When a window of any width is up against the top of the screen it's
impossible to resize; actually even maximised windows should be
resizable without the totally unnecesary footwork of having to first
click on unmaximizing. Not only that, but when any window covers the
entire screen, maximised or not, then alarms/popups taking place under
it should be annunciated to the user! Case in point, when I click on the Sylpheed "send" button the dialog requestingthe password may well be and
remain covered depending on circumstances.


BTW, why on earth is plasma5 not Kde5?

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On Wednesday 23 August 2017 04:21, bad sector conveyed the following to comp.windows.x.kde...

When a window of any width is up against the top of the screen it's impossible to resize; actually even maximised windows should be
resizable without the totally unnecesary footwork of having to first
click on unmaximizing.

I agree with that. Allowing maximized windows to be resized (and still
showing their window borders when maximized) was an option in KDE3, but
I believe it was dropped for Plasma 4.

Not only that, but when any window covers the entire screen, maximised
or not, then alarms/popups taking place under it should be annunciated
to the user!

This could perhaps be adjusted by changing the "focus stealing
prevention" in the window manager options.

Case in point, when I click on the Sylpheed "send" button the dialog requesting the password may well be and remain covered depending on circumstances.

Again, this is a matter of focus stealing prevention. Try setting it
one degree lower than what it is currently set at.

BTW, why on earth is plasma5 not Kde5?

I'm not sure what you're asking here ─ your wording is ambiguous. If
you are referring to the name, then KDE has decided that the KDE name
should from here on be used for the organization itself and as a
branding of its products, while Plasma is now the dedicated name of the
desktop environment.

If on the other hand your comment was sarcastic, then I can relate. I'm
still using Plasma 4 here because I've tried Plasma 5 and I was
disenchanted with the bug-ridden nature of it, the lack of customization options that still existed in Plasma 4 ─ like setting the font and font
size of the clock ─ and the fact that you have to jump through burning
hoops to get anything other than that dreadful 2D look that has become
the fashion whim of the last couple of years.

I've given Trinity Desktop Environment a spin ─ it's a fork of KDE3 ─
and it has evolved quite a lot since KDE3 proper, but it does have its
own issues as well, and it does visually feel like a throwback to the
beginning of the past decade.

Plasma 4 still has a few bugs ─ one of which I'm grateful for, see the footnote [*] ─ and I keep on struggling with KMail2 and its awful Akonadi/MySQL backend, but at least it's a mature and aesthetically
pleasing environment in which most things do actually work, not to
mention that it's also incredibly customizable.

I am using it with the Bespin theme (developed by Thomas Lübking), which contains the X-Bar widget, which in turn allows for a Mac-like "global
menu" to be embedded into a separate panel at the top, which you can
then also add other widgets and icons to.

This functionality was initially missing from KDE4 and was later on
implemented in a different manner ─ by way of an auto-hiding standalone application menu at the top of the screen that wasn't located inside a
panel and that would be invisible until you moved the mouse over it.

It was initially also missing (again) from Plasma 5 up until 5.9, but
I'm not sure how it's implemented there. It wasn't available in the
PCLinuxOS live CD/DVD that I've tried. I presume it now works like
Bespin's X-Bar, but I can't verify that as I have no diskspace available
for an actual installation of any distribution with Plasma 5, and I'm
not willing to give up on my Plasma 4 system, given that it works.


[*] The welcomed bug: I use the "Glassified" desktop theme, but I have
found that if you select and activate the "Air for Notebooks" theme
first and then select and activate the "Glassified" theme
afterwards, then you get the "Glassified" translucent panels, but
with a drop shadow underneath them, which I really like, as it
sort of lifts the panels up from the "surface" of the desktop.

It does of course only work if your video driver supports
compositing, but this machine has an on-board AMD Radeon adapter,
which works perfectly well with the GPL'd "radeon" driver. I also
have a laptop with an identical operating system installation and
an on-board Intel graphics adapter, and it works just as perfectly
there too. If you have an nVidia graphics adapter, then you still
need the proprietary driver in order to get compositing effects.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

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On 23/08/2017 03:30, Aragorn wrote:

On Wednesday 23 August 2017 04:21, bad sector conveyed the following
to

Case in point, when I click on the Sylpheed "send" button the
dialog requesting the password may well be and remain covered
depending on circumstances.

Again, this is a matter of focus stealing prevention. Try setting
it one degree lower than what it is currently set at.

Thanks, it was at 'Low', have set to next lower 'None', we'll see

BTW, why on earth is plasma5 not Kde5?

I'm not sure what you're asking here ─ your wording is ambiguous.
If you are referring to the name, then KDE has decided that the KDE
name should from here on be used for the organization itself and as
a branding of its products, while Plasma is now the dedicated name of
the desktop environment.

If on the other hand your comment was sarcastic, then I can relate.
I'm still using Plasma 4 here because I've tried Plasma 5 and I was disenchanted with the bug-ridden nature of it, the lack of
customization options that still existed in Plasma 4 ─ like setting
the font and font size of the clock ─ and the fact that you have to
jump through burning hoops to get anything other than that dreadful
2D look that has become the fashion whim of the last couple of
years.

I just meant that in a world of endless learning-curve hoops most people
have no idea about whether it's something you eat or put garbage into;
we got used to the series kde3, kde4... soooooo, kde5 was the logical
and exclusive next. If juggling became imperative then they shudda
named the org plasma but i still don't see the need for different tags.

And yes, for my money kde5 has killed off too many practical features
while offering just as many useless ones

I've given Trinity Desktop Environment a spin ─ it's a fork of KDE3
─ and it has evolved quite a lot since KDE3 proper, but it does have
its own issues as well, and it does visually feel like a throwback to
the beginning of the past decade.

I'll look into it. There were a LOT of kde3 features that I considered essential

Xeyes _AND_ mouse-trails, how else on hi-res monitors???

The far better predecessorS of Folder-View for launching my own scripts

After-Step chicklety square 3D window buttons

The ability to seamlessly install google-earth-5.2, the last one with
Flt-Sim stick support in Linux

As for the panels *total dedicated customisability* is the only way. I'm
minded of how painful hand and foot injuries can be, it's because with
problems with those tools you're dead in the jungle. A control panel
ditto, it HAS to be PERFECT to cater to the USER's needs and not the
whims of some 'designer' or someone who wants to create a
jack-off-all-trades common environment for computer users as well as
texto monkeys.

.. I keep on struggling with KMail2 and its awful Akonadi/MySQL
backend, but at least it's a mature and aesthetically pleasing
environment in which most things do actually work, not to mention
that it's also incredibly customizable.

i chucked kmail cause it did not offer a real eml-files-only option. I
like to handle my mail in file managers, the spanish way, Emanuel-ly :-)

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