Multiple desktop and panel settings

[Old *ix Geek]

I just upgraded from Feisty to Intrepid, and am not really enjoying KDE 4 as much as I thought I would. It looked great at first, but after a week or so of tinkering with it, I'm getting the sense that it's actually not all that great.

For example, multiple desktops: Where are all the settings that used to control things like having separate wallpaper for each desktop, whether to display each desktop's wallpaper in the pager, whether to display each desktop's name when switching desktops, etc.? All I can find now are settings for how many desktops you want, what their names are, and whether to display window icons in the pager. (Window icons show the applications running on each desktop, NOT each desktop's wallpaper.)

And what about all the panel settings that used to be available? Now...there's not much there.

[jacksaff]

Kde 4 is still new and not all of the features of kde3 have been replaced yet. 4.2 makes some more progress and is out next week (can try RC now). Still don't seem to be able to set separate wallpapers for different workspaces though.

It will happen soon enough - the way desktops are organised in plasma allows far more customisation than was the case in kde3. It's just that no-one has gotten round to writing good interfaces for it yet, or has even really pushed plasma to see what is now possible.

Give it a couple more weeks of use. There is certainly a lot kde4 can already do that kde3 couldn't, and the features you miss will return (or might already be included in the latest versions).

[Old *ix Geek]

Thanks for your input, jacksaff. I'm seriously thinking about downgrading to 3.5 because I really feel lost right now without my normal setup! Take a look at this screenshot from before I upgraded; note the comments I added which explain things:

http://www.smartassproducts.com/tmp/UbuntuForums/how_i_want_my_panel_to_look.jpg

And that's just the panel! There are a lot of other things I don't like, too, such as the weird new desktop display. I want my old one back! I had icons for all my devices and network shares, all arranged neatly, horizontally at the top of the screen. Now, the closest thing I can find is the 'folder view' set to display the Desktop directory, but I find its transparent background--which destroys the look of my wallpaper--to be very annoying.