# The &plasma; Handbook

Sebastian
Kügler
sebas@kde.org
Claus
Christensen
2008–2010
Sebastian Kügler
&FDLNotice;
2021-07-23
Plasma 5.20

&plasma; is the core user interface to the desktop.

KDE
Plasma
Plasmoid
Widget
Containments
Desktop
Runner
Kicker

## Introduction

&plasma; provides a modern and customizable environment for running your favorite applications and accessing your information wherever it may be. Other common attributes of the &plasma; Desktop include advanced window management and desktop effects, support for &kde; &plasma; Widgets, integrated search, hardware management and a high degree of customizability.

## Using &plasma;

### &plasma; Components

#### &plasma; Widgets and Containments

The essence of &plasma; revolves around two basic concepts:

&plasma; Widgets

  Applets, or small applications that live on the desktop.

Containments

  Applets that act as the container for the &plasma; widgets

On a default desktop, there are two main elements: the Panel and the Desktop itself. Both are containments in the &plasma; sense.

#### Default &plasma; Desktop

The &plasma; Desktop can be configured in countless ways. The screenshot seen below shows a fairly standard desktop. Some distributions apply extensive customizations, so your desktop may look different.

Similarly, the graphical appearance of the interface elements can be styled. These screenshots uses the &plasma; default style, Breeze.

A fairly standard &plasma; Desktop

1. The program starter. Usually this will be Application Launcher.

2. A couple of icons giving easy access to often used applications

3. The Task Manager, which shows the titles of windows belonging to the applications currently running. No application had opened a window, when the screenshot was taken

4. The System Tray

5. The Digital Clock widget

6. The Panel Toolbox

7. The Desktop Toolbox

8. A Folder View widget, showing the content of the Desktop folder

### The Panel

The default panel holds a few &plasma; widgets: starting from the left, there is the application launcher.

#### Application Launcher

Application launcher
Application launcher

You can use it to start applications, open recently opened files and the usual logout/shutdown options. There is also a structure that allows you to browse through your applications. The layout has been optimized for the use case that is most common: starting an application. The default tab is the Favorites tab that holds the most-used entries. In the beginning, you'll probably find yourself using the Applications tab more often. Once you have found out what your most frequently started applications are, right click on the items and select the Add to Favorites to add them to your Favorites (or directly into the panel or on the desktop. Note that you need to unlock &plasma; by means of right clicking on the desktop for any kind of modification).

#### Application Menu

If you prefer the traditional menu-style application launcher, change it by right clicking on the menu button and selecting Alternatives.

Application menu
Application menu

#### Application Launcher Settings

If you want to configure the application launcher, change it by right clicking on the menu button and selecting Configure Application Launcher.

Application launcher settings
Application launcher settings

#### Taskbar

The taskbar is another widget on the panel. It shows an area for all open windows on all desktops by default. You can make it show all open windows on the current desktop only by checking Only show tasks from the current desktop when you right click on the task manager, between two windows. The size of the text on the taskbar items can be set in &systemsettings; under the Appearance Fonts . Right-clicking on the taskbar brings the Settings dialog where you can choose several options to customize your taskbar. Here is a screenshot of the taskbar settings dialog Taskbar settings dialog

#### System Tray

Another default panel item is the System Tray, which is used by traditional applications and widgets as a dock. Right clicking on the System Tray allows you to open the settings dialog, where you can set entries to display and their visibility.

System Tray settings dialog
System Tray settings dialog

#### Device Notifier

An icon located usually in the system tray is the Device Notifier. Plug in a &USB; disk and a dialog will open that allows you to open the device in &dolphin; or another associated application.

The Device Notifier is used for handling pluggable devices such as &USB; pendrives (also called flash drives or thumb drives), digital cameras, external &USB; hard drives, &etc; It also comes into play when a medium such as a &CD; or DVD is loaded into an optical drive.

When you plug in an external device, or load a new medium into a drive, the Notifier window pops up (you can also open it explicitly by clicking on its Panel icon.) It stays open while the cursor is over it, otherwise it hides itself after a few seconds.

The Notifier window shows a list of all the devices it currently knows about. Moving the mouse cursor over a device will highlight how many possible actions are associated with that device.

Clicking anywhere in the shaded box around the device name (but not on the eject/unmount icon if present) expands the entry to show the list of possible actions for that device. The set of actions depends on the device; it is configurable from the Device Notifier's context menu or from the &systemsettings; modules Device Actions and Removable Devices. Simply select one with the mouse or keyboard to launch that action.

There is also a small icon to the right of each entry showing whether that device is currently accessible (or mounted) or not. Only when a device is not mounted is it safe to physically disconnect it from the computer. Clicking on the icon causes the device to be unmounted and/or the medium to be ejected if it is currently mounted, and will mount it if it is not. Note that unmounting/ejecting might fail if the device still has open files on it, &eg; if a large file copy hasn't finished. In most cases you can just wait a while and try again. When an unmounting has succeeded, a success icon will be shown on the Device Notifier's icon.

#### Hidden Items

The System Tray normally holds some more entries like &klipper;, &kmix; &etc;

Some of the default entries in the System Tray are hidden to save space in the bar. To display these entries click on the small white triangle , then use the &LMB; to launch a widget or the &RMB; to open its settings dialog.

#### Digital Clock

The right-most &plasma; widget in the default panel holds the Digital Clock. This clock can display the time in different timezones as well as have its size changed. The clock will adjust its font size to the area it is given by the surrounding containment (that is the panel in this case). If you choose to display the date, this date will be rendered using the Small font option from the &systemsettings; Font dialog. The time will take the rest of the space. So in the end, you'll choose yourself the amount of information displayed, and if that fits. If you want to display more information, make the panel larger or put the clock on the desktop where it can grow freely.

#### Pager

An optional item on your panel is the Pager. It allows you to switch between your virtual desktops. If you change the layout of the Pager through the Number of rows option, which will also affect the layout and animations that are shown in &kwin;’s Desktop Grid effect. For larger pagers, selecting Display windows icons typically makes sense.

### The Panel Toolbox

If your desktop is unlocked (you can do that by right clicking on the desktop, or when no application has the focus, with &Alt;D, L), a small &plasma; logo will appear in the bottom right corner in the panel. Click on this toolbox, and the panel controller opens.

Panel Settings
Panel Settings

The panel controller allows you to reposition, resize and realign the panel. The &plasma; widgets living in this panel will adjust their size automatically. &plasma; widgets have basic knowledge about sizing, provided by the containment. They are programmed to take advantage of that size, and inform the applet about how much space they possibly need. In the end, the containment gives a possible size to the applets, the applets obey.

### Adding Applets

Unlock the desktop and you'll be able to add and remove &plasma; widgets from panel or desktop. You add &plasma; widgets by simply dragging them where you want them. Right click on an widget to remove it.

Add Widgets Add Widgets

The Get New Widgets button allows you to add widgets you've previously downloaded and download new &plasma; widgets. Currently it supports native &plasmagik; packages and some &Mac; OS X dashboard widgets. Widgets you install this way can then be accessed just like regular, preinstalled widgets.

### The Desktop

The desktop is in fact another containment. One that does not put size constraints on the applets. Applets can be moved and sized freely. On the unlocked desktop, &plasma; widgets will show a frame when you move the mouse over them. This applet handle allows you to move, resize, relocate and realign the panel. It also allows you to drag &plasma; widgets on the desktop. The buttons in the corner are used to resize, rotate configure and remove the applet. When rotated, a &plasma; widget will act magnetic towards 12 o'clock, so it is easy to get them back into sensible position. By default, most applets keep their aspect ratio when they are being resized. If you want to freely resize an applet, hold the &Ctrl; key pressed while resizing.

Right clicking on the desktop also offers you to configure aspects such as the wallpaper and the layout used, and the mouse actions. It offers to download new wallpapers through &knewstuff;.

On the Tweaks page you can configure to hide the desktop Toolbox and adjust the widget handling.

Desktop Settings
Desktop Settings

To change the &plasma; theme or download a new one through &knewstuff; open the Appearance Desktop Theme page in the &systemsettings;.

With open applications, it quickly gets hard to see the &plasma; widgets on your desktop. The Dashboard gets those &plasma; widgets in front of you, much like the Peek at Desktop functionality you are used to from traditional desktops.

### Folder View

The Folder View widget is used to display entries like folders or files from a folder, by default from `$`HOME`/Desktop`.

You can choose to view either all files, or filter either by specific regular expressions (&eg;, all files with a certain extension) or by file type (&eg; just images).

This widget also supports basic file management properties (moving, copying, cutting and pasting for example), and you can have as many as you want on your desktop.

Folder View
Folder View

If you select the layout Folder View in the Desktop Settings you can use one Folder View as the whole desktop, effectively replicating the "old style" desktop paradigm.

### &krunner;

&krunner; is a versatile mini command-line. You can use it to start applications, open web pages, access bookmarks, search through your desktop data, calculate short equations, and many more. Pressing &Alt;&Space; or &Alt;F2 opens the &krunner; dialog. You just start typing and &krunner; will start searching matches as soon as you've entered more than two characters. You can open the settings dialog to learn about &krunner;’s functionality, provided by plugins. You can navigate through the matches using the tab and arrow keys.

&krunner; dialog
&krunner; dialog

Use the button to open the KRunner &systemsettings; module and configure where and what to search for in &krunner;.

&krunner; supports Desktop Actions which are additional actions an application can offer to perform common actions or jump directly to a certain task from Task Manager. Common examples are Open New Incognito Window to open your browser directly in private mode, Compose Email without launching the full-fledged email client first or the actions provided by &spectacle;:

&krunner; Desktop Actions
&krunner; Desktop Actions

If you press the &Down; key in an empty &krunner; a history of the recent entities is shown. After invoking a search result, its query will move to the top, so repeatedly used commands never fall out of the list.

Remove single entries from the list using the button or clear the complete history in the &krunner; settings.

If you want to know what is going on on your system, pressing &Ctrl;&Esc; gives you quick access to a list of windows and processes, with options to monitor their output and kill processes.

### Activities

The desktop toolbox, accessed via the upper left corner has a button for displaying your activities, of which &plasma; allows you to have more than one. Basically, that is multiple desktop containments hosting multiple sets of &plasma; widgets. Display the Activities bar, select one of the predefined activities or choose Create Activity to create a new containment, select your new containment and customize suiting your taste. &plasma;’s activities and &kwin;’s desktop grid are similar in that respect, but there is a fundamental difference. While virtual desktop are used to group and organize windows, &plasma;’s activities are used to group and organize &plasma; widgets. This way, you can switch between activities and have relevant &plasma; widgets supporting the task you are currently trying to accomplish. You can create a Free time activity, with comic strips, a puzzle and other &plasma; widgets, and a Work activity, with relevant RSS feeds, calculator and calendar, for example.

To delete an activity, press the Stop Activity button on Activities bar (press &Alt;D then &Alt;A to open this bar) then click the red 'X' (or press &Alt;D then &Alt;R) and confirm the deletion.

### Shortcuts

Most of &plasma;’s functionality is also accessible through keyboard shortcuts. The various combinations should be pressed in sequence, that is for example &Alt;D, A means: Press &Alt; and D, release and press A.

Currently, the following default shortcuts can be used:

&Alt;D, A

  Add Widgets

&Alt;D, R

  Remove Widget

&Alt;D, L

  Lock/Unlock Widgets

&Meta;=

  Zoom out

&Meta;-

  Zoom in

&Alt;D, N

  Next Widget

&Alt;D, P

  Previous Widget

&Alt;D, S

  Widget settings

&Alt;D, &Alt;A

  Activities

&Alt;D, &Alt;R

  Remove this Activity

&Alt;D, &Alt;S

  Desktop Settings

&Meta;&Tab;

  Next Activity

&Meta;&Shift;&Tab;

  Previous Activity

&Ctrl;F12

  Peek at Desktop

&Alt;D, T

  Run the Associated Application

&Meta;&Tab;

  Open the Activities panel

## Credits and License

&plasma;

Program copyright 2008 &Aaron.J.Seigo; &Aaron.J.Seigo.mail;

Documentation Copyright © 2008–2010 Sebastian Kügler sebas@kde.org

&underFDL;

&documentation.index;