KDE Tips

Red Root Login Screen:


1)   Open the startkde file with a text editor. This file may be located in either /usr/bin or /opt/kde3/bin .


Scroll down to the line where it says:


test "$XDM_MANAGED" || bkg="-solid #C0C0C0"
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr $bkg

and change to:


test "$XDM_MANAGED" || bkg="-solid #21449C"
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr $bkg


2)   Next, open the /etc/X11/Xsession file with a text editor and where it says:


# default background
if [ "`whoami`" = root ]; then
    xsetroot -solid "#B20003"
else
    xsetroot -solid "#21449C"
fi


and change to:


# default background
if [ "`whoami`" = root ]; then
    xsetroot -solid "#21449C"
else
    xsetroot -solid "#21449C"
fi


You can change the color code number to be any color you desire, I used the default KDE background color (#21449C) as an example.


Control Center Empty After KDE Upgrade:

Sometimes when upgrading Kde the Control Center may end up being empty.  Kde global menu settings are located in the /usr/share/applnk directory.  User menu settings are located in the /home/you/.kde/share/applnk .  Copy the Settings folder from the /usr/share/applnk directory to your /home/you/.kde/share/applnk directory.

Note: Redhat uses applnk-redhat and Mandrake use applnk-mdk by default.



12 Hour Clock:


If after installing Linux you find your KDE kicker panel clock is displayed in the 24 hour format, you can change the clock to the 12 hour am/pm format by doing the following:

1)   Right click on the clock and choose " date & time format "

2)   Go to the " Locale " tab.  Change the " Country " selection from " c " to " United States of America (us) ", click apply and restart KDE.

If your fonts have changed, go back into " Locale " and change the " Charset " selection to iso 8859-1 to get the default charset.


Normal Size Menu Fonts:


Menu fonts in Mozilla and other Gtk apps like OpenOffice etc... can often be too small, if you have gnome installed you can just open up the Gnome-Control-Center and adjust font sizes.  If you're running a KDE only system then you can do the following:

1)  Open the file manager and navigate to your home directory
2)  Double-click the .mozilla folder
3)  Double-click the default folder
4)  There should be one folder in there with an .slt extension, double-click on it
5)  Double-click the chrome folder
6)  Right click on the userChrome-example.css file and open it with your favorite text editor and add the following text to the end:

* {
font-size: 4.0mm !important;
font-family: bitstream vera sans !important;
}

7)  Choose file - Save as and rename the file userChrome.css
8)  Save your changes and exit.


Windows Too Large:

If you've ever opened an application in KDE and the window is too large to get at the buttons on the bottom, you can hold down the ALT key and right click-n-drag to move the window.


3 Button Wheel Mouse Cut-N-Paste:

In KDE anything that you highlight is placed in the Klipper, if you have a wheel mouse and the scroll wheel acts as a 3rd button, you can click the wheel and whalla, it's pasted, even in the konsole.



Style Sheets:

Are the default fonts and pink visited Links in the " Konqueror Web Browser " not your style?

Hold down the shift key and click on the "style.css" file, save it to your /home/you directory, then open Konqueror, go to: " Settings-Configure Konqueror-Konqueror Browser " and enable "Custom Style Sheets", point the settings to the custom-style.css file, close and restart the Konqueror Web Browser.

You can also change the colors and fonts in the "custom-style.css" file to your liking with a text editor. For a list of web safe colors go here:

http://html-color-codes.com

To convert between hex (#990000) and RGB (153 0 0) go here:

http://www.se-tel.com/~sarah/colors.html


Kbrowser Home Button:

When I click on the little home button/icon on the Konqueror web browser toolbar, instead of naturally taking me to my home page, it would take me to my /home directory and yes I know about " Save View Profile WebBrowsing ", but this only takes you to your homepage at the startup of the browser. To change the URL of the home button:

Open the KDE Control Center and navigate to File Browsing - File Manager - Behavior and enter your prefered URL into the Home URL box.

This works fine but be warned that it will also change the function of the same button in the Konqueror File Manager, this is what happens when you imitate MS and marry the file manager to the web browser, agghhhh.....


Enabling Netscape Plugins:

1)   Download and install the plugins of your choice for RealPlayer,  Acroreader and Shockwave's Flashplayer by searching RpmFind or using Apt-get.

2)   Next, open the KDE Control Center, under " Web browsing  - Netscape Plugins ", then click on " Scan for new plugins "


Have Knode Open Konqueror When You Click On A Link:


Choose " Configure - Reading News - Viewer ", under the Open Links tab choose " Other " then add the line below to the box, click apply.

kfmclient openProfile webbrowsing


Have Kmail Automatically Check For New Mail On Startup:

Right click on your Kmail icon, select Preferences , and in the Execute tab change the command:


kmail -caption "%c" %i %m

To:

kmail --check -caption "%c" %i %m


Make Kmail Open Links:

Go to the KDE Control Panel, " File Browsing - File Assoction ", select " Text ", find HTML and click on " Add ".  Next add the browser of your choice and move it to the top of the list to make it the default browser (if there is more than one browser listed).  Next click on the browser you just added and click the " Edit " button, this will bring up the program properties box, now go to the " Execute " tab and add a %u to the end of the command, for example for Mozilla it might be:


/usr/bin/mozilla %u


Kmail Bounce:

If you use Kmail you can use the Bounce feature to combat spam. Bounce will send a fake undeliverable message to the sender in the hopes that they will remove you from their bulk mailing list.  The Bounce option can be found under " Message " on the Kmail toolbar.