The K Desktop Environment

Chapter 5. Using Kicker

Kicker is the central point of your computing environment. You can use it for switching between running applications and documents, you can place nifty applets on it (including a genuine tea maker!), and you can even drag it to some other place on the screen.

Press the K button to display the Main menu. Starting from the bottom, Kicker Main menu features Logout, Lock Screen, About KDE, Panel Menu, Run..., Home Directory, Help, Find Files, Control Center and individual applications groups.

If enabled in Kicker configuration, there are Quick Browser and Recent Documents choices as well.

Right click the K button to edit the main menu. This will start the KMenuedit application.

5.1. Menu Items

5.1.1. Logout

When you click Logout, your system will prepare for graceful shutdown. All KDE-compliant applications will be reminded that shutdown is imminent, and you will be asked whether you want to save open documents.

Warning

All legacy X-window applications and all console applications will be removed from memory, and any work that you did not save before clicking on Logout will be lost forever. Therefore, please save your work in legacy applications before you tell Kicker to shut down your session.

Before all this takes place, Kicker will ask you whether you really want to shutdown your session.

Note

Please note the Restore session when logging in next time checkbox.

If you check it, Kicker will remember what applications and documents were open at the shutdown time, and restore them to the same state next time when you begin your KDE session (in other words, when you next log in).

KDE-compliant applications will be restored completely with the documents that were open. Legacy X-window applications and konsole applications will be started in "pristine" state, without opening any documents.

5.1.2. Lock Screen

When you click Lock Screen, the whole screen of your computer will go blank. When you want to resume your work, just press any key, and enter your login password.

5.1.3. About KDE...

Choose About KDE to display copyright information about the K Desktop Environment.

5.1.4. Panel Menu

Click on Panel Menu to display the panel configuration menu. You can also right click on an empty part of the panel; or you can right click anywhere, even on an icon, and choose the Panel menu.

Either way, you'll get the following menu:

Panel Menu

5.1.4.1. Add

You can put a shortcut to any application that is in the main or personal menu directly to the panel. Click on Application and choose the desired application from the menu.

You can add various applets to the panel. Click on the Applet and make your choice from the applet menu. Get more information about applets in the chapter dedicated to applets.

If you click K Menu, a K button will be added to the panel.

Note

You may ask why you should add another identical K button to the panel, if one is already there. It's quite simple: since you can remove K button by right-clicking it and choosing Remove, you can also put it back as described above. Another possible reason might be that you want K button on both left and right sides of your panel for fast access.

Click on Windowlist to add a Windowlist to the panel.

Click on Desktop Access to add the Desktop toggle to the panel.

Click on Quick Browser to get prompt access to a directory on your system. Kicker will ask you to choose the desired directory. Learn more about the Quick Browser in the Quick Browser section.

Click on Legacy Application to add a legacy X-window application or console application to the Kicker panel. Kicker will ask you for additional command line parameters. You can also check the Run in terminal checkbox if your application should be run in a terminal[1]

5.1.4.2. Configure...

Click on Configure... and then on Panel Size to change the size of the panel. Click on Configure... and then on Panel Settings to display the Kicker Configuration window. Grab more information about configuring the panel in the Configuration chapter.

5.1.4.3. Help...

Click on Help... to access help facilities. Choose Contents to display help pages for Kicker, the pages which you are right now reading.

Choose Report Bug if you believe that you have discovered a bug in Kicker. A bug reporting window will be shown. Decide how annoying is the bug, and indicate it on Severity buttons. The KDE Team welcomes your bug reports, for they contribute significantly to improving the K Desktop Environment.

Choose About Kicker to display copyright information about Kicker.

Choose About KDE to display copyright information about the K Desktop Environment.

5.1.5. Run...

If you click Run..., a tiny window will appear, in which you can type the name of a program to run (and it's parameters if desired). This comes handy for programs that you need to run quickly without adding them to the menu.

Tip

You can also just press Alt-F2to display this window.

Check the Run in terminal checkbox to run the program in a terminal emulator. You can learn more about running in terminal emulator in the Legacy Application paragraph.

Click the down arrow symbol to access command that you recently run in this window. You can also browse this command history with your cursor keys (up and down key on your keyboard).

Command window also features auto-completion of recently used commands. Type a few keystrokes of your command, and command window will try to guess the rest. If the guess is correct, you can just hit Enter to confirm it. Otherwise, continue typing.

5.1.6. Quick Browser

Click on the Quick Browser to display a choice of Home directory, KDE directory and Root directory. With Quick Browser you can instantly browse through the directory structure. You can click on an executable application to run it, or click a document to open it. Quick Browser is an elegant and fast way to navigate through the documents and other files on your system. If you want to investigate the directory structure, you can sift through directories just by moving your mouse, without ever clicking.

Quick Browser

Warning

If instead of directory content Quick Browser shows "too many files" message, you should increase browser menu entries in Kicker configuration window. Get more information in the Menu reference.

Tip

Some large directories, like /usr/doc, may display so many files that Quick Browser fills your entire screen and hides the original directory (in this case, /usr). To move up to the parent directory, hit Esc [2]

5.1.7. Recent Documents

If you click Recent Documents, you will see a list of documents that you recently opened. Click on a document to open it.[2]

5.1.8. Home Directory

Click on Home Directory to display your home directory with the Konqueror. You can get detailed information about KDE file manager Konqueror in its own documentation.

5.1.9. Help Center

If you click Help, the main K Desktop Environment help page will appear. From this page, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about KDE but were afraid to ask :-).

5.1.10. Find Files

Click on Find Files to display the KFind window. You can learn more about KFind in its own documentation.

5.1.11. Control Center

Click on Control Center to start the KDE Control Center that can customize your KDE desktop behavior down to very fine details. Refer to the KDE Control Center online documentation for more information.

Notes

[1]

This is required for console applications, and it may be useful for X-window applications if they fail to run, because terminal may display additional information describing why the application failed. However, once you have established that the X-window application runs fine you can right click its panel icon and modify Preferences so that terminal is no longer activated for this application.

[2]

However, there may be documents which will not open. Possible reasons include insufficient mime type configuration, missing associated application and insufficient rights for you. Ask the administrator of your system to resolve this. If you are the administrator, you should now read the chapter Kicker for Admins.