FOR QuiteRSS.

That is because of the aforementioned idosyncracies of different developers.

The developers of QuiteRSS have very nicely included in their app a subroutine to provide a new activity page for their app in addition to the one which you, the user has already set up.

If one clicks the bottom entry one gets the new page and the app on that page upon closing. One must go to the other page, with the wallpaper and then go back to cashew / activityies and hover the other page and a white bar will appear below and one can click the "x" on the right to delete the pag.

One then must repeat the steps and choose the upper entry and one will get one's own activity for the app.

When one has verified that the QuiteRSS app does, indeed, open in the QuiteRSS activity one can move on to Gwenview.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:43 PM

GWENVIEW AND PMC INTERACTION.

Gwenview will be used to provide a 'slide show" of folders which are stored in something like a USB stick

Repeat the procedure for placeing a wallpper and forcing Gwenview to the appropriate activity.

One should now reboot, and yes it is tedeious, but working with the cashew verify that VLC, Tunapie and Gwenview open on the appropriate activities whie moving back and forth to the the destkop.

Gmerlin, will, as observed before, open on all activities.

Plasma Media Center.

Plasma Media Center is the "most challenging" to set up but will subsequently offer geat rewards and will, again, be illustrative of other idosyncracies of developers.

One PARTICULAR idosyncracy is that of opening full screen and there not being a way to "get out" of the app except for a ctrl keystroke pair.

The REASON for this is that the defaule USE for PMC is deemed to be for a tablet in which, it will "eventually" be made to slide back and forth or that the user will use a "back arrow" which is "off screen' to go to other apps.

REVIEWERS of PMC have provided a lot o f"bad press" about PMC for precisely this reason, in the view of this author. The reviewer, perforce, reviews it using a laptop or a desktop computer and they have to go through the default configuration so it is not "the fault" of the reviewers, it is only their "fault" in that they did not go to the trouble to try other options.

When PMC is properly configured it will absolutely "sing" in the Kubuntu "tweak" on a large screen television.

Plasma Media Center setup.

First, let us observe the default behaviour.

READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS SENTENCE FIRST before opening PMC:

Go to the PMC activity and open PMC.

It will be fullscreen.

AND ALL OF THE IMAGES AND MEDIA ARE IN THE PMC automatically!!

Move the cursor all about, one does not see a panel or any other way to interact with configuring the application.

On the Keyboard enter the following keystrokes: Alt-F3

One will see an inteeractive box appear to the top left.

Chose "close" and PMC will close.

Open PMC again and invoke Ctrl-F3 and go to more actions / special application settings

One might want to jot these down because one will be changing FOUR settings.

Activity / force / change to Plasma Media Center

Fullscreen / force / change to no

Initial plaement / force / change to centered

Go back up to "size"

Size / force / in the box change the size numbers to: "1032,801"

BE SURE TO CLICK "OK" then close.

PMC will NOT "close" it will "pop up and to the left".

USE Alt-F3 o close and then reopen and it will open in the center of the desktop to the new size.

Again all of the media, pictures etc are in the PMC but now are harder to view, one will tweak the size later.

The normal int3eractive little box is at the top left and PMC can now be opened and closed as with any plasma app.

REBOOT - This will ensure that all apps are tied to their activities.

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY it will "build" another screen so that one can conveniently deal with any tweaks for the apps fromone screen.

One might go through the whole routine of going back and forth through the cahsew to ensure this.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:45 PM

NAVIGATION SETUP this is NECESSARY to create a satisfying and workable experience.

It will enable "wheel scroll" and "right click" for the activities.

One can now, finally, make it easy to navigate in the tweaked setup.

Again, remember, that this tweak is SOLELY intended to be used "at a distance" and with "an air mous".

Go to kicker / sytem settings / workspace / Window management. / wubdiw rules

If evrything is as it should be one will see all of the applications and if one clicks "modify" at the right one will see all of the settings for the appliction's window.

TUNAPIE: click Tunapie.py and "modify" and one will see that it is only tweaked to be forced to the Tunapie activity and no other settings have been modified.

PLEASE LEAVE THEM FOR NOW and let us ove on to EASE OF NAVIGATION.

Unfortunately there is no "global setting" for navigation through the activities except for "keystroke" settings and there is only "forward and back".

That is not useful in this tweak.

Let us remember, the whole point of this is to interact with the computer FROM A DISTANCE.

Thuse, one must go through each of the activities using the cashew and changing the settings for each activity to the SAME SETTINGS FOR ALL.

When this is completed the cashew will not be needed for navigation.

FOR EACH ACTIVITY:

right click on the desktop / desktop settings / mouse actions /

Next to VERTICAL SCROLL change "switch desktop" to "switch activity"

Change "middle button" to "left button".

Next to LEFT BUTTON change "paste" to "switch activity".

CLICK APPLY and then CLICK OK

IF YOU RIGHT CLICK ON THE DESKTOP AND CHOOSE ANOTHER ACTIVITY YOU WILL, INDEED, GO TO THAT ACTIVITY.

HOWEVER, one cannot go to another activity..

One should now go, manually, using the cashew, through all activities and change all of them to the above settings and one can then scroll wheel through all of the activities or "jump" using th left mouse button

REBOOT.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:46 PM

REQUIRED TWEAKS OF THE SETUP AFTER FIRST SETUP

CURSOR TWEAKS, LOWER PANEL TWEAKS, APPLICATION TWEAKS.

The initial tweakig will take probably up to an hour or more.

After that there will probably be another hour or so involved in further tweaks of the size of the applications on the particular user's screen so that the "wave in the air mouse" can be easily used from a distance.

Below are further tweaks which have been EXTENSIVELY TESTED for useability.

Gmerlin tweaks.

Gmerlin as several skns which can be easily downloaded and applied to fit the ambience of many screen themes:

Another great advantage of Gmerlin for "party nights" is that it gives very easy access to "mos" of the "screensavers" that are availble in what used to be known as "Project M"

One does not necessarily need to download "Project M". One may be able to use the onboard libviuals or one may need to download them.

In any case here is the website for the skins and the plugins for the "vizualizer".

Libvisual-0.4.0 is the necssary library if one has newer already installed then one may not need to install the previous one.

Also one can find "Project M" in the repositories.

TWEAKING THE LOWER PANEL.

To restate: the below tweaks are to make using the "wave in the air mouse" easy to use.

This author resized the lower panel "vertically" to where it is approximately three (3) inches high vertically.

In the lower panel / right click the "three horizontal bars" box on the right end. / click and "grab" the "height" button and drag it up a convenient height.

Purely for cosmetic purposes the author autohides the lower panel: again click the "three horizontal line box" on the right of the lowr panel / more settings / autohide.

TWEAK THE MOUSE CURSOR

System settings / appearance / workspace theme / cursor theme / at bottom right change it to "48".

RSSFEED

The choice of QuiteRSS for a reader is for two major reasons in terms of using a feeder from a distance:

A) because THE FONTS CAN BE EASILY INCREASED IN SIZE.

B) One can add a feed extremely simply.

INCREASING FONT SIZE

tools / options / fonts and colors / double click the desired part of the reader and change the size of the font.

EXCEPT FOR THE ACTUAL READER PANE: which is " Browser / zoom " one must manually click one at a time to increase the font size.

ADDING A FEED

Using a web browser of choice search for 'news site RSS" one will get a landing page of some kind which will probably ask the user to choose a feed reader. It should also provide a "feed page" where one can, again, select a reader.

Copy the URL in the main search bar and go to QuiteRSS and click the add button. One will get a popup interactive box WITH THE FEED ALREADY IN IT. Click "next" it will provide a name which one can change if one so choosed. Click done and the feed appears immediately in QuiteRSS.

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:48 PM

PLASMA MEDIA CENTER SIZE ON SCREEN, why it is necessary for ease of use and also how it will impress those who do not run Linux.

The PMC will quite easily amaze friends when one is having a party.

THERE IS NO ANALOG IN WINDOWS (tm)

The artists pictures are shown etc.

After one has practiced a little with the wave in the air mouse one should increase the size of the onscreen display so that there is mnimal space around the PMC to maximize visual effect for the friends that are a the party.

This author has found that a space surrounding the PMC that is approximately one and a half inches willeasily let one use the wave in the air mouse at a distance to change actiities, whether it be scroll or jumping.

WHY HAVE VLC IF ONE HAS PMC?

The reason is quite simple.

PMC reads ONLY the media that is "onboard" in the filesystem of the computer itself. It deos not look "outside" the computer file structure to things like an external hard drive or a USB drive.

This may seem to be a limitation, but it is not.

To repeat, the PMC is not "about" doing "all of the computer stuff one normally does".

It s "about" quickly indexing a few files for immediate use on something like a tablet or, in this case on a large screen television.

During a "party situation" "people" whether it be the "user" or a "friend" can easily upload images or videos using KDE connect or a cable or a card reader and those files will be available for immediate,and SHORT TERM use.

Later, 'after the party", the user can then either delete the files or move them to something like a usb stick and then, at ANOTHER date, if one wants to "replay" the file one uses VLC to navigate to the usb stick.

It is a matter of "philosophy of use" and, in this author's opinion, is really, for the use intended and a very good philosophy.

PMC -example of paradigm shift useage.

Please load a "video" from something like You Tube and also download several pictures.

Open the video and play part of it, the control is hidden toward the bottom of the video until one hovers over it. Stop the video.

Using the back arrow alongside the vido control go back to the main GUI.

Go to the pictures and one will see the pictures and a 'slide show" at the top. Click one of the pictures and it will appear in a window which is NOT Gwenview being used.

Move the cursor down toward the bottom of the image and one will see the "video controls".

Click the play button and the MUSIC from the previously played video will play while the picture stays in the box.

One can also do this with the slideshow function.

It take a little planning ahead of time but can be a stunner for a party!

end of section

**woodsmoke** · May 29, 2017, 11:49 PM

This is a HUGE post made in 16 sections, please go to the "bottom" and read upward.

Here is a custom made wallpaper for K Paradigm Shift.

It is entitled Outwardbound on K Paradigm Shift.

The image was taken by this author during the summer of 2016 while outbound to SCUBA with a disabled person from Key Largo. The dive site being Christ of the Abyss.

I have the wonderful Starwolf to thank for the initial "K" which I then added to the "lozenge".

This tweak is a gift of the old woodsmoker to the wonderful folks of Kubuntu.

woodisgratefulsmoke

P.S.

It is a much desired thing of this author that everyone consider the possibility of volunteering to help those with special needs.

For this author, upon his first such assisting, to see the tears in the eyes of the disabled behind the mask upon "breaking water" on his first "diving freely" was a wonderful thing.

Because they were tears of joy.

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K Paradigm Shift a tweak of Kubuntu - 16 posts total

K Paradigm Shift a tweak of Kubuntu - 16 posts total

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