[Haifux] The 10th tip?

[guy keren]

1. another KDE tip (please verify it works in current KDE systems): 
there is a tool named 'klipper', which allows you to save the last 10 
(or more) copied entries. whenever you copy something, it gets pushed 
into klipper's window as well, and when you click on an entry in klipper 
- it gets copied again. this gets quite handy when writing programs.

   for gnome: there's a 'glipper' application. ubuntu 8.04 has it - just 
make sure you install it on the lab machines. to have it on the screen, 
right-click on the desktop panel, choose "add applet", and choose 
"clipboard manager". click on the new clipboard icon to see the list of 
historied "copy" operations and click on any of them to make it re-copied.

2. it will be a good idea to give a tip about virtual desktops. although 
they are "right there" on the task bar, many people don't know this, or 
simply don't think its useful because they are used to the single 
desktop on windows. i'm spending time at work to show people how to use 
virtual desktops effectively. two important things:

    1. chose a theme for each desktop (e.g. one to read email, one to 
surf the web, one to program, etc.).
    2. you can give the virtual desktop names that will appear on 
task-bars, instead of just numbers. chose short names (3-4 letters long) 
   such as "web", "mail", "prog" to avoid this feature taking too much 
taskbar space.
    3. be consistent in how you use the virtual desktop, and it'll pay 
you big time. no more need to iconify, de-iconify and flip through 
windows, or having a very squeezed and non-useful task bar.
    4. you can navigate between the virtual desktops both using the 
mouse (click) and using the keyboard (usually it's alt+arrow_key or 
alt+ctrl+arrow_key to move between them left and right, up and down - 
but the default might vary in KDE).

3. opening a system monitor applet on the desktop's panel, will help you 
identify cases when your progam has gone into an infinite loop easily 
(you'll see the CPU suddenly using 100% CPU when your program got stuck 
- that's a good sign). of-course, this will also happen when your web 
browser's flash plug-in works too hard in sites like ynet ;)

4. here is a strange KDE-specific tip copied from a web site at:
 
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Tips%20and%20Tricks&pagenum=26#You_can_Move_the_Mouse_with_Your_Keyboard

[ begin quote ]
You can Move the Mouse with Your Keyboard
You can configure KDE so you can move the mouse pointer with the arrow 
keys on your numeric keyboard. Just hit Alt-F12, use the arrow keys, and 
hit enter to click! The keyboard then returns to normal mode — hit 
alt-F12 again to move the mouse another time.

For permanent effects, navigate to KControl -> Peripherals -> Mouse -> 
Mouse Navigation Tab and click the "Move mouse with keyboard" box.
The default settings didn't work great for me--I use a maximum speed of 
110 and an acceleration time of 2000.

To fire a mouse click, press the "5" key on the numeric key pad, or "enter".
[ end quote ]

even if it is not going to be very useful - it may still make people laugh.

for gnome, you need to enable this via:
System->Preferences->Assistitive Technologies->Keyboard 
Accessibility->Mouse keys->Pointer can be controlled using keypad.

check the option, and configure its settings). then, the numeric keypad 
becomes your "mouse".

5. firefox has very nice add-ons. here is an example - an inline 
dictionary. install it from this URL:

       https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/302

      and after it is installed (and firefox restarted) you can select a 
word in firefox, right-click and choose 'lookup' from the context menu.

6. adding parametrized bookmarks and short-cutting them (copied from a 
user's comment on some blog page):

[ begin quote ]
Awesome article! Learned a few tricks here, to be sure. However, the 
feature that I find most useful about Firefox is the ability to not only 
use keywords to open particular bookmarks (see #5 above) but to 
parametrize those keywords. This process allows you to create custom 
commandline-esque macros that you can execute from your addressbar. For 
instance, if I type “gi the pyramids” into my adddress bar, I’m taken to 
the google image search page with a bunch of pictures of the pyramids in 
egypt, as if I had entered “the pyramids” into the search box on the 
site. The process is as follows:

1) Bookmark a site. Typically, you’ll want to search for something on 
the site and bookmark that search page. 
(http://images.google.com/images?q=the%20pyramids)
2) Edit the properties of the bookmark (right-click).
3) Put your desired keyword in the keyword field (gi). [editor: you may 
need to click on 'more' to see the keyboard field]
4) In the location field, find the keyword that you searched for and 
replace it with “%s”. (http://images.google.com/images?q=%s)
5) Save the bookmark and test it out. Type “gi hoover dam” into the 
address bar. Then repeat for all of your favorite sites. w00t!
[ end quote ]


--guy


Yossi Gil wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 8:09 AM, Dave Roi <davidroi at gmail.com 
> <mailto:davidroi at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  > I agree with you, but then you give a double standard.
>  > It's OK for them to have "silk gloves" when they use Windows but it's 
> not OK when they use Linux.
> 
> OK... I see your point. The tough question is how to put the silk gloves 
> on, given that (a) Gnome is quite intuitive - I see very few GUI tips to 
> throw in (b) KDE is very sexy (c) KDE on Ubuntu is not good enough yet 
> and (d) the rest of the department uses Ubuntu/Gnome?
> 
> 
> I currently have only two GUI tips, I would live to have more, but that 
> what I have: I put these the top of the list, reading:
> 
> *י**"**א טיפים לעבודה בלינוקס*
> 
> 
> א. אמנם ניתן לעשות בלינוקס "העתק הדבק" כמו בחלונות, כלומר, סימון קטע, 
> הקשת CTRL-C, מעבר למקום החדש, והקשת CTRL-V. אבל, למה לעשות זאת, כשיש דרך 
> הרבה יותר מהירה: סמן את הקטע, עבור למקום החדש, והקלק על הכפתור האמצעי בעכבר.
> 
> 
> ב. אפקטים מיוחדים, מרהיבים ומרתקים ניתן למצוא בנתיב התפריט הבא:
> 
> 
> Systems / Preferences / CompizConfig Settings Manager
> 
> 
> לא נגלה לכם מה אפשר למצוא שם, אבל נזהיר אתכם שמי שהמילה "מגניב" מדברת 
> אליו, עשוי לגלות שכל זמנו יגנב ממנו בעושר האפשריות אשר שם....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Haifux mailing list
> Haifux at haifux.org
> http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haifux