LinuxQuestions.org - Some trivial annoyances solved: Konqueror and Icons

Yep, these are trivial annoyances, but trivial problems eat at me. They are easy to put off fixing, but they can really diminish the whole experience if they are not dealt with.

1. Gnome icons missing in KDE menu.

I know, you can remap them using the KDE menu editor. The problem - in recent Freerock Gnome releases - is that when you remap Gnumeric , Abiword, or Planner etc. in KDE for example, the icons disappear from the Gnome menu and are virtually impossible to get to re-appear again. I spend 80% of my time in KDE, but I am schizophrenic when it comes to DE usage.

My solution: Copy the /usr/share/pixmaps file to the /opt/kde/share directory. KDE will automatically pick up the Gnome Icons for the Office apps as well as games etc (a few will still be missing). If you have allready hosed the Gnome menu icons, you "may" need to delete (rename if you want to save stuff) all gnome configs from your home directory. The same may be needed for KDE. Running kbuildsycoca may be needed too. Ideally, the pixmaps file should be copied to the /opt/kde/share directory prior to editing any menu icons in KDE. I have found that copying the Gnome icons from the /usr/share/icons directory to the /opt/kde/share/icons directory helps with other icons, but this is really overkill. I imagine one could be far more selective in choosing which files to move.

Also, as a side note - create two "desktop" files. Call one Desktop and the other Desktop-KDE. Use KDE control center to change the "paths" to the newly created Desktop-KDE. It will ask if you want to move all the files - say yes. The old "Desktop" folder will be deleted and all you desktop icons will now live in the "Desktop-KDE" folder. Recreate the "Desktop" folder and copy the hidden ".directory" file to the "Desktop" directory from the "Desktop-KDE" directory. You now have a "Desktop" and a "Desktop-KDE" and both folders appear with the same icon. Now, when you go to Gnome, all the KDE desktop icons will not be cluttering up the Gnome desktop.

2. Konqueror as a web browser:

Firefox fans will think this is useless, but I have always wanted to use konqueror as my default browser when I am in KDE. I like the integration etc. and my experience with konqueror is that it is pretty fast. The problem (for me) has always been that konqueror rendered pages poorly or incorrectly. I have discovered that by changing the "browser identification" in the tools menu to "Safari 1.2.4 in Mac OS X", konqueror renders pages correctly. To see an example of this in action go the Boston Museum of Science website:

http://www.mos.org/

First go using the default browser ID.

Pretty ugly huh?

Now change to the Safari ID.

Much better now isn't it?

Well, I hope someone get some use out of all this typing.

Have fun!