Hi,

I'm using KDE on my HTPC (mostly because I love it on my desktop ) but I have a few problems here on the "Big Screen". Perhaps some of you have an idea or two?

• Even if I increase the fonts of the whole KDE System and the task bar, some parts are not resized properly. Mostly the Systray-Icons seem to be tiny from the couch, but also the device manager has really big problems with overlapping texts if the font is a little bigger. Does plasma have ownsSize-related settings anywhere?
• Large parts of plasma desktop are just usable with keyboard and mouse, for example it is impossible to mount and open en external drive using just the keyboard. And if you want to launch some program you have to use Alt-F2 and type the program name.
• I tried Plasma Active, but this seems to be just touch orientated, and this is the opposite of keyboard input
• Is Plasma Mediacenter a solution as a shell for a HTPC? Sadly there seem to be no launcher functionality, but I have to start programs like a webbrowser or my VDR-Frontend. Is something in this direction planned?

Is anybody else here using KDE on a HTPC? I hope someone can help me

From what I am aware of, Plasma should respect the font preferences, as set in System Settings. However, it could very well be making assumptions about the space taken by text, which could lead to display problems.

With regards to system tray icons - does this apply to all icons, or only some icons (particularly, non-KDE applications). If it only occurs with non-KDE applications, there is nothing which can be done i'm afraid - the application supplying the icon is using an older specification which only supports a single fixed size.

In terms of making a keyboard easier to use, you could try setting shortcuts for some of the more frequently used applets.

I have stumbled upon this old thread using google for the same OP issue. I think it's worth an answer.

• There is a solution for the problem you have/had regarding the device manager. Just press the icon in the systray then mouse-hover to the border of the applet until you can see the cursor changing shape to double arrows, then you can stretch the device manager frame and let the text fit properly into it. Another solution would be to place a "device manager" applet in your home screen and resize it to your needs.
• In regards to controlling your HTPC from the couch, you probably want to buy a small wireless keyboard with embedded touchpad. I have one and it's pretty useful.

About the size of the icons, it's not completely correct that KDE application icons change size automatically while others don't, because there is Lancelot that does not and user is forced to manually set its icon size in systemsettings.

Plasma Media Center has support for DVB-T implemented as a GSoC project this year. However, this feature will be part of PMC 2.0 dated to release end of this year, so I guess you'll have to wait a bit.
Also, PMC 2.0 will support having a dashboard where you can have launchers to launch apps as you want.

For media usage, PMC 1.3 can play your media, organize playlists and also work with online sources like youtube/flickr. Please try it out if you haven't already