Kubuntu Customizations
Jul 16, 2021 ― Michael Markl
A collection of my Kubuntu and KDE customizations to get the best working experience. These are only based on my personal preference.
This collection will grow over time and will be updated every time I see myself adjusting Kubuntu.
Delay of Tooltips
I usually have my Task Bar pinned to the left of my screen.
Hence, I always use the icons-only mode.
When I have multiple windows of the same applications opened at the same time, they get grouped into one icon.
To select one specific window of the application, I hover over the application icon, wait for the previews (aka. toolbar) to open and click on the desired window. That waiting time is way too long for me (~1s). Usually, I shorten this waiting time to 200ms by applying
kwriteconfig5 --file ~/.config/plasmarc --group PlasmaToolTips --key Delay 200
If you want to make it even more instant, use 1 instead of 200.
Note, that setting 0 turns off the tooltips altogether, so a positive value is required.
This tip was given on reddit.com by the reddit user Zren.
Make Signal Desktop use the System Tray Icon
To make Signal Desktop use the system tray icon, edit the file /usr/share/applications/signal-desktop.desktop:
Add the option --use-tray-icon in the line starting with Exec=.
In my case, the updated line has the following content:
Exec=/opt/Signal/signal-desktop --use-tray-icon ---no-sandbox %U
This trick was described on askubuntu.com.
Disable Ctrl+Alt+L shortcut for locking screen.
Locking your screen is one of the most frequent actions I take, and having a reasonable shortcut for that is super helpful. In my opinion, Win+L is a better shortcut for locking your screen than the default Ctrl+Alt+L. It is the default on most systems I usually use. Additionally, Ctrl+Alt+L is often the default for the “Format Document” command; locking the screen while you actually wanted to format the document is a major annoyance. You can adjust this shortcut under the “ksmserver” module using the “Global Shortcuts” settings.