I need to know how to restore the plasma window and icons. It's very easy to close, but I'm wrecking my desktop trying to guess how to restore it.

Not sure about what you mean by Plasma window - do you mean the Folder View widget? (The things you put on you desktop are not windows, they're widgets.) If so you can try this:


(click to play)

but drag "Folder View" to your desktop instead.

More animations similar to this one can be found in Plasma HowTo.

Ok - that put the "Folder View" widget on my desktop displaying all the folders in my home directory. It used to show all the icons in ~/Desktop, which is what I want. So I click on the "Desktop" icon in the "Folder View" widget - but I just get the bouncy activity icon for a while but nothing changes.

When you click on a folder in Folder View it should open the folder in your default file manager. If it doesn't work, check Default Applications -> File Manager in System Settings (might be called Desktop Settings in openSUSE).

To point Folder View to the Desktop folder you need to configure the widget:

(Again, do it for you Folder View widget.)

That did it - thank you!

Could you point me to an article explaining the philosophy behind the move to plasma? I still fail to see any advantage over a conventional desktop like KDE 3.5.

This gives some of the advantages, but there are many others:

http://plasma.kde.org/media/plasma-slides.pdf

edroid wrote:That did it - thank you!

You're welcome. Could you please mark the topic as solved? (This post describes how to do it.)

Could you point me to an article explaining the philosophy behind the move to plasma? I still fail to see any advantage over a conventional desktop like KDE 3.5.

It has been a while since I read something like that, so I can't remember any specific articles. If you want to search I would recommend to look through KDE Dot News and Aaron Seigo's blog.

Here's a short summary with my own words (note that I might have misremembered something):

In KDE3 we had Kicker which was the panel and KDesktop that provided the desktop, i.e. icons and wallpaper. There was also a third-party application called Superkaramba which let you put different widgets on the desktop.

With the new version of Qt (4.x), the framework KDE Software is built on, a lot of code had to be ported or rewritten. Kicker was pretty hard to maintain at that point of time - adding a small feature could mean regressions in other parts. Porting this to Qt4 would not only take time, it would also mean that the panel would have the same problems in KDE 4.x.

So the developers decided to start from scratch. This gave them a chance to rethink things and design it based on previous experience and the current technology (for example QGraphicsScene in Qt4).

Fast forward to today. Instead of having different components we now have Plasma, which means that the widgets aren't limited to the desktop or the panel - you can put them anywhere where you want. The desktop is no longer a file manager showing a nice wallpaper and some icons - it's a place for widgets that can show different kinds of information and let you perform common tasks. It gives you a lot of choice compared to the old desktop in KDE3. Do you want icons? Sure, but some icon widgets on you desktop, or a widget that displays the content of a folder (Folder View), or why not turn the whole desktop into a Folder View. (I blogged out this here.)

Maybe you don't like icons? Then how about a sticky note for, well, keeping notes, or a calculator for when you brain is tired? Or why not display a weather forecast, RSS feeds, a web comic, world clock, a bouncy red ball...

In short - if you don't like icons on your desktop, Plasma gives you the power to make use of the space on your desktop in other way. And if you prefer a conventional desktop, Plasma lets you eat the cake and still have it. If you want to see some examples of how I use my desktop, you can read this post (I'm starting to feel shameless here; the reason I only link to my posts is because I still have them in memory and know their content and where to find them). Note that my desktop is pretty traditional - I haven't done anything crazy. Still, it's much more useful than it was back in KDE3, where I would just try to make it pretty.

Thank you! My biggest problem with plasma is that "Folder View" widget. It behaves so differently than a conventional desktop window. But I'm trying to keep an open mind.

you do know that you can set your desktop to use folderview so that you have a "traditional" desktop? you can configure this in a tab where you configure the desktop wallpaper.

(Also from Plasma HowTo, like the other animations I've posted.)