Wrong number of desktops on the K panel?

[Quaxo76]

On my panel, there have always been 4 "desktop icons", numbered 1 to 4. I have never had, till now, the need for more than 2; so I was surprised when today I tried to click on Desktop 3 and realized that no.3 is actually no.1. And no.4 is no. 2.
I checked on "Configure Desktops" and only 2 Desktops were set up there. I increased the number to 4, and guess what? 8 icons appeared on the panel, numbered 1 to 8, cluttering my panel. How can I fix this? I would like to have 4 desktops, but with just the 4 icons I have now on the panel!

Thanks
Cristian

[cantodea]

Are you running Compizfusion?

[Quaxo76]

I'm running Compiz, I don't know if it's fusion...

[Fintan]

This well documented behavior in compiz-fusion. The good old search function will bring up a few posts. This may be of help:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3087737.0

[dibl]

With compiz, you've three problems going on at once.

1. You need to set your KDE "number of desktops" configuration to 1, versus the default 2.

2. In KMenu>Settings>Advanced Desktop yada yada> General Options, you need to set the number of horizontal desktops to 4, but leave the other two set at 1.

3. The kicker will only show one big icon, due to a bug. So the last thing is to open the console and enter
dcop kicker default restart and you should be back to the 4 icons that you would like to see. ;)

[Quaxo76]

dibl,
the procedure you suggested is working, but there's a problem.
After the


dcop kicker default restart

command, I loose all the icons for my open apps (Amarok, Knotes, Kmix, Knetworkmanager), and I can't access them anymore.
So I either get the correct 4 desktop icons, OR the icons for my apps (which I honestly need more than the desktop icons).
Isn't there a way to have both?

Thanks
Cristian

[dibl]

Wow, I just tried it, and you are right -- I had not noticed that! Hmmmm, so I guess we have here is a "half-solution".

The other thing I just noticed is, I'm sure the 4 desktops were showing when I left my house for the office 12 hours ago, but upon waking up my system, it was back to a "uni-desktop". So I'm guessing when the display systems goes to sleep, the kicker setting goes away too.

Sorry -- I guess we're stuck with sequencing (a) get the 4 desktops showing, then (b) open our apps, and enjoy it until the next time it goes to sleep, then you can start over.

::)

[Quaxo76]

Hmmm... That's disappointing, sort of... Is there any chance that the panel Pager will be fixed, to avoid these hacks?
In the meantime, I tried "Desktop Preview and Pager - Compiz" as a panel Pager, and it "sort of" works, but shows all 4 desktops inline, instead of 2 per row...

Cristian

[dibl]

Hmmm... That's disappointing, sort of... Is there any chance that the panel Pager will be fixed, to avoid these hacks?



Compiz is still very "developmental", although it seems to be making good progress. I'm sure their primary target among the Debian distros is Ubuntu (GDM), not Kubuntu (KDE), so probably our little kicker issue is not on top of their priority list. ::)

However, it's under very active development, so YES, I expect it be fixed "one of these days". :D