Mike McBride
Jost Schenck
2002-02-12
3.00.00
KDE KControl desktop

## Desktop

This module is used to change some of the most commonly needed options for the &kde; desktop.

This module has several tabs, labeled: Desktop, Appearance and Number of Desktops and Paths.

### Desktop Tab

#### Misc Options

In this section, you can see several options on the left:

Enable desktop menu

  This option determines whether there is a menu across the top of the &kde; Desktop in the style of &MacOS;.

Enable icons on desktop

  Uncheck this option if you do not want to have icons on the desktop. Without icons the desktop will be somewhat faster, but you will no longer be able to drag files to the desktop.

  This will not remove any files already stored on the desktop, they will instead be hidden.

Align icons vertically on desktop

  If this option is enabled, &kde; will place all of the icons in columns along the left side of the screen whenever you select Arrange Icons from the Desktop Menu. If this option is disabled, then &kde; will place all icons in a row along the top of the screen.

Show hidden files on desktop

  If this option is enabled, then all hidden files will appear on the desktop. Generally this only clutters your desktop area, but if you are often working with hidden files or directories, this can be useful.

  Be very careful when deleting or modifying hidden files. Many of these files are configuration files and are essential for the correct operation of your computer.

Programs in desktop window

  Enabling this option allows you to set a program as your desktop background, for example `xearth`, or &kworldclock;

To the right of these options you can see a list titled Show Previews for. The &kde; desktop has a preview feature for many file types, including HTML files, images, &PostScript; and PDF, sound, web archives (if you have the appropriate &konqueror; plugin installed) and text files.

if you enable previews for one of these, files of that particular file type will not be represented by standard icons on the desktop, but will instead be shown as miniature previews. On slow computers, the previews can take some time to show up, so you might not want to enable this feature.

#### Clicks on the Desktop

The mouse button section allows you to determine what happens when you click one of the three mouse buttons on the Desktop (where there is no window).

Not all mice have three buttons. Two button mice can usually activate the Middle button by pressing both the Left and Right mouse buttons at the same time.

For each of the three mouse buttons, you can select:

No Action

  When you use this mouse button, nothing happens.

Window list menu

  This brings up a submenu with all the virtual desktops. Under each virtual desktop, you can select any window currently located on that desktop. Once selected, &kde; will switch to that desktop, and place the focus on that window.

Desktop Menu.

  This brings up a submenu with commands specific to &kde;. You can create icons, edit bookmarks, cut and paste, get help, run commands, configure &kde;, arrange icons, lock the screen and log out of &kde;. The exact content of the menu varies depending on the current status of &kde;.

Application Menu

  This brings up the Application Menus (also know as the K Menus), so you can start a new application.

#### Devices

On some operating systems (&Linux; and FreeBSD so far) &kde; can dynamically dispay icons for each mountable device you have available. This could be &CD-ROM; drives, Floppy disk drives, or Network shares.

If you enable this, you can choose what kind, if any, of these devices you would like quick access icons to be displayed for.

### Appearance Tab

Here you can configure how icons on your desktop appear.

Standard font:

  This option can be used to change the typeface used on the desktop. Simply select your typeface from the dropdown box.

Font size:

  You can change the relative size of the text on the Desktop.

Normal text color:

  This option lets you select the color of normal (or unhighlighted) text.

Text background color:

  This option lets you select the background color of normal text. If left unchecked, the text has a transparent background. If selected, you can choose the color by pressing the button.

Underline filenames:

  Determines if file names are underlined on the Desktop.

### Number of Desktops

&kde; offers you the possibility to have several virtual desktops. In this tab you can configure the number of desktops as well as their names. Just use the slider to adjust the number of desktops. You can assign names to the desktops by entering text into the text fields below.

### Paths

You can use this section to configure where Desktop files, Trash files, and Autostart files are stored on your computer as well as the standard path for documents. By changing the values in the first three of these paths, you will automatically move the files from their previous to their new location.

If you are reading this, you probably shouldn't be changing the paths. You can render your system almost unusable if incorrect values are entered here.

### Section Author

This section written by:

Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com.

Jost Schenck jost@schenck.de.