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huru
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Joined: 05 Feb 2003
Posts: 59
Location: lappeen Ranta, Finland
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 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:27 pm Post subject: KDE tips & tricks |
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I couldn't find existing similar thread so I thought to make one myself.
There's lots and lots of hidden or not-so-obvious features in KDE that most users probably do not know, like various KIO-slaves, web shortcuts etc. Maybe there's documentation somewhere but every now and then I've run into something new and I get the feeling "whoa, if I only knew earlier that was possible!". So, post your favourite KDE tricks here, whether it's handy less known KIO-slave, DCOP trick, ..whatever.
I'll start: Alt-F2 starts the "run command" dialog. What is probably less known is that the dialog can be used as simple calculator, just enter formula and hit enter. No need to start terminals or run kcalc for simple calculations 
Another I discovered by accident: When running konqueror in filemanager mode and moving files around (dragging), stop mouse cursor on top of folder (don't release button) for a moment. Konqueror opens the folder for you. This way you can drag and drop file deeper into hierarcy without opening new windows. Seems to be implemented in KDE 3.3.
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firephoto
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Joined: 29 Oct 2003
Posts: 1612
Location: +48° 5' 23.40", -119° 48' 30.00"
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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If your mouse decides to quit working from some application crashing or the batteries go dead or whatever you can press 'shift+numlock' and it lets you move the mouse cursor around with the number pad.
If you have the IRC client Konversation insalled it comes with some scripts you can use. If you're listening to a song with juk and type in '/juk', it will report what song you are listening to. Here's a list of the default scripts that get installed with Konversation-0.15.
amarok - Now playing script
cmd - Outputs the results of a command, '/cmd cat ~/my.file'
fortune - displays a fortune
gauge - Beer load
kaffeine - Now playing script
noatun - Now playing script
uptime - Sends your uptime info.
bug - '/bug 93482' would open kde bug 93482 in Konqueror.
colorizer - Colorizes your words.
juk - Now playing script
kdeversion - Sends the version info for Qt, KDE, and kde-config.
sayclip - Prints the contents of the clipbaord into Konversation with flood protection.
weather - Sends the weather info from KWeather
They are located in /usr/share/apps/konversation/scripts/ so you can take a look at them to see how they work and maybe make your own. |
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Hauser
l33t
Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 650
Location: 4-dimensional hyperplane
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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I like to the assign my own keyboard shortcuts, for example I've changed 'Switch to desktop n' to 'Alt+n' so I can switch to one of the 4 desktops I use with my left hand very easily. The command shortcuts are also very interesting, for instance to bind 'Ksnapshot' with the 'Print Screen' key is a very natural thing to do.
I also like to make the panel hide automatically 1 sec after the cursor leaves the panel, it kind of makes your desktop look slightly larger.
If a user can mount a device (for instance by putting the 'users' option in the fstab), you can mount a device in Konqueror by clicking 'Services' (on the side bar), 'Devices' and then any one of the devices listed there, you'll immediately find yourself in the mount point (directory) associated with that device. To umount, leave the directory first, right-click the device, and choose 'unmount'.
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huru
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Joined: 05 Feb 2003
Posts: 59
Location: lappeen Ranta, Finland
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Hauser wrote: | I like to the assign my own keyboard shortcuts, for example I've changed 'Switch to desktop n' to 'Alt+n' so I can switch to one of the 4 desktops I use with my left hand very easily. The command shortcuts are also very interesting, for instance to bind 'Ksnapshot' with the 'Print Screen' key is a very natural thing to do.
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Hmm, why didn't I never think of binding ksnapshot to printscreen
Khotkeys is quite handy for making shortcuts. (Under regional & accessibility in control-center), for example you can program your extra multimedia keys to control amarok via dcop.
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Yanaar
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Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 53
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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When I wrote my script to record tv I decided it would be better to stop setiathome/ksetiwatch during recording, but I wanted to start it after the record is finished. But ksetiwatch did not want to start, claiming about it could not connect to X. Took me some days to find out how to do it:
ksetiwatch -display :0
So when someone needs to start an application out of a script or another Server, this might help |
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Illissius
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 395
Location: Hungary
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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KHotKeys is awesome, I configured global Opera-esque mouse gestures for everything. Left -> Alt+Left (previous), Right -> Alt+Right (next), Up -> Esc (stop), Up+Down -> F5 (reload), Down -> Ctrl+N (new), Down+Right -> Ctrl+W (close).
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deprave
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Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 63
Location: Flint, Michigan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 4:31 am Post subject: |
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heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocal via fish://
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venkat
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 110
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:06 am Post subject: |
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| Hauser wrote: |
I also like to make the panel hide automatically 1 sec after the cursor leaves the panel, it kind of makes your desktop look slightly larger.
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actually choosing "allow other windows to cover the panel" and checking "raise when ..." and choosing "bottom edge" does a neat job. just that i hate when the panel disappears while i'm at the root window ...
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Herring42
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Joined: 10 Mar 2004
Posts: 373
Location: Buckinghamshire
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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| deprave wrote: | | heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocal via fish:// |
Oh my!
That's one of the most useful features I've seen in a long time! Wow! |
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gkmac
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Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 333
Location: West Sussex, UK
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Herring42 wrote: | | deprave wrote: | | heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocol via fish:// |
Oh my!
That's one of the most useful features I've seen in a long time! Wow! |
And you can copy a file in that browser, then paste it in a hard drive view to download the file. Or you can view your hard drive, copy a file on your hard drive and then paste it in the fish:// view to upload it.
It gets better! If you see a text file in fish:// you want to edit, there's no need to download it, edit and re-upload. You can open KWrite (or Kate, or Kedit), type fish://whatever in the Location and the file selector dialog will browse the files on that server. You can then open, make edits and then save directly back to the ssh-connected server. (Just be prepared to re-enter your ssh password when you edit for a long-ish time).
It also works with plain FTP, you can type ftp://whatever and edit those HTML files on your ISPs webspace without having to download/upload back and forth all the time. |
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vdboor
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Joined: 03 Dec 2003
Posts: 592
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 11:34 am Post subject: |
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sftp:// is also really nice.
About about dragging a picture from a website to your desktop? The file will be copied from the http:// location to your desktop (or used as background)!
Update:
Did you know you could replace the "lpr" command with "kprinter --nodialog" in your non-KDE applications?
Did you try entering man:/ in KWrite?
Did you try opening a file on an FTP share with KWrite? The KIO-slave automatically uploads the file again if you save it.
Most window managers (inclusing KWin): Hold Alt down to move windows across the screen.
I happened to find some interesting tips in KTip:
| Quote: | Want to print by using "DragNDrop"?
Drag a file and drop it on the "Files" tab of an opened kprinter dialog. |
| Quote: | | If you drag a file from Konqueror or from the desktop to Konsole, you will have the choice between pasting the URL or entering that folder. |
| Quote: | You can access a man page by entering a hash mark (#) and the name of the man page wherever you can enter a URL, like in the location field of the web browser or the Alt+F2 command-line.
You can access an info page by entering a double hash mark (##) and the name of the info page wherever you can enter a URL, like in the URL line of the web browser or the Alt+F2 command-line. |
| Quote: | | You can change the background color of the desktop by dragging a color from a color selector in any application to the desktop background. |
| Quote: | | You can use Konqueror to browse through tar archives, even compressed ones. You can extract files simply by dragging them to another place, e.g. another Konqueror window or the desktop. |
| Quote: | | The program Klipper, which is started by default and resides in the system tray at the right end of the panel, keeps a number of text selections around. These can be retrieved or even (in the case of URLs, for example) be executed. |
And finally: press the maximize button with your middle or right mouse..!
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LinuxRocks
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Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 397
Location: New Mexico
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:31 am Post subject: |
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| Herring42 wrote: | | deprave wrote: | | heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocal via fish:// |
Oh my!
That's one of the most useful features I've seen in a long time! Wow! |
Oh My is right. That flat out ROCKS!!!
This will save me TONS of time scp'ing and what not...
Great Tip!!!!
Joe |
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FormerSlacker
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Joined: 11 Mar 2003
Posts: 340
Location: Toronto, ON. Canada
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: |
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| CTRL + ESC brings up a nice little process manager. |
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Gherald
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Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 1399
Location: CLUAConsole
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:58 am Post subject: |
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| LinuxRocks wrote: | | Herring42 wrote: | | deprave wrote: | | heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocal via fish:// |
Oh my!
That's one of the most useful features I've seen in a long time! Wow! |
Oh My is right. That flat out ROCKS!!!
This will save me TONS of time scp'ing and what not...
Great Tip!!!!
Joe |
Erm well, I'd rather have a real mount so I can use good 'ol cp, edit files directly, and such:
| Code: | emerge shfs
modprobe shfs
mkdir /mnt/point #or whatever
echo "user@server:/ /mnt/point/ shfs noauto,user,stable 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
mount /mnt/point |
Now just add shfs into your kernel's autoload so it gets loaded at boot.
Combined with keychain and a general-purpose multimount script like mmt, shfs is really badass for managing multiple machines. |
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acdispatcher
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:48 am Post subject: |
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In Konqueror you can also browse some man pages quick and easy just type:
man:///
Then you can bookmark it for later use.
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vdboor
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Posts: 592
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| freeix wrote: |
Erm well, I'd rather have a real mount so I can use good 'ol cp, edit files directly, and such: |
I can see your point (and the keygen example), but did you know you can open FTP/SFTP files with KWrite, and the KIO-slave uploads the file automatically if you have it?
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Illissius
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 395
Location: Hungary
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| Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Go to Control Centre -> System Administration -> Paths, and change the desktop path to system:/. Also try media:/, applications:/, and settings:/. (The first one may or may not require 3.4, the other three certainly do.)
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akvalentine
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Joined: 27 Jun 2002
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Go to Control Centre -> System Administration -> Paths, and change the desktop path to system:/. Also try media:/, applications:/, and settings:/ |
What does this do? I tried it, but didn't notice any change. |
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Mark Clegg
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Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 270
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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In konqueror, displaying a long web page, shift up/down arrow starts the page auto-slow-scrolling.
Successive shift up-down's let you control the speed. esc stops it. |
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vdboor
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Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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In KMail, select a fragment of an e-mail message and press "r". Your reply only quotes the selected text.
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wget
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Joined: 12 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:01 am Post subject: |
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| FormerSlacker wrote: | | CTRL + ESC brings up a nice little process manager. |
In addtion, Ctrl+Alt+Esc loads Xkill. |
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hvengel
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Joined: 19 Sep 2004
Posts: 515
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 5:36 am Post subject: |
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| vdboor wrote: | | In KMail, select a fragment of an e-mail message and press "r". Your reply only quotes the selected text. |
You can also select reply to or foward from the menu and only the selected text will be included. |
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Bob P
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Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:29 am Post subject: |
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| firephoto wrote: | If your mouse decides to quit working from some application crashing or the batteries go dead or whatever you can press 'shift+numlock' and it lets you move the mouse cursor around with the number pad.
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very handy. its interesting that it works with the numeric pad but not with the cursor keypad. 
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Gherald
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Joined: 23 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Bob P wrote: | | firephoto wrote: | If your mouse decides to quit working from some application crashing or the batteries go dead or whatever you can press 'shift+numlock' and it lets you move the mouse cursor around with the number pad.
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very handy. its interesting that it works with the numeric pad but not with the cursor keypad. |
No, its not interesting. It is identical to the functionality of windows.
The cursor keypad has other, more important uses. The numpad is sort of "auxilary" to the main parts of the keyboard and is much more suited to acting as a makeshift mouse.
Also, it's not KDE-specific. I know it works in Fluxbox, so it is likely an X thing. |
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sakus
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Joined: 28 Mar 2004
Posts: 54
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| deprave wrote: | | heres one some people might not possibly be aware of.....in Konquerer you can browse thru ssh protocal via fish:// |
Which one of the split KDE builds do I need to emerge to get this? Currently I get "protocol not supported" error when I try that. |
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Documentation, Tips & Tricks
