The Plasma desktop does a lot of things right and just as many things wrong. For instance, if you’re coming from Windows you will find the default desktop quite familiar. Yet, trivial tasks such as changing the wallpaper can prove to be daunting tasks, not that they are. Regarding desktop icons, the Plasma desktop does things quite right, compared to Windows or other Linux desktop environments.
The settings are easier to change and access and the location makes sense too. On Windows, to do something as simple as select which icons to show or not show on the desktop, you have to dive into the settings. With the KDE Plasma desktop, you can enable, align, and disable icons more easily. All you need to do to configure the KDE Plasma desktop is right-click and select Configure Desktop.
KDE Plasma Desktop Wallpaper
This is the first tab that the Folder View Settings window opens into. Contrary to the name, you can change more than just the wallpaper. The Layout decides whether you will have icons on the desktop at all or not. The default is set to Folder View where your desktop is simply a folder in your home directory named, Desktop. This is how it usually is on Windows or any other desktop environment.
If you select the Desktop View, the desktop will be a nice empty area to show off your wallpaper. You can continue to have files and folders inside the Desktop folder in your home directory. However, none of that will be visible on the desktop, and you can not use the desktop to paste files into the said folder either.
In Wallpaper Type, you have several options to select the image of your choice. If you’re wondering, Haenau and Hunyango are two built-in QML wallpapers. Think of them as live wallpapers, however, they don’t do much other than change colors over time. Moreover, you can try our customization tips to make your KDE Plasma Desktop look like macOS.
Mouse Actions
Windows 10 may be gearing towards a touch-based interface but when it comes to gestures, Plasma takes the cake. It doesn’t support touch gestures, but it does support mouse gestures. With a simple flick on the scroll wheel, you can switch between virtual desktops. This can make your workflow super smooth.
For each mouse action, you can set one of six functions: Switch Desktop, Paste, Switch Window, Standard Menu, Application Launcher, and Switch Activity. The right-click is set to Standard Menu by default, this is the menu you get when you right-click on the desktop. To change the contents of this menu you can click on the gear icon next to it.
Location
If you have enabled Folder View your desktop shows the contents of the Desktop folder in your home directory. However, you can change it to show the contents of your home directory instead. It also lets you select any other folder you may need constant access.
KDE Plasma Desktop Icons
Here, you can select whether the icons on the desktop, whichever folder you’ve chosen to show, appear horizontally (row) or vertically (column). By default, it is set to the column since most desktops align icons in vertical columns. You can also choose whether the icons should be aligned from left to right or right to left.
Most of these settings, including the ones mentioned and those like icon sizes and sorting can be changed in the Standard Menu with a right-click. What’s interesting here is the Features section at the bottom. If you click on More Preview options… you can set which type of files will be shown as thumbnails. I shortlisted some of the best icon themes for Linux that you must give a shot at.
Applying Filter on KDE Plasma
This feature lets you filter which files are shown (or not shown) on the desktop. You can filter files by name, type, or a combination of the two.
Folder View Tweaks on KDE Plasma Desktop
If you’ve used the Plasma desktop even for ten minutes you can understand how annoying that silly “Toolbox” can get hovering around on a desktop edge for no reason at all. It is nothing but a glorified right-click desktop menu. The Tweaks section is where you can get rid of it for good.
It’s time to wind up my tips to configure the KDE Plasma Desktop by applying wallpapers, changing icons, setting up mouse actions and locations, etc.
