I am trying to add a directory to KDEDIRS.
I tried setting in /etc/kde4rc by editing this line
[Directories-default]
prefixes=/usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/

I changed it to prefixes=/usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/:/home/me/dev/plasmoids/

But this did not work ,but changing to prefixes=/home/me/dev/plasmoids/ worked

How can I just append to the prefixes. Please help

Edit ~/.bashrc
Add the following line, adjusting as needed.

Code: Select all

export KDEDIRS=$KDEDIRS:/home/me/dev/plasmoids

bcooksley wrote:Edit ~/.bashrc
Add the following line, adjusting as needed.

Code: Select all

export KDEDIRS=$KDEDIRS:/home/me/dev/plasmoids

I tried that but then after I logged in and checked KDEDIRS in env it showed only home/me/dev/plasmoids and login took a lot of time and some of my settings were gone like gtk apps font, plasma bar height.

Correct, bashrc doesn't work for the non-interactive shell which is running startkde.

Generally, shell config/profile files only apply to that very shell, not to anyother, e.g. the generic /bin/sh link.

Therefore it is better to use the system's/distribution's way of setting the global environment, e.g. PAM, /etc/environment

For KDE you have the additional option of using KDE's environment extender mechanism, i.e. files (ending in .sh, don't need to be executable) put into an "env" subdirectory in any KDE directory, e.g. $KDEHOME/env

Example: adding a KDE prefix for just one user

Code: Select all

export KDEDIRS=/home/me/dev/plasmoids:$KDEDIRS


and put it into $KDEHOME/env, e.g. $HOME/.kde/env

Cheers,
_

anda_skoa wrote:Correct, bashrc doesn't work for the non-interactive shell which is running startkde.

Generally, shell config/profile files only apply to that very shell, not to anyother, e.g. the generic /bin/sh link.

Therefore it is better to use the system's/distribution's way of setting the global environment, e.g. PAM, /etc/environment

For KDE you have the additional option of using KDE's environment extender mechanism, i.e. files (ending in .sh, don't need to be executable) put into an "env" subdirectory in any KDE directory, e.g. $KDEHOME/env

Example: adding a KDE prefix for just one user

Code: Select all

export KDEDIRS=/home/me/dev/plasmoids:$KDEDIRS


and put it into $KDEHOME/env, e.g. $HOME/.kde/env

Cheers,
_

Thanks that did the trick.

FWIW you can add it to .bash_profile which gets executed when you login.

.bashrc is only executed when you start e.g. konsole, IIRC.

I noticed one thing.

env | grep -i kdedir
KDEDIRS=/home/jithine/dev/plasmoids:/usr/local:

This means that the initial value of KDEDIRS is empty. So am I doing the right thing by running

export KDEDIRS=/home/jithine/dev/plasmoids:/usr/local:$KDEDIRS

How do I get the original KDEDIRS value.

kde4-config --prefix will tell you it.
It's a pity most distributions do not set the variable up correctly.

bcooksley wrote:kde4-config --prefix

I am a little bit confused.
kde4-config --prefix says /usr . But my env says $KDEDIRS is /home/jithine/dev/plasmoids:/usr/local:

How does these things fit into? I can see that my plasmoid in /home/jithine/dev/plasmoids is loaded.
So is KDEDIRS supposed to contain /usr (from kde4-config --prefix) or are they two entirely different parameters?

The initial value of KDEDIRS is empty, although it should contain /usr.
If you follow the method provided by anda_skoa above, then the value will likely be set ( since KDE sets it up )

bcooksley wrote:The initial value of KDEDIRS is empty, although it should contain /usr.
If you follow the method provided by anda_skoa above, then the value will likely be set ( since KDE sets it up )

I did it that way only putting in .kde/env . But KDEDIRS does not contain /usr

When you set KDEDIRS, simply add /usr to it also in that case. I do not know why that happens.

The original $KDEDIRS is empty because it defaults to installation prefix anyway.

Or rather KDE will always search the installation prefix, independent on whether it is in KDEDIRS. You can put it in KDEDIRS if you want to have it searched at a specific level, i.e. not as the last possible option.

Cheers,
_