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<articleinfo>

<authorgroup>
<author>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;</author>
<author>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
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</authorgroup>

<date>2005-02-20</date>
<releaseinfo>3.4</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>desktop</keyword>
</keywordset>
</articleinfo>

<sect1 id="desktop">

<title>Desktop Behavior</title>

<sect2 id="desktop-desktop">
<title><guilabel>Desktop</guilabel> Tab</title>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Show icons on desktop</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Uncheck this option if you do not want to have icons on the
desktop.  Without icons the desktop may be somewhat faster, but you
will no longer be able to drag files to the desktop.</para>
<para>This will not remove any files already stored on the desktop,
they will instead be hidden.</para>

<para>If this is enabled, you may also enable the ability to <guilabel>Allow programs in desktop window</guilabel>.</para>

<para>Enabling this option allows you to set a program as your desktop
background, for example <command>xearth</command>, or &kworldclock;</para>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Show tooltips</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Check this option if you would like to see tooltips for icons on
the desktop as you hover the mouse over them.  These tooltips display
information about the file represented by the icon.  Depending on the
type of file, the information can range from simple file size and
creation dates for unfamiliar file types, to complete meta information
such as the content of tags for music files.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Menu Bar at Top of Screen:</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>This option determines whether there is a menu across
the top of the &kde; Desktop similar to the style of &MacOS;.</para>

<para>The default is <guilabel>None</guilabel>.  If you select
<guilabel>Desktop menu bar</guilabel> one static menu is shown at the
top of the screen, displaying the desktop menu.  Finally there is
<guilabel>Current application's menu bar (Mac OS-style)</guilabel>.
If this option is selected, applications won't have their menu bar
attached to their own window anymore. Instead, there is one menu bar
at the top of the screen which shows the menus of the currently active
application. You might recognize this behavior from &MacOS;.
</para>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Mouse button actions:</guilabel></term>
<listitem>

<para>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).</para>

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

<para>For each of the three mouse buttons, you can select:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>No Action</term>
<listitem><para>When you use this mouse button, nothing
happens.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Window list menu</term>
<listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Desktop Menu.</term>
<listitem><para>This brings up a submenu with commands specific to
&kde;. You can create icons, edit bookmarks, cut and paste,
run commands, configure &kde;, arrange icons, lock the session and log
out of &kde;.  The exact content of the menu varies depending on the
current status of &kde;. </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Application Menu</term>
<listitem><para>This brings up the <guimenu>Application</guimenu> Menus
(also know as the <guimenu>K</guimenu> Menus), so you can start a new
application.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Custom Menu 1</term>
<term>Custom Menu 2</term>
<listitem>
<para>You may also configure up to two custom menus.  If you choose either of these, the <guibutton>Edit...</guibutton> becomes available, allowing you to edit the contents of the custom menus.</para>
<!-- FIXME: Need to find out what else can be added here (for instance, it lets me type 'emacsclient' which isn't available in the K menu) -->
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="desktop-behavior-file-icons">
<title><guilabel>File Icons</guilabel></title>

<para>First are two options regarding the placement of icons:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Automatically line up icons</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>If this option is enabled, &kde; will align icons on a
grid on the desktop. If it is not enabled, you may drop icons
anywhere, and they will not be aligned for you.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Show hidden files</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>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 folders, this can
be useful.</para>
<warning><para>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.</para></warning>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>The &kde; desktop has a preview feature for many file types,
including <acronym>HTML</acronym>  files, images, &PostScript; and
<acronym>PDF</acronym>, sound, web archives (if you have the
appropriate &konqueror; plugin installed) and text files.</para>

<para>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.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="desktop-behavior-device-icons">
<title><guilabel>Device Icons</guilabel></title>

<para>On some operating systems (&Linux; and FreeBSD, so far) &kde; can
dynamically display icons for each <firstterm>mountable</firstterm>
device you have available.  This could be &CD-ROM; drives, floppy disk
drives, or network shares.</para>

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

</sect2>
</sect1>

</article>