Create an ‘Open as Root’ Action in Konqueror

Posted on May 20th, 2008 in KDE by admin

To have a service menu which opens the selected directory as root in Konqueror, create a file, say konq_root.desktop in ~/.kde/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
ServiceTypes=inode/directory
Actions=open_as_root

[Desktop Action open_as_root]
Name=Open as Root
Icon=konsole
Exec=kdesu konqueror %F

Now, if you right click any directory in Konqueror and go to Actions, a new menu appears, Open as Root. If you select more than one directory, Konqueror will open each of them in a new tab.

Kicker’s hidden tweaks

Posted on April 4th, 2008 in KDE, Tweaks by admin

KDE is one of the most popular and used desktop environments for Linux systems because not only that it looks very much like Microsoft Windows, but it combines ease of use, superb graphical design and new age functionality with high-end technologies of the Unix-based operating systems. Kicker is one of the core parts of the KDE desktop, it is the main panel. This panel can be customized by users in almost every possible way you think of. For example, you can add a lot of useful applets (clock, system tray, show desktop, color picker, desktop preview & pager, dictionary and many more), application shortcuts or you can make it completely transparent

Kicker also has a lot of configuration options that are not revealed in any of the existing graphical user interfaces but can be very useful for advanced users. You must know first that these options are found in the /usr/share/config.kcfg/kickerSettings.kcfg and the /home/yourusername/.kde/share/config/kickerrc configuration files. Below are some of the top tweaks found in the kickerSettings.kcfg file, but nothing stops you to read and modify, as necessary, every option.

Make Conky Transparent in KDE

Posted on March 23rd, 2008 in Applications, KDE, Tweaks by admin

Conky doesn’t display properly with a transparent background in KDE, this is a rather quick fix. Type the following in the command line:

feh –bg-scale `dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface currentWallpaper 1`

If you use a centered wallpaper, use –bg-center instead.

Also see: Make Conky Transparent and movable

How to install a KDE4 Package from source with cmake

Posted on March 14th, 2008 in Commandline Tools, KDE by admin

KDE4 applications use CMake instead of autotools as build system. So the usual configure, make, make install that we’re used to will not work. Instead KDE4 uses Cmake. The KDE team decided the switch to Cmake because compilation time is much faster, mainly due to not using libtool anymore and the fact that build files are easier to write,

Many systems have cmake in the repositories, check there first. If you cannot find cmake in the repo’s of your distribution, you can build that from source as well. First download it from here: http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Download.html

Make the Windows Key on your Keyboard open KMenu in KDE

Posted on March 4th, 2008 in KDE, Tweaks by admin

Many people want the KDE menu on Kicker (Kmenu) to open up using the “Windows Keys” that’s taken over every keyboard in the world. Below is how we accomplish this.