I did a search and found "Ctrl Alt D" listed several places as the keyboard shortcut to view the desktop. This didn't work. Is there a new keyboard shortcut in KDE 4.2?

Didn't know about that, but if you add the Show Desktop plasmoid to your taskbar, you can set hotkey for it. It's working for me.

What I was looking for is "Show Plasma Dashboard". KDE changes the concept of "Desktop" (which is a good thing imo, because the Desktop is really just a folder under root). To show the Plasma dashboard, you hit Ctrl F12. Then, to get out of the dashboard, you hit Esc.

Yes, I know what F12 does.
I'm replied to this:

undoIT wrote:...keyboard shortcut to view the desktop. ...

.

This system-wide solution works, which doesn't need "Show Desktop" plasmoid:
System Settings > Shortcuts and Gestures > Global Keyboard Shortcuts > KDE component: KWin > Show Desktop

Reference: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=272177

digitsm wrote:This system-wide solution works, which doesn't need "Show Desktop" plasmoid:
System Settings > Shortcuts and Gestures > Global Keyboard Shortcuts > KDE component: KWin > Show Desktop

Reference: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=272177

thnks

Another way to show "Desktop" with "ctrl + alt + d":
1. Right click on a panel->Panel Options->Add Widgets
2. Search for "Show Desktop" and add to panel
3. Right click on "Show Desktop" from a panel and "Show Desktop Settings"
4. On "Show Desktop Settings" you can add your keyboard shortcut

P. S. Sorry if my English is bad!