Plasma/HowTo/4.5

The information presented here covers Plasma Desktop 4.5.
Other versions available: 4.4 - 4.3

The Plasma Workspace is one of the key technologies of KDE SC 4.x (also known as the "Pillars of KDE"), and one of the most visible to users. As Plasma Desktop treats the user interface differently than a traditional desktop, there may be confusion as to what the Plasma Desktop is, what it does, and how to perform common tasks.

The purpose of this document is to show how to perform common tasks in Plasma Desktop. Each HowTo consists of one topic and a short animation, which is reached by clicking on the link.

Information

The animations are encoded in the GIF format and can thus be viewed in most modern web browsers without any additional plugins installed. Note that the animations are looped.

Note

Almost all HowTos assume that the widgets are unlocked. See Unlock widgets for instructions on how to unlock them.

Note

Due to distribution-specific customizations, your desktop might differ from those in the HowTos. In particular, if you miss the top-right toolbox (shown as a yellow icon), you can reach most options by right-clicking on the desktop.

HowTo

Widgets

• Unlock widgets
• Lock widgets
• Move toolbox

Desktop Widgets

• Add widget to desktop

• Configure widget
• Move widget
• Resize widget
• Rotate widget
• Remove widget
• Drag widget from desktop to panel

Panel Widgets

• Add widget to panel

• Configure widget
• Move widget
• Remove widget
• Add spacer
• Resize spacer
• Drag widget from panel to desktop

Icons

• Add icon widget to desktop
• Add icon widget to panel
• Add icon to Folder View widget
• Add icon to traditional desktop
• Add icon to Quicklaunch widget

Desktop

• Change wallpaper
• Change workspace theme
• Change to traditional desktop

Panel

• Change panel height
• Change panel width
• Move panel
• Change panel alignment
• Make panel autohide
• Add new empty panel
• Add new default panel
• Remove panel

Extenders

• Drag extender to desktop
• Restore extender

Activities

• Add new activity
• Switch activities
• Rename activity
• Change activity icon
• Pause activity
• Resume activity
• Remove activity
• Link activities to virtual desktops
• Use separate activity for dashboard

Further information

• The Plasma FAQ
• Glossary

For reuse

To link to an animation from another UserBase article, a thumbnail can be posted. Here's an example (edit this page to see the syntax):

How to unlock your widgets

The animations can also be used outside of UserBase. The BBCode (used in most forums) to post a linked thumbnail is:

[url=GIF][img]http://userbase.kde.org/images.userbase/2/20/Plasma_howto-thumbnail-45.png[/img][/url]

Replace GIF with the URL to the GIF file. The corresponding HTML code is:

<a href="GIF"><img src="http://userbase.kde.org/images.userbase/2/20/Plasma_howto-thumbnail-45.png" /></a>

A description of how to record animated GIF files can be found here.

Thanks

• Anne Wilson - thanks for all the help with UserBase!
• Ingo Malchow - thanks for moving everything to the right place

Contributors

• Hans Chen - current maintainer

Do you want to help out with making animations? See the Talk page to find out how!