# The &tde; (Trinity Desktop Environment) User Guide

&tde-authors;
2004-2005 The &kde; Team
&tde-copyright-date; &tde-team;
&FDLNotice;
&tde-release-date;
&tde-release-version;

A general user guide to the Trinity Desktop Environment.

Please report problems with this document to devels@trinitydesktop.org.

KDE TDE desktop handbook tutorial

## Introduction

### Welcome to the &tde; User Guide

This User Guide provides an overview of &tde;. Use this guide after installing &tde; and accompanying packages. This guide should be a first point of reference for basic &tde; configuration questions, or to learn to perform common tasks.

#### What this guide aims to be

The first place to look and a one-stop location for questions regarding &tde;.

A quick guide to commonly performed tasks. In most cases, learning basic functions does not require configuring every option in an application. Provided in this guide is information that works for most common situations, along with links to sources of further information.

There are also some tips and tricks showing useful features of &tde; and ways to save time and effort.

#### What this book is not

This guide is not intended to replace the individual application handbook help manuals. Use the appropriate handbook to help with specific program configuration and troubleshooting issues not covered in this guide. Where to find additional information is provided when answers are outside the scope of this guide.

Several applications provided outside the main &tde; suite are mentioned in this guide, but mostly this guide covers only the applications provided as part of the main suite.

The user guide is not specific to a distribution and covers a default &tde; installation. Local installations might be customized by distribution providers, or end-users. Therefore advice provided in this guide is generic. For example, file paths used to run files might be different than described in this guide.

#### Conventions used in this book

The following formatting conventions are used:

Type of Text | Style | Example
--- | --- | ---
Text appearing in the &GUI; (on buttons, &etc;) | Light gray background | Settings
Names of keys | Bold font | &Ctrl;
Menu entries | Menu Name->Menu Item | File Quit
Key combinations (pressed simultaneously) | Modifier Key+Action Key | &Ctrl;Q
Text you should enter | Bold, fixed width font | `ls -al tde/`
Text you should replace as appropriate | Italic green font | user

Mouse buttons often are referred to as the left mouse button and right mouse button. Traditionally, the left mouse button is used the primary button to select items and the right mouse button is used as the secondary button to open popup context menus. Within that context, terms such as "left-click" and "right-click" have become common. Unfortunately, that terminology describes the buttons from a right-handed perspective. For people using a mouse configured for left-handed use, the roles of the buttons are reversed. That is, the right mouse button becomes the primary button and the left mouse button becomes the secondary button. To avoid confusion in this guide, that traditional terminology will be used as little as possible. Although this guide is revised periodically, those traditional terms might still be used.

#### System Locations

The following system location information might be useful:

&tde; prefix

  &tde; installs into its own folder tree, which is found by running the command ``tde-config` `--prefix``. This folder is referred to by the environment variable $`TDEDIR` and possibly $`TDEDIRS`.

&tde; user-specific settings

  The environment variable $`TDEHOME` points to the folder where &tde; should find user-specific settings. The default location is `$HOME/.trinity`.

#### Overview, or Where to look in the User Guide

Here's an overview of what's in the User Guide:

contains an introduction to the basic use of &tde;, such as , and the tools used in all &tde; applications, like . Those users new to &tde; or computers in general, will find this section helpful.

explains some important components of a &tde; installation and how they fit together. &tde;'s multimedia and networking capabilities are extensive and not covered thoroughly here, but there's a taster of both of them in this part of the User Guide. At the end of this part are suggestions for tweaking &tde; in .

highlights &tde;'s suite of Internet applications. &tde; includes a powerful web browser, &konqueror;, a full-featured email client, &kmail;, a news reader, &knode;, and many more applications to use the Internet. This part of the User Guide contains information about configuring these applications.

## The Desktop

### The Basics

The desktop is the name for the layout of the screen when starting &tde;. The desktop might look slightly different, but the main features should be the same as the following image.

Desktop
A default desktop layout

Let us look at the most important parts:

- Most of the screen is occupied by the background. With some distributions, there might be a picture for the background. This picture is referred to as the wallpaper, and can be changed by every user.

  Background
  Wallpaper

- In the left-hand side are two icons: Trash and Home. Selecting these will open the `Trash` folder and Home folder, respectively. Add more icons to the desktop as desired to open favorite programs, or access removable media.

- At the bottom is the &tde; Panel, also known as &kicker;. The Panel contains several useful ways of interacting with &tde;. The Panel houses the &kmenu; button, from where any &tde; application can be started. The Panel can be configured to show all the programs that are running, as well as the date and time, and more. Read for more information about the &tde; Panel.

  Panel

#### Logging In and Logging Out

There are two ways to log into &tde;: graphically and via the command line.

##### Logging in Graphically

A screen similar to the one shown below means the computer is ready for logging in graphically.

A typical TDM display

Enter a username in the Username text box and password in the Password text box. The password will not be shown while typing, instead displaying as asterisks or dots. When finished, select the Login button, or press the Enter key, and &tde; will start. A &tde; splash image will appear, and provide &tde; startup information. When done &tde; will be ready to use.

login
&tdm;

##### Logging in at the Command Line

For those preferring the command line, log in to &tde; with the `startx` command. If necessary then in the system or user `.xinitrc` file, add the line `exec starttde`. &tde; should start the same way as when logging in graphically.

starttde
startx

##### Logging Out

When finished using &tde; for the moment, then log out until next time. The easiest way to do this is to select the &kmenu; button at the bottom left of the screen, and then select the Log Out... item.

Related Information

- The &tdm; Handbook has information about using and configuring the &tde; graphical login manager. Read more in &khelpcenter; or by entering `help:/tdm` in &konqueror;'s Location bar.

logout
&getting-help; &windows-how-to; &the-filemanager;
&panel-and-desktop; &programs-and-documents;

## &tde; Components

&control-center; &base-tde-applications; &extragear-applications;

### Multimedia With &tde;

&removable-disks; &playing-music; &playing-audiocds; &playing-movies;

### &tde; the Multiuser Desktop

&your-tde-account; &tde-as-root; &switching-sessions;

### Networking with &tde;

&file-sharing; &networking-with-windows; &shared-sessions;

### Graphics, Printing, and Fonts

&printer-setup; &printing-from-apps; &pdf-files; &font-installation; &creating-graphics;
&customizing-desktop; &konsole-intro; &tde-edutainment; &accessibility; &under-the-hood;

## &tde; and the Internet

&net-connection-setup; &email;

### &konqueror;

Intro to the browser

&internet-shortcuts; &browser-fine-tuning;
&usenet; &messaging-intro;
&tde-office;

## More Tools

&migrator-applications; &migrator-dictionary; &standard-menu-entries; &glossary;

### Troubleshooting Problems

Problems that aren't

Frozen apps (how to kill them)

Things won't open

That scary crash dialog

Reporting Bugs

More Resources

&troubleshooting-network-x; &troubleshooting-no-open;

### Contributing to &tde;

Some basic information to get encourage people to contribute to &tde;, information about what's available, and how to get started.

## Credits and Licenses

&credits-and-license;

### License

&underFDL;
&documentation.index;