KDE4 Multiple Desktops

[Rob Wright]

Greetings, 

Just upgraded to Jaunty and KDE4 from Hardy with KDE3. I've been dreading the 
update to KDE4 and my worst fears are confirmed.

There's a couple of things with multiple desktops that I am really missing 
right now and I'm sure I'm overlooking them but damned if I can figure them 
out. These are somethings that I've used for years and really help me work, 
but I'm lost without them. How can I do these things in KDE4?

1. Customized desktops. I've always used 4 desktops, for different tasks, to 
help me keep everything organized. I could very quickly get a mental hold of 
where I was and what I was doing just by wallpaper/color on the desktop, and 
the buttons on the taskbar. Now, they're all the same. How can I set a 
different background for each desktop? As part of that, how do I set my taskbar 
to only show the apps that are associated with that desktop, a beautiful 
feature from 3.5. 

2. Focus follows mouse. I've now got to click in a window, raising it, in 
order to input. Before I could just put the mouse over the window and use it, 
how can I set this? 

3. Fonts in Kmail, I can barely read my messages list or message body. I've 
tried adjusting the font settings in the Settings/Configure, but nothing I try 
seems to actually be used by the system.

I've turned Compiz off, for now I just want a flat, plain desktop while I figure 
out where everything is.

I appreciate the work and effort that's gone into the KDE4 and some of the 
special effects are pretty cool, but there's just enough basic stuff missing 
that it feels incomplete and unusable for me. 

Thanks for any help or advice,

Rob Wright
debianrob at poncacity.net