Konsole Usage Survey

Robert Knight, lead maintainer of Konsole has launched a Konsole Usage Survey. 28 questions are waiting for your answers. Use this chance to give useful feedback about a vital and often-used base application of KDE to enable Robert to make Konsole the best console application for KDE 4.

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Comments

by superstoned (not verified)

Good point. Dolphin can be easy and for newbies, as there is konqi for those advanced users...

by Sebastian (not verified)

Well YaKuake is a nice app, but the built-in terminal in Konqui and Dolphin would automatically switch to the cuurent directory and YaKuake wouldn't.

by Cypher (not verified)

I much prefer Yakuake with it's docking ability. When I really need an independant console, I use urxvt because it's lightweight compared to Konsole. And at least, the fake transparency works with this one, and I can get a completely transparent window, no grey widgets everywhere. I've never managed to get the fake transparency working since KDE 3.4. When I choose a transparent theme, it gets completely black or white (I use Kubuntu).

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

yakuake is konsole. =) it just embeds it in a self-managed window that "slides" in and out of the "side" of the screen.

p.s. transparent konsole works just fine here on kubuntu =)

by benk (not verified)

Yes, that is why you get the horrible configuration context menu.

by Vide (not verified)

What about shipping Yakuake by default binded to some function keys? it would be a killer feature if you need to do remote help desk "press F9 and type ifconfig, and tell me what it says"

by Mathias (not verified)

and the answer would be "it says 'command not found' because i'm not root."

i get your point, though.

by KDE Troll (not verified)

Um, no. It says command not found because the command is not found. Put it in your path or use the full path name.

by Greg (not verified)

In kubuntu /sbin/ifconfig is in the users path.

by some1 (not verified)

Fake transparency works when I'm in a KDE session but not when i use Fluxbox.

P.S. Great work on Konsole and the survey.

by superstoned (not verified)

the fake transparency needs the background to know what to fake ;-)

It just doesn't know how to ask fluxbox for the background, I guess.

by Vlad (not verified)

What I really would like to have is a docking Dolphin. Then, no matter in which desktop you are working and no matter how many windows are open, you press F11 (or any other key) and a file management program pops up. This would be much easier than first closing all windows and pressing that "Home" icon on the desktop or selecting "Home" in the System menu on the kicker. Also it would avoid to have to search the file manager in your Alt-Tab list or on the taskbar when it loses the focus: whenever you want the file manager back in front, just press F11.

by Shelton (not verified)

one of the first apps that I always have open is Konsole - its simply powerful!!

by Jason Stubbs (not verified)

I'm hoping that there is some config option for this that I've just missed, but I think parsing and making URL-like text clickable would be a great addition. Manually selecting the URL and using Klipper's popup to open is not too much hassle but is not exactly easy either... Hmm.. Wondering about word-based selection (rather than character-based selection) I just found that double clicking on a URL will select it. With my setting of Klipper to "ignore selections", I still need to manually copy it though...

by superstoned (not verified)

This features is asked for so much, I can hardly believe they won't implement it for KDE 4 ;-)

by Mattz0r (not verified)

Yeah, I remember frustration at submitting a feature request to bugs.kde.org for this feature, the responce was: 'use actions in klipper'
I'm not a big fan of actions in klipper, I just want links I can click ;-)

by anonymous (not verified)

But I prefer urxvt with screen.

urxvt starts _really_ fast. And it does have real transparency too ;)

by Flow (not verified)

When I fill out the survey, there is a language-mix (German, English). Is this testing my intelligence ;) ?

by Arne Babenhause... (not verified)

Are you german, and is your browser set to german?

Maybe it was translated automatically.

by Robert Knight (not verified)

Odd. I wrote the survey entirely in English, perhaps the library I am using translates some of the text depending on the locale of the visiting browser.

Just out of interest - what text shows up in German?

by Allan Sandfeld (not verified)

The word konsole ;)

by Flow (not verified)

The Answer Categories Yes/No are Ja/Nein.

And Yes - I am german, so probabaly the browser is identified as such...

Which Script are You using for this survey?

by toth (not verified)

I have to administer a lot of unix/linux systems daily. Konsole is very suitable for this task and simply the best console program what I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!

by Thomas Jansson (not verified)

I use yakuake and that is the killer app for me in KDE. I uses konsoles settings and I guess inherits Konsoles features. Love it! :D

by olahaye74 (not verified)

Realy professional way to do things! When I saw this survey, I' filled it immediately!

Realy great application and great way to recieve feedback from people around the world.

Far better initiative than doing "koffeshop" surveys! ;-)

Olivier.

by logixoul (not verified)

That was really usability testing, not surveying ;)
Both have their use.

by Sebastian Kügler (not verified)

I think it's hard to get a meaningful sample of commandline users in the average coffeeshop :-)

But yeah, konsole is certainly a killer application -- and it looks like it'll be improved even.

by Gr8teful-1 (not verified)

Hi, I already answered the survey and concluded I didn't quite profit from all Konsole features. On a second thought, something can be done about it and thus I'm here to suggest it.

Why I don't use tabs? Because they don't call my attention! Make them stand out, make them easy to create -- maybe another toolbar with session icons would help, who knows? Maybe special mouse usage like clicking on an empty place on the tab-bar would lead to some action...

In other words, make Konsole more like Konqueror and/or other browsers, i.e., maybe (customizable) icons suck less than menu/submenu/subsubmenu options...

Also, you can further integrate Konsole and Konqueror. Instead of just Konqueror starting Konsole, there could be a session with a Konqueror-file manager embedded, e.g., for easier file selection/visualization... plus, if one could view two sessions at once it would be possible to drag visual objects to the command-line for further use (much like pasting from Windows Explorer to a DOS window...)

Anyway, thanks (really), keep up the good work and I also wish you continued success!

Gr8teful

PS: Just my personal opinions above, not someone else's.

by superstoned (not verified)

Wow, yes, having konsole as a kpart in konqueror, love the idea! Would be very very usefull... And indeed, clicking the empty space in the tab-bar should create a new one.

by cmiramon (not verified)

A nice feature in Konsole would be to have the possibility to have a dynamic contextual help window next to the Konsole.

When I type 'ls' in my Konsole, all the different options for 'ls' would appear magically in the contextual help window. Something like 'man' on steroids. Long time ago, there was something similar on Dos but more crude calledn if I remember right ni, one of the first Norton programs

by Robert Knight (not verified)

> When I type 'ls' in my Konsole, all the different options
> for 'ls' would appear magically in the contextual help window

The fish ( friendly interactive ) shell provides much better contextual help than bash does.

eg. In fish, type "ls --" then press the Tab key and a list of possible options is shown alongside brief explanations.

The bash equivalent lists the options but without explanations.

by cmiramon (not verified)

Thanks, I've installed fish and I'm playing with it.

It looks very nice and I'll give it a try.

I'm still wondering if some ideas of fish could not be adapted for a graphical shell where we can have contextual windows.

by Artem S. Tashkinov (not verified)

Please enter any other comments you have about changing Konsole settings ( including creating new color schemes or sessions ).

I would like only these setting to be changed:
* default tabs position: up
* don't hide the tabs bar if the only tab is shown
* default colour scheme: Linux colors
* default and _supplied_ with kdebase font: Terminus and Andale Mono

Please enter any other comments you have about Konsole which you would like the developers to read.

* I'm missing much such Gnome console functionality: You can scroll back the history and then copy paste some contents without falling back to the active screen. Right now if you paste something from behind the screen then Konsole will force you back to the main screen.

by lqtys (not verified)

Please, work on real transparency support. Fake transparency is _slow_

I'm currently using a patched Konsole with Beryl support that does real transparency and it is FAST :)

by David (not verified)

Thanks for the opportunity of saying that I don't use the console at all, and I would be happy if it were removed from KDE.

I have missed the question: "how much do you hate typing commands?"

I hope you can include it the next time.

Many thanks.

by djouallah mimoune (not verified)

i can't agree more

by MamiyaOtaru (not verified)

Perhaps Linux is not for you. Seriously.

Not to want to ahve to type commands is one thing (if pie in the sky) but to wish for Konsole to be removed from KDE so no one can? I think you want Linux to be something it isn't, and you'll be a lot less frustrated when you realize it will never be, not entirely anyway.

by Skoot (not verified)

Just type:
rm $(which konsole)
in your konsole window. :-)

by Velvet Elvis (not verified)

run irssi and mutt?

by whatever noticed (not verified)

>>I have missed the question: "how much do you hate typing commands?"

That should be placed in another survey :)
This one is about when you do need to type commands, if konsole does the job well enough for you...

by slacker (not verified)

Well, some people (like myself) hate having to go through all those menus, dialogs, buttons and options, if the work could be done with a simple command. That's why my kicker doesn't contain a K menu or any app buttons. It's faster and more convenient to simply Alt+F2 and type the command... I don't use konqueror, also. Shell is faster for file management.

by Spank Me (not verified)

Well said. Because everything is all about you, and if there is something you don't need, it should be removed.

by shevegen (not verified)

Konsole is by far my favourite application of KDE. :)

I use it basically to do everything (until i have to start sth like
openoffice or gimp or similar, but i start everything from a konsole tab)

Personally I love konsole, but if things could be made possible:

- I would like something like quadkonsole BUT in a konsole tab.

I heard this would maybe be possible in KDE4 so I hope that it
might become true (I'd use one tab to have a htop on the left
pane and use the right pane to kill modify etc.. running processes)

Anybody else dreaming of a native win32 konsole running the windows power shell as well as cygwin based shells?
This would make my life easier...

Would be nice.

by nin (not verified)

Thanks to all the people who have developed Konsole (and Kvt) over the time.

My desktop consists of a fullscreen Konsole window on the foreground most of the time, and in the background Amarok, Kmail, Konqueror and possibly other Konsole window on another virtual desktop wich I may be using for some different work.

I've prefered Konsole over xterm since KDE 2 (tabs). Now it's really nice to have a konsole window on a virtual desktop where you run networked uml instances, set tab titles and rearrange tabs according to current needs with just some quick keystrokes. Konsole was a central part of my "network lab" on a previous job.

And now I have konsole starting fullscreen on login to KDE on my home computer, because I know it will be the window I will be mostly using :)

And all that even when having the wonderful KDE minicli (ALT+F2) handy.

So: Thanks, thanks, thanks.

P.S. You know you use Konsole too much when you press Alt+UpArrow to scroll up one line on the linux console every time you use it.