Archive:Plasma/FAQ/4.2

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Revision as of 22:51, 4 February 2009 by Einar (talk | contribs) (Merge in annew's contribs... this situation needs to be solved)

Turning off the new job notification system

Plasma uses a different way (as opposed to the past releases of KDE to show job progress (for example, a download). For those who do not like it, there is a configuration file option to revert to the old behavior (KDE 4.1 or earlier). Make sure plasma is not running and edit $KDEHOME/share/config/plasma-appletsrc and add the following lines: 

[AppletGlobals][plasma_applet_systemtray]
ShowJobs=false
ShowNotifications=false

Restart Plasma to see the changes in action.

Disabling ARGB visuals

For many of its effects, Plasma makes use of the so-called "ARGB visuals". For older video cards, this can mean a severe performance hit. To disable ARGB visuals and increase performance, you need to set the KDE_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment variable to 1 (KDE_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1) before Plasma starts. You can do so by putting a line setting this variable in /etc/profile or in ~/.profile.

Right-click the panel when your task bar is full

To make some changes to the panel you need to right-click on it - and if you have open applications that may not be easy, The workaround for this problem is to use the panel cashew to bring up the panel settings, then you can right-click anywhere on the panel, including on application tabs, and the command will go to the panel, not the application.

Re-arrange the application tabs on your task bar

Right-click on an empty part of the task bar (or use the method described above) and select Task Manager Settings. In the 'Sorting' combo-box, select 'Manual'. 'OK' to close it. Now you can re-arrange your task icons by holding down Alt and dragging the tabs to their new order. (If you use this alt-drag while the panel config panel is open the whole group of application tabs will move as one.)

Miscellaneous tips

Some alternatives for those who like a sparse desktop:

1 - you can remove the panel entirely. Open applications would be available using the ALT+TAB cycling.

2 - Remove the panel and add a short one at the top of the screen, to hold only the task manager

3 - Create a panel containing the task manager and use autohide.

Glossary

See the Glossary page.

Thanks

  • Daniel Laidig & Simon St.James - thanks for the umeet IRC logs!
  • Marco Martin - thanks for the information on panels!
  • Sebas - thanks for letting me use information from your blog entries!
  • Half-Left - great example of ZUI usage!
  • Aikurn - Excellent videos!
  • Marcelo Magno T. Sales - for giving panel Tips on a mailing list

Contributors

  • Luca Beltrame - current maintainer
  • Joseph M. Gaffney
  • Chani
  • Dipesh
  • Maninalift
  • All the anyonymous contributors



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