With Mandriva 2009.0 now installed on my system with KDE 4.1 I have come across two frustrating features.

Under KDE 3.5.9 it was possible to add icons to the main menu bar by simply right clicking on the item in the Menu. Say you wanted Konsul to be available from the main panel, a you had to do was go to Menu/Tools and right click on Konsule then choose Add to Main Panel.
Under KDE4.1 there is no difference between right and left clicking within the Menu listing. . Both simply start the app in question.

I prefer the panel to be at the top of the screen rather at the bottom. Gone is the ability to decide on the location of the main panel. Ome preferred to have it placed vertically either to the right or left. I can't find a way of doing this.

I would like to have the opportunity to switch back to KDE3.5.9 but that doesn't seem possible.

I understand that the new search/find app is Strgi. How do I get this to run and be accesible

These are some of the facilities which are missing from KDE 4.1 but were present in KDE 3.5.9 .

Web browsing under Firefox 3 seems to be slower than under Mdv2008.1 (with the bug sorted out).

For the moment, I am sticking with 2009,prefering its very clean look and or tweo the the new apps.

Tony

kde 3.5.10 is available.

install it with urpmi or rpmdrake

and start it from the cli with kde3 --replace

that should help

Glenn

ps, I drag the icons to the bar and link them.

to move the panel:

right click anywhere on the desktop and choose unlock components, a cashew should appear at the right edge of the panel, click it and then you would have access to the configuration options of the panel: adding widgets, resize..., to put it in the top you just have to drag and drop it to the top of your screen. (Actually I think you need to click in the thing that appears on the top of the panel to drag and drop it, but I'm not sure, i can't check it now since I'm writing from my school computer lab )

P.S.

I checked in my home computer and everything works as I said. To add launch icons to the panel I just right click in the icons in kickoff and select copy to panel. I think Mandriva is using the KMenu, so maybe you want to change it to kickoff or (even better) lancelot and see if it works better

Many thanks GlennsPref and Kruk for your advice. I'll each tip a go and let you know how things turn out.

Tony

Kruk,
You suggested that

"right click anywhere on the desktop and choose unlock components, a cashew should appear at the right edge of the panel, click it and then you would have access to the configuration options of the panel: adding widgets, resize..., to put it in the top you just have to drag and drop it to the top of your screen. (Actually I think you need to click in the thing that appears on the top of the panel to drag and drop it, but I'm not sure, ---"

If I right click in aa free area of the desktop under KDE4.1 I get the following choices : Eun Command, Add Widgets, Add Panel, Desktop Setting, Lock Widgets, Lock Screen and LEAVE"

There is no sign of Unlock Components .et alone a cashew appearing - I am feeling a bit peckish at the mo'!

Right clicking on the panel alows you to Add New Panel or change the current ones position.

Thans again


Tony

To configure the panel you need to have the widgets unlocked, from what you are writing it seems as they already are.

You can see what is what you have to do in the following video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV8wor5VYTw

This KDE 4 does take a bit of getting used to...but how come I suddenly have all of this hard drive activity since I upgraded? About every three seconds it checks the drive. But KDE 4 looks cool

"About every three seconds it checks the drive"

that's strange, it's also using a lot of the cpu? in that case maybe strigi is doing its initial indexing and that takes a while. You should check ksysguard and look for the process nepomukserver it should be using a lot of the cpu if that is what is happening...

kruk

You are a life saviour

I couldn't work out how to add icons to the panel.
And yes, you have to momentary switch over to Kickoff to do this.
It's easy enough, just right click on the "Menu" button and select "Switch to Kickoff Menu Style"
Add your icons and switch back again.

I already looked a few times...it seems to be splitting cpu usage between about four or five different processes. Seems like it only does it every now and then...sometimes I boot up and its fine like right now and other times there is all of this disk activity that I can't figure out what the heck it is.