John Culleton posted on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:45:24 -0400 as excerpted: > Basically I want to make KDE 4 work like 3.5 or XFCE. I want a menu on > the left (the classic option) and I want the ability to add icons (not > plasmoids ) to the bottom bar. Most of these are programs I download and > compile. At the moment I use Slack 13.0, 13.1 is still a bit flaky on my > system. Here are some of my favorite programs: > Scribus Gimp Gvim Firefox Inkscape > Even if there is an older version available via Slackbuild etc. I > routinely download, compile and install the newest version from a > tarball. Basically I want to do productive work, not just play with > the GUI. > > If/when I get Slack 13.1 to behave decently I will be adding another > edition of Scribus so I will have two versions, 1.4.0 and 1.5.0. I want > both of them on that bottom bar. > > Toying with going back to FVWM of years ago. > > But back to the issue: How do I put widgets for my favorites on the > bottom bar? Most of them are not even in the KDE Menu system and don't > have plasmoids AFAIK.
1) Every widget plasma works with is a plasmoid. (There are also containers in the form of panels, activities, etc, that contain plasmoids.) 2) Now it's a very possible and indeed commonly implemented idea to have icon-based launcher plasmoids, and I believe that'll fill your need quite well. I don't personally use icon-based-launchers much, as I prefer keyboard shortcut based launching (and indeed have a custom solution I hacked up to extend kde's capacities in that regard, running here), so am not as familiar with the options as I might be, but there's at least one such plasmoid (quicklaunch) shipped with kde, and several more available for download on kde-look.org, if you don't like the kde default. So add widgets, quicklaunch, try adding icons to it, and see if it works as you need. And if you want variants on the same functionality, as I said, kde-look.org has several (many?), some of which are quite popular. Meanwhile, kde including plasma is indeed getting too heavy, flashy and unfortunately high-maintenance-buggy, to suit the preferences of many users. FVWM is a bit drastic tho it works fine for may, but there are many options in between that may very well be a better solution for you than the heavy kde/gnome or the minimal fvwm/*box type desktop/wms. I personally still like the power of kde so haven't explored these others, but from what I read, enlightenment, xfce and lxde fit in this middle area somewhere. There's nothing wrong in saying kde isn't the be-all/end-all solution for everyone and mentioning alternatives for those who wish to explore them. That is, after all, a big part of what the whole FLOSS idea is about, empowering the user with that sort of choices! (Which is why I have a hard time understanding Gnome's our way or the the highway mentality to configuration, while at the same time being glad they exist, as if they didn't, many of those configuration-for-dummies-is-the- way-it-must-be folks would be trying to kill kde configuration options! So let people, users and devs alike, do what they do, and if it means they disagree with kde's approach strongly enough to find a different one more comfortable, more power to 'em!) But back to your question, I expect either quicklaunch or one of the kde- look.org alternatives will fill your icon-launcher needs quite well. =:^) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman ___________________________________________________ This message is from the kde-linux mailing list. Account management: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-linux. Archives: http://lists.kde.org/. More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.
