the main reason why I am using KDE (actually KDE 4.9.2-1) is that I need to turn my screen very often as I use a cheap modern high resolution monitor short in direction north - south in land maps and very large in direction west - east!

it is of course terrible bad in geographic applications...

the last KDE I did use a long time was the special implementation in a special version of Puppy Linux (KDE 4.2, later KDE 4.6)

it was possible to change and return the screen direction and repeat this operation (for example being working on a route along a river oriented north - south: oriented is relative to see: all rivers change sometime her direction and you will probably always prefer to work on this segment in the usual screen direction if possible.

in KDE 4.9.2-1 this don't work properly. it is possible to turn the screen one time, but difficult to return and about not possible to repeat the operation... the PC react slowly and doen't work properly any more after the first return!

next problem is that the point "screen orientation" (I suppose! I use KDE in French!) is in a sub-menu from "system settings". I did introduce it to my favorites in the KDE menu but it did not work. as my screen is not really orientable and the mouse react always as in the usual screen position (I would say it is a system error! excepted, perhaps, if the system did recognize, that my screen is not listed under the really turnable monitors! but also in such a case, I would hope the KDE system would ask me how the mouse has to react, because it is terrible difficult to position the cursor after that the screen did be turn! and the mouse cursor doesn't reappear immediately but you have to confirm within few seconds that you will accept the turn of screen!). I find that it is as important in cartography, geography and a lot of graphic applications, that it has to be a separate item in the menu (and the question concerning the mouse function has to be be taken in consideration!)...

kind regards

I'm not sure I fully understand your problem. Can you refer to the screen orientations in degrees so that's more clear what the problem is?
Do you want to switch the screen dynamically, or have a way to change the screen orientation?

Also, which distribution are you using? If you still have the older KRandR installed, then you can probably use "krandrtray" to get a convenience system tray icon to change the orientation or resolution of your screen.

Hi
oh, you are probably right!

how to build such a convenience system tray icon to change the orientation or resolution of screen?

I am using a French LFS derivate and I have krandrtray. man krandrtray answers no manual for it and using krandtray --help, no options propositions are coming:

Usage : krandrtray [options-Qt] [options-KDE] [options]

Applet système de la boîte à miniatures pour le redimensionnement et la rotation

Options génériques :
--help Afficher l'aide sur les options
--help-qt Afficher les options spécifiques à Qt
--help-kde Afficher les options spécifiques à KDE
--help-all Afficher toutes les options
--author Afficher les informations sur l'auteur
-v, --version Afficher les informations sur la version
--license Afficher les informations sur la licence
-- Fin des options

Options :
--login L'application est démarrée automatiquement au démarrage de KDE

All that is needed is to run "krandrtray", it will then background itself as a system tray icon. If you do not see it, then it is quite likely hidden. To reveal it, simply change the settings of your System Tray.

Hi
Looking for my old messages I see that I can give an useful way for user having possibly same problems: I did install over KDE the little window manager JWM with xli (to see a separate background picture to see in which environment I am working ). The look of KDE and JWM are really comparable. But JWM is a lot more fast (kubuntu offers now complete menus that you can easily complete yourself).

And you can use the usual xrandr in the terminal

xrandr -o normal (no change but now is that line in the buffer, so you only later have to hit «cursor up» to make, this line appears once again)
xrandr -o left
-process now your graphic app under 90 degres turned screen-
xrandr -o normal (only hit on «cursor up» in the opened terminal! )
-all apps are yet open and workable, you can continue your work in more comfortable kind-

operating in this kind, you don't need to answer some questions difficult to realize with an unwilling mouse, can work slowly and without stress !
good luck

I'd say you've a problem with OpenGL compositing (shift+alt+f12 to toggle compositing on and off) and the driver leaking memory or running into other trouble when altering the gl context size (as by the rotation)

In that case really any non-compositing WM (including KWin) or maybe even Xrender compositing would do.