KDE GUI Weirdness

[GnuSense]

I'm having a few seemingly Ultimate Edition-related issues with KDE. Here are some of them in no particular order.

I like having a slide show of wallpapers, messing with the Desktop Settings Plasma Workspace allows me to select a custom folder and a slide show of wallpapers. But it seems to reset itself back to a single Ethais image on a regular basis, particularly if I mess around with widget settings. I've never run in to this before.

Also, there was a Desktop Switcher button on my panel initially, but it only had a single desktop represented despite my having selected 4 virtual desktops. I removed the widget, now I can't seem to get it back, not that I miss it (what's the point of a Desktop widget that only lets you select a single desktop?) I can switch between desktops by using my mouse wheel on a black bit of the desktop. What is even more annoying, I was messing around with my Task Manager bar on the panel, trying to disable Grouping of icons and my Taskbar disappeared. It is ALSO not in my widget list. I installed a bunch of extra widgets and plasma packages but it still hasn't reappeared. I am now using a "Smooth Task Settings" widget on the panel and supplementing it with AWN, but I'd really like the regular KDE4 task manager back.

The last thing I'll whine about now is the amarok, the menu area is relentlessly black with hard-to-read white lettering, I can't figure out how to change it. I've changed most other aspects of the far-to-dark-for-my-old-eyes settings in Gnome, XFCE & KDE, but that one seems resistant to my efforts.

I have to say, the predominate "darkness" of Ultimate Edition's GUI settings is the most off-putting aspect of the releases, it is convenient to have all the extra packages and desktops installed at once, but it just about out-weighed to me by having to wrestle all the desktop settings back to some modicum of usability for my sensibilities. I still have to muck with Ultimate Edition's defaults occasionally, even on my Hardy-based desktop after 2 years of use. For me light-colored panels and menus with black lettering is FAR easier to see. It would great is during installation or later you could just press a button and get more standard default settings instead of having to hunt and peck for every damn setting. This dark stuff is simply not everyone's cup of tea.
Thanks for the efforts.

[GnuSense]

Yup, every time I log in again the wallpaper gets set to the default and my desktop widgets disappear. I wonder where this bug comes from? It isn't a problem in standard Lucid, I've installed the kubuntu desktop on fresh Ubuntu installs and never seen this before.

And I can't get KDE's GUI to offer me a shutdown option, only logout. I've seen that before with Gnome when KDM was the default, but never with KDE with GDM is selected. Personally, I think it is ridiculous that both desktop environments can't get it together to offer you /sbin/halt through the GUI regardless of the display manager.

I know the Ultimate Edition team are not KDE users, but a little less "polish" on KDE would be appreciated, the standard kubuntu configurations may not be great, but they don't get in you way as much as this.

[GnuSense]

Alright, dpkg-reconfigure kdm and selecting KDM as the display manager cleared up some of the funkiness. At least my wallpaper slide show and desktop widgets are restored to my desktop after a log out. And I can select shutdown from the menu, though there still isn't a panel widget.

[Jeahavee]

Glad to know it's not just me LOL. All the times KDE was on Ultimate Edition from 2.3-2.7 I've messed with KDE and messed something up somehow. I learned 2 things about the Desktop:

One there are many (Ctrl and scroll back on the mouse). So that's why sometimes when you get on KDE it'll have a different wallpaper and the Slideshow won't be on.

Two Don't touch the taskbar where you don't want it to be touched. It's so easy to just press the wrong button and have something you can't recall or find or name disappear .

I say this every time I use KDE "I won't mess it up this time I'll make it useable" I finally got it working okay this time.
For some reason I can only get 4 desktops going (that I can easily switch between). I was unable to get the box effect to happen this time (6 desktops). Even when the desktop panel looks like "one screen" it'll still allow the 4 (that's how it worked out for me). (Have I helped at all?) loI I don't use Amarok (doesn't work with my media keys). how did you get it set up to shutdown from KDE. I only use it when I'm not on the 24" monitor and when I feel like it.

[Jeahavee]

I'll say one thing though. The darn weather widget is so slow.

And if I right click the wallpaper it take me to Gnome.