KDE Configuration: KDE Control Center

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With the KDE Control Center, you can configure your desktop and system, changing the way it is displayed and the features it supports (see Figure 7-5). You can open the Control Center directly to a selected component by selecting its entry in the main menu Preferences menu. The Preferences menu displays a submenu listing the configuration categories. Select a category, and then select the component you want. For example, to configure your screen saver, select the Screensaver entry in the Appearances & Themes menu located in the Settings menu. The Control Center can be directly started by selecting Control Center from the K Menu. Configuration components are actually modules. In future releases, more modules will be included as more applications and tools are added to the K Desktop. See the Help viewer for a current listing of K Desktop configuration modules.

Figure 7-5: KDE Control Center

The Control Center window is divided into two panes. The left pane shows a tree view of all the components you can configure, and the right pane displays the dialog windows for a selected component. On the left pane, components are arranged into categories whose titles you can expand or shrink. The Web Browsing heading holds entries for configuring the KDE file manager's Web browser features. Under Appearances & Themes, you can set different features for displaying and controlling your desktop. For example, the Background entry enables you to select a different background color or image for each one of your virtual desktops. Other entries enable you to configure components such as the screen saver, the language used, and the window style. The Peripheral heading holds entries that let you configure your mouse, keyboard, and printer. The Internet and Network heading lets you specify common network settings like your e-mail address. The Sound and Multimedia heading contains panels for configuring sound components. From the Control Center, you can also access a set of specialized KDE system configuration tools. Currently these include a login and a font manager.

.kde and Desktop User Directories

Your .kde directory holds files and directories used to maintain your KDE desktop. The Desktop directory holds KDE desktop files whose icons are displayed on the desktop. Configuration files are located in the .kde/share/config directory. Here you can find the general configuration files for different KDE components. kwinrc holds configuration commands for the window manager, kmailrc for mail, and kickerrc for your panel. kdeglobals holds keyboard shortcuts along with other global definitions. You can place configuration directives directly in any of these files; .kde/share/mimelnk holds the desktop files for the menu entries added by the user. The .kde/share/apps directory contains files and directories for configuring KDE applications.

MIME Types and Associated Applications

As you install new kinds of programs, they may use files of a certain type. In that case, you will need to register the type with KDE so that it can be associated with a given application or group of applications. For example, the MIME type for GIF images is image/gif, which is associated with image-viewing programs. You use the KDE Control Center to set up a new MIME type or to change MIME type associations with applications. Select the File Association entry under KDE Components. This will list known MIME types and their associated filename extensions. Select an entry to edit it, where you can change the applications associated with it. KDE saves its MIME type information in a separate file called mimelnk in the KDE configuration directory.

To change the associated application for a particular file, you find the application with the file manager and then right-click it and select Edit File Type. This displays a window with two panels: General and Embedded. On the General menu, you can add an extension by clicking Add and entering the extension for the file type, using an * to match the prefix. For example, *.gif would match any file ending with .gif. In the Application Preference Order section, use the Add button to select the application you want associated with the file. You can have several applications for a single file, changing the preference order for them as you wish. Click Apply to save your changes.

KDE Directories and Files

When KDE is installed on your system, its system-wide application, configuration, and support files may be installed in the same system directories as other GUIs and user applications. On Red Hat, KDE is installed in the standard system directories with some variations, such as /usr/bin for KDE program files, /usr/lib/kde3, which holds KDE libraries, and /usr/include/kde, which contains KDE header files used in application development.

The directories located in share directory contain files used to configure your KDE environment (the system share directory is located at /usr/share). The share/mimelnk directory maps its files to the Applications Launcher menu. Its directories and subdirectories appear as menu items and submenus on the main menu. Their contents consist of desktop files having the extension .desktop, one for each menu entry. The share/apps directory contains files and directories set up by KDE applications. share/mimelnk holds MIME type definitions. share/config contains the configuration files for particular KDE applications. These are the system-wide defaults that can be overridden by users' own configurations in their own .kde/share/config directories. share/icons holds the default icons used on your KDE desktop and by KDE applications as well as for the Bluecurve interface. As noted previously, in the user's home directory, the .kde directory holds a user's own KDE configuration for the desktop and its applications.

Each user has a Desktop directory that holds KDE link files for all icons and folders on the user's desktop (see Table 7-3). These include the Trash folders and the CD-ROM and home directory links.

Table 7-3: KDE Installation Directories

System KDE Directories	Description
/usr/bin	KDE programs
/usr/lib/kde3	KDE libraries
/usr/include/kde	Header files for use in compiling and developing KDE applications
/usr/share/config	KDE desktop and application configuration files
/usr/share/mimelnk	Desktop files used to build the main menu
/usr/share/apps	Files used by KDE applications
/usr/share/icons	Icons used in KDE desktop and applications
/usr/share/doc	KDE Help system
User KDE Directories
.kde/AutoStart	Applications automatically started up with KDE
.kde/share/config	User KDE desktop and application configuration files for user-specified features
.kde/share/mimelnk	Desktop files used to build the user's menu entries on the KDE main menu
.kde/share/apps	Directories and files used by KDE applications
Desktop	Desktop files for icons and folders displayed on the user's KDE desktop
Desktop/Trash	Trash folder for files marked for deletion

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