[gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.

KDE-4.5, I have a panel at the bottom with a systray over on the right edge. I 
run konsole on the right half of the screen, and the plasmoid notification 
popup is right above where the current command is being typed.

So I want to move the popup somewhere else like maybe top right of screen 
(without having to fiddle with plasmoids on the desktop and other nonsense 
which I don't grok)

I cannot find how to do this :-(   Maybe it's a theme thing, I use Elegance, 
but I recall not being able to do this either with the default theme long ago.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[walt]

On 11/29/2010 12:09 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.

I tried kde 4.x during its early Dark Days and finally gave up in
complete bafflement.

Well, so many people in this group are enthusiastic supporters of
kde I decided I'd give it another go over our long holiday weekend.

I dreaded the thought of compiling the entire kde desktop on gentoo
(again!) so instead I came up with the brilliant idea of installing
kubuntu on a VirtualBox linux guest machine on my gentoo host.

The installation of kubuntu was brain-dead-easy (that's the whole
point of *ubuntu, after all) but when I logged in and started to
use the kubuntu kde desktop to do actual work (shudder) I quickly
found myself in a hopeless muddle (yet again!).

My theory is that anyone over forty just doesn't understand what
young-punk developers are about, these days.

When I was a young punk myself, long ago, the mantra was "Don't
trust anyone over forty!"  (But I don't suppose you're old enough
to remember those days.)

I think today's young-punk developers must certainly feel the same
way about old-fart (over-forty) lusers like me. (You?)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Dale]

walt wrote:
> On 11/29/2010 12:09 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
>> Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
>
> I tried kde 4.x during its early Dark Days and finally gave up in
> complete bafflement.
>
> Well, so many people in this group are enthusiastic supporters of
> kde I decided I'd give it another go over our long holiday weekend.
>
> I dreaded the thought of compiling the entire kde desktop on gentoo
> (again!) so instead I came up with the brilliant idea of installing
> kubuntu on a VirtualBox linux guest machine on my gentoo host.
>
> The installation of kubuntu was brain-dead-easy (that's the whole
> point of *ubuntu, after all) but when I logged in and started to
> use the kubuntu kde desktop to do actual work (shudder) I quickly
> found myself in a hopeless muddle (yet again!).
>
> My theory is that anyone over forty just doesn't understand what
> young-punk developers are about, these days.
>
> When I was a young punk myself, long ago, the mantra was "Don't
> trust anyone over forty!"  (But I don't suppose you're old enough
> to remember those days.)
>
> I think today's young-punk developers must certainly feel the same
> way about old-fart (over-forty) lusers like me. (You?)
>

I'm over 40.  I been using KDE4 for a while now.  It doesn't get on my 
nerves, to much.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 03:02 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Dale did 
opine thusly:

> walt wrote:
> > On 11/29/2010 12:09 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >> Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
> > 
> > I tried kde 4.x during its early Dark Days and finally gave up in
> > complete bafflement.
> > 
> > Well, so many people in this group are enthusiastic supporters of
> > kde I decided I'd give it another go over our long holiday weekend.
> > 
> > I dreaded the thought of compiling the entire kde desktop on gentoo
> > (again!) so instead I came up with the brilliant idea of installing
> > kubuntu on a VirtualBox linux guest machine on my gentoo host.
> > 
> > The installation of kubuntu was brain-dead-easy (that's the whole
> > point of *ubuntu, after all) but when I logged in and started to
> > use the kubuntu kde desktop to do actual work (shudder) I quickly
> > found myself in a hopeless muddle (yet again!).
> > 
> > My theory is that anyone over forty just doesn't understand what
> > young-punk developers are about, these days.
> > 
> > When I was a young punk myself, long ago, the mantra was "Don't
> > trust anyone over forty!"  (But I don't suppose you're old enough
> > to remember those days.)
> > 
> > I think today's young-punk developers must certainly feel the same
> > way about old-fart (over-forty) lusers like me. (You?)
> 
> I'm over 40.  I been using KDE4 for a while now.  It doesn't get on my
> nerves, to much.  lol


Same here :-)

I "get" KDE (mostly) but some stuff is just bizarre:

Activities. wtf are those?

By and large I get by on everything else.

And e17 is starting to look more and more attractive as days go by...


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alex Schuster]

Alan McKinnon writes:

> I "get" KDE (mostly) but some stuff is just bizarre:
> 
> Activities. wtf are those?

I tink they are really cool, although I don't use them, and probably never 
will. But I'm not the average user. I have six virtual desktops (current 
screenshots are at http://www.wonkology.org/comp/desktop/2010-11-11/ ), each 
one has its purpose. For each window you can define the desktop it will run 
on. You change the desktop, and you get new windows displayed, while the 
plasmoids stay the same.

With activities it's the other way around. You switch the activity, and the 
windows stay the same, but you get different plasmoids.

For example, you have your default activity active, with some plasmoids, 
whatever they are. Then you want to inspect why the system is suddenly being 
slow, so you switch to your admin activity, which has all kinds of system 
monitors and loggers you normally prefer to not show up. I think that's the 
idea. I would just switch to desktop1 where I have some of these plasmoids, 
but that is my approach. Others seem to like these activities.

A 3rd activity might show some newstickers and web plasmoids. While I would 
just switch to my desktop3, where I have this stuff.

And a 4th activity could display folder views of various locations. You 
don't care about them normally, and use the desktop space for other things 
you like more. But when you want access to those folders, they are just one 
keystroke away. 

I would be surprised if you'd start using activities, I guess you're more 
the multiple desktop guy. But hey, as long as you don't add other 
activities, you don't have to care about them.

I think there are further plans, like applications starting and quitting 
automatically when switching activities. So you put your desktop into 
different modes, according to the task you are currently doing. I'm doing 
all this stuff in parallel, so I just sort it on different desktops.

There is much development going on currently, this stuff is still evolving. 
In 4.5.2, you had to use one activity per virtual desktop if you wanted to 
have different plasmoids on different desktops, or different wallpapers. 
This has changed, you can have different plasmoids on each desktop now 
(although I'm missing the 'sticky' option to have _some_ plasmoids on all 
desktops), and also different wallpapers. But who knows how this stuff will 
have evolved until KDE 4.7.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 18:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Alex 
Schuster did opine thusly:

> Alan McKinnon writes:
> > I "get" KDE (mostly) but some stuff is just bizarre:
> > 
> > Activities. wtf are those?
> 
> I tink they are really cool, although I don't use them, and probably never
> will. But I'm not the average user. I have six virtual desktops (current
> screenshots are at http://www.wonkology.org/comp/desktop/2010-11-11/ ),
> each one has its purpose. For each window you can define the desktop it
> will run on. You change the desktop, and you get new windows displayed,
> while the plasmoids stay the same.
> 
> With activities it's the other way around. You switch the activity, and the
> windows stay the same, but you get different plasmoids.

That's a decent explanation, thanks a lot. I can see how some folks would like 
that and why it's been coded.

You assume right, I'm a multiple-desktop-with-a-pager sort of guy. 6 desktops 
and I know where I like to launch things. I mostly don't have plasmoids on the 
desktop, mostly because I never see the desktop :-)  I usually maximize most 
windows (kontact, amarok) or split the screen 65/35 between a browser and 
konsole. To do action X, I launch the app that does that action and most of my 
work is in a browser and terminal

I now do have two plasmoids on the desktop - a clock that shows when the 
screensaver comes up, and notifications, which displays the popup above all 
regular windows.

I guess I'm just not into all this new shiny glitzy bouncey stuff. If I wanted 
bling, I'd be using a mac ;-)




> 
> For example, you have your default activity active, with some plasmoids,
> whatever they are. Then you want to inspect why the system is suddenly
> being slow, so you switch to your admin activity, which has all kinds of
> system monitors and loggers you normally prefer to not show up. I think
> that's the idea. I would just switch to desktop1 where I have some of
> these plasmoids, but that is my approach. Others seem to like these
> activities.
> 
> A 3rd activity might show some newstickers and web plasmoids. While I would
> just switch to my desktop3, where I have this stuff.
> 
> And a 4th activity could display folder views of various locations. You
> don't care about them normally, and use the desktop space for other things
> you like more. But when you want access to those folders, they are just one
> keystroke away.
> 
> I would be surprised if you'd start using activities, I guess you're more
> the multiple desktop guy. But hey, as long as you don't add other
> activities, you don't have to care about them.
> 
> I think there are further plans, like applications starting and quitting
> automatically when switching activities. So you put your desktop into
> different modes, according to the task you are currently doing. I'm doing
> all this stuff in parallel, so I just sort it on different desktops.
> 
> There is much development going on currently, this stuff is still evolving.
> In 4.5.2, you had to use one activity per virtual desktop if you wanted to
> have different plasmoids on different desktops, or different wallpapers.
> This has changed, you can have different plasmoids on each desktop now
> (although I'm missing the 'sticky' option to have _some_ plasmoids on all
> desktops), and also different wallpapers. But who knows how this stuff will
> have evolved until KDE 4.7.
> 
> 	Wonko

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alex Schuster]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Apparently, though unproven, at 18:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Alex
> 
> Schuster did opine thusly:
> > Alan McKinnon writes:
> > > Activities. wtf are those?
> > 
> > I tink they are really cool, although I don't use them, and probably
> > never will. But I'm not the average user. I have six virtual desktops
> > (current screenshots are at
> > http://www.wonkology.org/comp/desktop/2010-11-11/ ), each one has its
> > purpose. For each window you can define the desktop it will run on.
> > You change the desktop, and you get new windows displayed, while the
> > plasmoids stay the same.
> > 
> > With activities it's the other way around. You switch the activity, and
> > the windows stay the same, but you get different plasmoids.
> 
> That's a decent explanation, thanks a lot. I can see how some folks would
> like that and why it's been coded.

In case you're still interested, this blog entry has some more information
on activities:

http://chani.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/activity-oriented-vs-application-oriented-workspaces/

It also covers differences in Gnome's and KDE's approach to this activity stuff.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 01:08 on Tuesday 28 December 2010, Alex 
Schuster did opine thusly:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 18:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Alex
> > 
> > Schuster did opine thusly:
> > > Alan McKinnon writes:
> > > > Activities. wtf are those?
> > > 
> > > I tink they are really cool, although I don't use them, and probably
> > > never will. But I'm not the average user. I have six virtual desktops
> > > (current screenshots are at
> > > http://www.wonkology.org/comp/desktop/2010-11-11/ ), each one has its
> > > purpose. For each window you can define the desktop it will run on.
> > > You change the desktop, and you get new windows displayed, while the
> > > plasmoids stay the same.
> > > 
> > > With activities it's the other way around. You switch the activity, and
> > > the windows stay the same, but you get different plasmoids.
> > 
> > That's a decent explanation, thanks a lot. I can see how some folks would
> > like that and why it's been coded.
> 
> In case you're still interested, this blog entry has some more information
> on activities:
> 
> http://chani.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/activity-oriented-vs-application-orie
> nted-workspaces/
> 
> It also covers differences in Gnome's and KDE's approach to this activity
> stuff.

Good find, it does answer some questions! (especially in the comments).

I tend to agree with the long post by user Fri13; to a casual observer my life 
and desktop looks nicely organized and everything one-to-one mapped to 
something else. In reality, it's just like everyone else - a mish-mash 
collection of stuffs that somehow makes sense in my head.

So I looked long and hard at this, and found that my desktop is *taskbar-
centric* - it's my primary way of organizing things. Apps are spread across 6 
virtual desktops in a very ad-hoc style - amarok is on desktop 6 (where it's 
out of the way), kontact on desktop 2 (where it can be full screen), konsole 
sticky on the right hand side of all desktops (where I can see it everywhere), 
and all browsers usually end up on desktop 1 with large numbers of tabs each. 
Note there's no common method to this madness :-)

Like most people, my work is never nicely categorized by Activity - it's too 
fluid and changeable and too subject to my mood and how I feel today. I also 
don't like abstracting away the specific app used for a function, I do care 
whether it's gwenview, okular or digiKam that's loaded an image. They are not 
mere apps, they are tools, and I'm always aware of what tool I'm using. 
There's a parallel in the real world - to cut a piece of steel in my workshop 
I can use any one of several tools and they are NOT interchangeable; to cut a 
2" square tube to length I *do* want the angle grinder and not the hacksaw, so 
I chose the tool myself and do not have it handed to me by some magic 
selector. Apps are similar, they have their strengths and weaknesses and I 
usually know which one I want.

So now I do understand Activities better. It can be a good idea and I'd like 
to see some usage experts survey it extensively to make it more obvious how it 
works. One function that comes to mind which I would use is to return the 
desktop to a prior state. I often work from home and then want my apps 
arranged the same way I have them at work.

But for now I think I'll just continue the way I always have with a good old 
Unix virtual desktop setup and KDE session manager.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Monday 29 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
> 
> KDE-4.5, I have a panel at the bottom with a systray over on the right
> edge. I run konsole on the right half of the screen, and the plasmoid
> notification popup is right above where the current command is being
> typed.
> 
> So I want to move the popup somewhere else like maybe top right of screen
> (without having to fiddle with plasmoids on the desktop and other nonsense
> which I don't grok)
> 
> I cannot find how to do this :-(   Maybe it's a theme thing, I use
> Elegance, but I recall not being able to do this either with the default
> theme long ago.

notification is part of sys-tray. So to move the notifications you have to move 
the systray plasmoid. Just unlock plasmoids, left click on the cashew on the 
toolbar and you can move around all the plasmoids.

Re: [gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Arttu V.]

On 11/30/10, Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> notification is part of sys-tray. So to move the notifications you have to
> move
> the systray plasmoid. Just unlock plasmoids, left click on the cashew on the
> toolbar and you can move around all the plasmoids.

Careful when doing this. Save your work. I got a crash out of KDE
4.5.3 (ok, only the panel widget crashed?) by clumsily fumbling and
clicking around the various "add widgets" menus available via the
spiralled dragon fart symbols.

Also, systray widget seems to suffer from a mild case of the
Highlander Syndrome. (Apparently There Can Only Be One!)

If I add it to both the toolbar panel on the bottom and place another
instance freely on the desktop then only the toolbar one will show the
icons. Clicking around inside the empty frames of the other widget
instance reveals that klipper, printer queue etc systray icons are in
there, they're just not drawn. Their menus still pop up.

Still, I was pleased to notice that the toolbar panel organizing of
KDE 4 has improved much since I last tried to use it in vain in ...
KDE 4.2.x?

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 09:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Volker 
Armin Hemmann did opine thusly:

> On Monday 29 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
> > 
> > KDE-4.5, I have a panel at the bottom with a systray over on the right
> > edge. I run konsole on the right half of the screen, and the plasmoid
> > notification popup is right above where the current command is being
> > typed.
> > 
> > So I want to move the popup somewhere else like maybe top right of screen
> > (without having to fiddle with plasmoids on the desktop and other
> > nonsense which I don't grok)
> > 
> > I cannot find how to do this :-(   Maybe it's a theme thing, I use
> > Elegance, but I recall not being able to do this either with the default
> > theme long ago.
> 
> notification is part of sys-tray. So to move the notifications you have to
> move the systray plasmoid. Just unlock plasmoids, left click on the cashew
> on the toolbar and you can move around all the plasmoids.


Hmmm. What if my usual usage is ALL screen space occupied by apps ALL THE 
TIME? How do I see some popup on the desktop if the entire desktop is covered 
by window.

And I WANT the systray in the panel at bottom right. I also want to tell the 
plasmoid to put it's popup somewhere else, not in the default place.

Am I asking for the impossible?


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Tuesday 30 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 09:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Volker
> 
> Armin Hemmann did opine thusly:
> > On Monday 29 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
> > > 
> > > KDE-4.5, I have a panel at the bottom with a systray over on the right
> > > edge. I run konsole on the right half of the screen, and the plasmoid
> > > notification popup is right above where the current command is being
> > > typed.
> > > 
> > > So I want to move the popup somewhere else like maybe top right of
> > > screen (without having to fiddle with plasmoids on the desktop and
> > > other nonsense which I don't grok)
> > > 
> > > I cannot find how to do this :-(   Maybe it's a theme thing, I use
> > > Elegance, but I recall not being able to do this either with the
> > > default theme long ago.
> > 
> > notification is part of sys-tray. So to move the notifications you have
> > to move the systray plasmoid. Just unlock plasmoids, left click on the
> > cashew on the toolbar and you can move around all the plasmoids.
> 
> Hmmm. What if my usual usage is ALL screen space occupied by apps ALL THE
> TIME? How do I see some popup on the desktop if the entire desktop is
> covered by window.
> 
> And I WANT the systray in the panel at bottom right. I also want to tell
> the plasmoid to put it's popup somewhere else, not in the default place.
> 
> Am I asking for the impossible?

no,

there is a notification plasmoid. You can put it whereever you want on your 
desktop and you can remove the one running in systray. You can also configure 
if there is a popup or not.

Re: [gentoo-user] Relocating notification popup KDE-4.5

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 17:59 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Volker 
Armin Hemmann did opine thusly:

> On Tuesday 30 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 09:35 on Tuesday 30 November 2010, Volker
> > 
> > Armin Hemmann did opine thusly:
> > > On Monday 29 November 2010, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > > Such a simple thing and I cannot find how to do it.
> > > > 
> > > > KDE-4.5, I have a panel at the bottom with a systray over on the
> > > > right edge. I run konsole on the right half of the screen, and the
> > > > plasmoid notification popup is right above where the current command
> > > > is being typed.
> > > > 
> > > > So I want to move the popup somewhere else like maybe top right of
> > > > screen (without having to fiddle with plasmoids on the desktop and
> > > > other nonsense which I don't grok)
> > > > 
> > > > I cannot find how to do this :-(   Maybe it's a theme thing, I use
> > > > Elegance, but I recall not being able to do this either with the
> > > > default theme long ago.
> > > 
> > > notification is part of sys-tray. So to move the notifications you have
> > > to move the systray plasmoid. Just unlock plasmoids, left click on the
> > > cashew on the toolbar and you can move around all the plasmoids.
> > 
> > Hmmm. What if my usual usage is ALL screen space occupied by apps ALL THE
> > TIME? How do I see some popup on the desktop if the entire desktop is
> > covered by window.
> > 
> > And I WANT the systray in the panel at bottom right. I also want to tell
> > the plasmoid to put it's popup somewhere else, not in the default place.
> > 
> > Am I asking for the impossible?
> 
> no,
> 
> there is a notification plasmoid. You can put it whereever you want on your
> desktop and you can remove the one running in systray. You can also
> configure if there is a popup or not.


Well that was easy enough, it works well.

Thanks.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com