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4. Working with Windows

If you have not already done so, start an application using the Application Starter, like "Find Files".

4.1 A window! What now?

Well, usually people work inside windows, but sometimes you may want to manipulate windows. Here's a quick overview of some of the most common window-related functions:

• Move a window: Drag the window's titlebar, or hold the Alt key down and drag anywhere in the window.

• Resize a window: Drag the window's border, or hold the Alt key down and drag with the right mouse button anywhere in the window.

• Maximize a window: Click the maximize button in the titlebar (the square next to the X) to make the window fill the screen, or to shrink the window back to its original size if maximized. Clicking with the middle mouse button maximizes the window vertically; the right button, horizontally.

• Iconify a window: Click the iconify button in the titlebar (next to Maximize) to hide the window. Get it back by clicking the window's icon in the taskbar.

• Switch between windows: Aside from the usual mouse click to switch to another window, you can use Alt-Tab to switch windows. See below for more techniques.

Titlebar buttons

KDE windows have some pretty standard buttons on their titlebars which give you fast access to some common operations. The default button layout looks like this:

On the left side:

• a menu button. This usually shows a mini icon for the application. Click on it to get a window operations menu.
  Shortcut: Alt-F3 opens the window menu.

• a sticky button, with a picture of a tack. What the heck is this? Stay tuned!

On the right side:

• an iconify button.
• a maximize button.
• a close button. This closes the window.
  Shortcut: Alt-F4.

Switching between windows

Now that we know how to deal with windows we encourage you to open some other windows with the panel since we will now discuss how to switch between different windows. Since this is such a common activity, KDE offers several ways to do it; pick your favorite!

Many window systems require you to click the mouse in another window to begin using it. This is KDE's default behavior, termed "ClickToFocus" focus policy. But you can also configure your desktop in a way that moving the mouse pointer onto a window will activate it. This is called FocusFollowMouse. If you select this policy using the KDE Control Panel, the window under the mouse pointer is always the active one. It doesn't necessarily come to the front automatically, but you can still click onto the titlebar or the border of a window or -- a KDE special -- you can use the Alt key and click the middle mouse button anywhere on the window to raise it.

Here are some other methods to switch windows:

• Pick a window from the window list menu. To open the menu, click the middle mouse button on an empty area of the desktop; click the icon with several windows on the panel; or press Ctrl-Esc.

• Hold down the Alt key and press Tab to cycle through the windows.

• Use the taskbar (see below).

4.2 Using the Taskbar

The taskbar displays a list of small icons, one for each window on the desktop. In the default KDE setup the taskbar is located in the top left corner, but it can also be located at the top or the bottom of the screen.

The taskbar is very powerful: A simple click with the left mouse button on the appropriate taskbar button will bring you to the selected application immediately. Click an entry with the middle mouse button to iconify/deiconify a window. Last but not least, the right mouse button will pop up a context menu, with window operations for the selected window.

4.3 Using Virtual Desktops

Now, what was that "sticky" thing?

It may happen that you have more windows open than space on your desktop. In this case you have three possibilities:

1. Leave all windows open (cluttered desktop)
2. Iconify those windows which you do not need at present and use the taskbar or Alt-Tab to switch between them (still a bit confusing and much work!)
3. Recommended: Do what a real operating system does if there is not enough physical memory: Use virtual memory, in this case virtual desktops.

Item 3 is the way to go! KDE can handle several different desktops, each with its own windows. The default configuration provides four desktops. You can switch between the virtual desktops easily with a click on one of the desktop buttons on the panel. Also Ctrl-F1...F8 will send you to the corresponding desktop immediately, or Ctrl-Tab will cycle through the desktops. Finally, if you move the mouse to a corner of the screen and hold it there briefly, KDE will switch to the desktop in the direction you indicated.

Virtual desktops are very nice. But sometimes you want a window to be present on every desktop. This could be for example a small chat window or a alarm clock or whatever. In this case you can use the above mentioned "sticky"-button which will pin the window on the background so that it will appear on every virtual desktop.

The sticky button can also be used to move a window from one virtual desktop to another one: push the sticky pin on the window, switch to a different desktop, and release the pin by pushing it again. But it is easier if you use the context popup menu of the window's entry in the taskbar (menu item "Onto current desktop") or the "Send to" option on the window operations menu.

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