Tips And Tricks

This page is meant as a container of tips and tricks collected over time, addressing topics and issues brought up by TDE users.

Using sudo and tdesudo

If you use sudo or a sudo-based distribution (such as Ubuntu), it is highly recommended that you install the tdesudo-trinity package as well. This allows to run programs that require root priviledge from the TDE menu using your own password. If tdesudo-trinity is not installed, you will be asked for the root password instead. More details can be found here

Kmail Sanitize and Decrypt Mails

Kmail Sanitize and Decrypt Mails shows an example on how to create a filter in kmail that removes unwanted headers and automaticly decrypts incomming mails.

Lock session and turn off screen

This locks the session and after 3 seconds turns the screen off.

 $ cat goodnight.sh
 
 #!/bin/bash
 
 dcop kdesktop KScreensaverIface lock
 sleep 3
 xset dpms force standby

For a ‘GUI’ you can add an Applet to your Panel that calls the Batch file.

Un-Bogging down an Older system

Your system runs pretty well until Firefox, an Office application, or some other high CPU usage application demands too many cycles and your system then ‘freezes’ for seconds or minutes until the application gets finished.

A simple, but somewhat tedious, solution is to add ‘nice’ to the launcher for each. Using LibreOffice as an example, add ‘nice -n 2 ’ before the command:

 TDE Menu >> Office >> LibreOffice >> {right click} >> Edit Item

Change the ‘Command’ entry from:

 libreoffice %U’

To:

 nice -n 2 libreoffice %U

Then find every other entry for LibreOffice (LibreOffice Base, LibreOffice Draw, LibreOffice Math, LibreOffice Impress, etc.) and do the same.

Other ‘usual suspects’ to make nice are Browsers, BitTorrent Clients, Diff GUI tools, and occasionally PDF viewers.

Generally anything ‘real time’ you should leave alone (movies, gimp, games).

These were used on a Core2 Duo (P7570 @ 2.26GHz, CPU Mark: 926)

Nice level	Application Name
1	Kmail
2	LibreOffice
3	Firefox
4	qBittorrent

Changing alternating row colors

Alternating row colors in Konqueror, KMail, and probably a lot more, are not set as part of a theme. The are set in Colors:

 TCC >> Appearance & Themes >> Colors >> Widget Color >> [Dropdown] Alternate Background in Lists

Who knew?

Assigning a mouse click as part of a keyboard shortcut

There are multiple ways to accomplish this. The best arguably was the first method, which has been lost to time.

In these examples we are trying to achieve:

{Windows Key} + {left mouse click} = Minimize application under mouse cursor

Change what you need to achieve what you want.

Method 01: Lost

As the name says it’s been lost. What is remembered is that:

• No additional software had to be installed
• The change was exceedingly minor.

Method 02: xbindkeys, xdotool

Buggy. This works, but the xdotool command used occasionally leaves an unfinished half keystroke hanging.

A): Go to:

 Trinity Control Center >> Regional & Accessibility >> Keyboard Shortcuts
 >> Shortcuts Schemes >> Global Shortcuts >> Windows

• Set "Minimize Window" to “Win+Space”

B): Issue these command(s) as root or using sudo.

 $ apt-get install xbindkeys
 $ apt-get install xdotool
 $ apt-get install xbindkeys-config   # << optional

C): Edit .xbindkeysrc

• Edit $HOME/.xbindkeysrc
• Add:

#MinimizeWindowUnderMouse
"xdotool click --clearmodifiers 1 key super+space"
   m:0x40 + c:133 + b:1 + release

Note: xbindkeys does not like superfluous comments within it’s definitions. Leaving prior entries commented out within the config definition caused odd, and inconsistent, results. ymmv.

D): Issue these command(s) as yourself

 $ killall xbindkeys ; xbindkeys

E): To minimize any window

Move mouse over window, hold down Window key and click left mouse button.

Method 03: xbindkeys, dcop and/or gdbus

Basically the same as xbindkeys, xdotool but replacing xdotool with either a dcop or gdbus command. This is probably less ‘buggy’ than xdotool, unfortunately the writer doesn’t understand enough about either to make this work.

Removing captions from K-Menu

Add following line into section [menus] in file ~/.trinity/share/config/kickerrc

ShowMenuTitles=false

Adding a separator between windows button in the title bar

Open TDE Control Center -> Appearance & Themes -> Window Decorations and then select the "Buttons" tab.
In the middle of the screen there is a list of possible buttons. Drag a separator (--- spacer ---) on the title bar of the sample window, between the buttons where you want to space to appear.
Check the preview in the bottom part of the screen and modify again as required.
Confirm when done.

Log out of current TDE session

You can log out of the current TDE session and possibly shut down the system automaticly (depending on your TDE configuration) using this command:

dcop kdesktop default logout ["confirm" "type" "mode"]

You can append three parameters "confirm", "type", "mode" to determine the logout behaviour according to the following values:

First parameter "confirm"

-1 -- Obey the user's confirmation setting

0 -- Don't confirm, shutdown without asking

1 -- Always confirm, ask even if the user turned it off

Second parameter "type"

-1 -- Select previous action or the default if it's the first time

0 -- Only log out

1 -- Log out and reboot the machine

2 -- Log out and halt the machine

Third parameter "mode"

-1 -- Select previous mode or the default if it's the first time

0 -- Schedule a shutdown (halt or reboot) for the time all active sessions have exited

1 -- Shut down, if no sessions are active. Otherwise do nothing

2 -- Force shutdown. Kill any possibly active sessions

3 -- Pop up a dialog asking the user what to do if sessions are still active

Full stop example Don't ask, log out and halt machine, killing any sessions

dcop ksmserver default logout 0 2 2

Upgrading from KDE3 or from TDE 3.5.x to R14.0.x

If you are migrating from KDE3 or upgrading from TDE 3.5.x, you can reuse your own settings in TDE R14.0.x. When logging into R14.0.x for the first time, TDE will automatically execute a script which will migrate as many of your KDE3/TDE3.5.x settings as possible. At the end of the process, your KDE3/TDE3.5.x profile will still exist (unchanged) and a new TDE profile will have been created inside the ~/.trinity folder.
NOTE
Please refrain from renaming your .kde into .trinity before running R14.0.x. If you do so, the migration process will not take part and some applications may not run smoothly after that. See here for an example of problems that may arise if you rename your .kde folder manually.

Upgrading from an old version (pre Dec/2014)

Depending on your previous version of TDE, the file /etc/trinity/tdm/tdmrc may change from a script-generated file to a config file. It is advisable to accept the newer file if you are upgrading from an old version to TDE >= R14.0.0.

Use another window manager with TDE

It is possible to use TDE with a different window manager than the one which comes by default. There are a lot of window managers out there, though, so TDE might not recognize their presence and thus not offer them as a choice in the Control Center. This is the case when you can use the advanced methods mentioned here to use TDE with another WM.

Method 0: the easy way

The easy way is, of course, to go to TDE Control Center → Desktop → Window decorations, switch to the Window Manager tab and then select your preferred window manager from the drop-down menu.

Method 1: autostart TDE components from WM

You can autostart Trinity and the components you need if your window manager supports autostart. In this case the window manager is started first. An .xinitrc file can also do the trick.

Make sure your window manager executes the first command (and any of the other ones for other desktop components you might want to use). For a more-or-less complete TDE session use all of them:

Command	Description
starttde	(required) Initializes required Trinity components.*
kicker &	The Kicker panel.
kdesktop --waitforkded &	The Desktop.
khotkeys &	Keyboard shortcuts handler.

(* Trinity apps would do this anyway, but it's nice to have it ready for them.)

As for starting the WM itself, you can choose to use your window manager's session via your display manager.

Note that this is not considered a full TDE session and that your mileage may vary. For a better way of handling this see Method 2 below.

Method 2: using WM as part of a TDE session

You can make TDE use your window manager instead of TWin by passing an environment variable to the starttde script. This variable is named $TDEWM and accepts the executable name (or full path) of your window manager. For example, to start TDE with Fluxbox as a window manager:

$ TDEWM=fluxbox startx /opt/trinity/starttde # adjust to your system

Note

Due to a mistake, Trinity releases before R14.0.11 use the $TWIN variable instead.

To make this permanent:

• If you use a .xinitrc file, then the only thing to do is to put the line there.
• If you use a display manager, you'll need to create a script and an X session file.

Create a script like this one:

#!/bin/sh
export TDEWM=your_window_manager # for R14.0.11 and higher
export TWIN=your_window_manager  # for pre-R14.0.11 TDE versions
exec starttde

Replace your_window_manager with the correct value. Save it and make it executable.

Then, create a .desktop file in /usr/share/xsessions, like this one:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Name=(Session name)
Comment=(An optional session comment)
Exec=/path/to/the/script/you/just/saved

Insert the values as needed. Save it and logout. From the sessions menu choose the session you just created. Login normally. TDE should start with the window manager of your choice.