Linux Desktop Hacks

Start Applications in Weird and Wonderful Ways #38

Chapter 5, KDE Desktop

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125

HACK

Starting Programs in KDE

An interesting facility in KDE is a tool called kstart. This simple command-

line program is used to customize how programs start and display on your

screen. kstart provides several options that enable you to choose which vir-

tual desktop it appears on, if it starts as a maximized/minimized window, if

it has focus and other uses.

As kstart is a command-line tool, you can experiment with it from a com-

mand-line terminal, such as a konsole, xterm, or gnome terminal. To use

kstart, specify the options that determine how the application is started, and

then specify the program name.

To begin with, you can experiment with how you can start applications on

different virtual desktops. As an example, if you wanted to start Konqueror

on virtual desktop 2, you could use this:

foo@bar:~$ kstart --desktop 2 konqueror

This command uses the --desktop option in kstart with the parameter 2 to

specify the virtual desktop on which to start the application. To make Kon-

queror start on all the virtual desktops (particularly useful for applications

that should be visible in all parts of the desktop), use the –

alldesktops

option:

foo@bar:~$ kstart --alldesktops konqueror

To extend this functionality a little further, combine the –-alldesktops

option and the –-ontop option to ensure that a specific application always ...