Some of my Kubuntu-Hoary tweaks

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

Hi !

Talking about personal preferences for KDE defaults, I've found an optimal 
kicker panels configuration. Two transparent panels:
 -  A thin top one holding in the left the Current App Menu, Mac OS X Like. 
And in the right side, icon shortcuts for my prefered apps: similar to 
Ubuntu.
- A normal size bottom panel with the K Menu in the left, then the special 
button to Show Desktop, after that the Pager, then the "Taskbar v2" [1], the 
system tray and the clock in "simple mode".

* Mac OS X like top menu has at least two advantages: you always know where 
the menu is, positioned in a very easy place to reach to (just move the mouse 
to the top-left, even a blind person could do that ;-), and it doesn't  waste 
space, because only the menu for selected window is shown. It's a must have!

* con shortcuts for my prefered apps in the top menu in the right side: 
similar to Ubuntu. It's just a very practical way to use the remaining panel 
space, and I have up to 18 icons there! The icons are small because the panel 
is small, so they don't use much space.

* Show Desktop icon in that position: That's a handy icon so it needs to have 
a resonable size, and it needs to not be confused with an app launcher icon 
as it can normally happen in i.e. M$ Winblows. Situating it next to another 
action icon such as K Menu seems a good choice.

* The Taskbar v2: I like having a clean desktop, and having one button per app 
in the taskbar seems to me a way to clutter the desktop and confuse the user 
with so much relieves, etc. Taskbar v2 use transparent buttons for tasks and 
shows only the button when overing, also showing a small preview of the 
window. Sweet!

* Transparent panels: I mean, why not ? This is a bit controversial. I think 
it depends in the background you choose. I personally like backgrounds 
without much colors like "lineart.svgz" ("artistic logo" from KDE 3.4 SVG 
themes) or this other one [2]. I don't think that having transparent 
backgrounds is a bad thing, even OS X use it by default, and there are  
reasons for this:
It's not just the cool factor. When you have maximized a window, it let's you 
easily distinguish the limits of the window and the rest of the enviroment. 
Plus, in any case, it just make your screen less cluttered: hacing two panels 
in your screen with transparent background could make the user feel like it 
have less space in his screen (even if it's not the case). 

* Clock in simple mode: Similar argument to taskbar v2 one: simple means 
clean, that's the mantra ;-). Just choose a contrasted  color, a big font 
size (20 bold) and something like "Bitstream Vera Sans" or similar, it 
rocks :-).

* Last but not least, I use disolved handles: applet handles are only shown 
when mouse is ovber them: for the clutter factor, you know :-P.

I'd also like to have a Grub theme SuSE-like, which is very cool. Maybe this 
is not yet done because there's any problem with it ? I suggest just 
customize SuSE 9.2 one and modify it, because it's nearly perfect.

Framebuffer themes migh have the problem of memory consuption, and that they 
might be slow.. ?

Finally, I've added a screenshot of my actual desktop for you all to see how 
that panels look like hehe.

El Viernes 15 Abril 2005 14:40, Derek Broughton escribió:
> > 7. Boost Konqueror web browsing speed:
> > sudo echo "KDE_NO_IPV6=true" >> /etc/environment
>
> That might perhaps be reasonably automated in the installer - it should be
> possible to tell if you have an ipv6 connection.

Now that most distros start to come with IPv6 activated by default, that would 
be a very smart and good idea. For example, I have a modem-router that 
doesn't work with IPv6 - at all. It should also disable IPv6 kernel module 
support, and it should be asked *before* trying to connect by DHCP, or at 
least don't let DHCP last forever :-P, because it can be annoying (I 
disconected the ethernet cable to work around it).

Cheers,
     Edulix.

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