display problem SOLVED!

[dougmack]

Installed Dosbox to run Eureka, an old DOS math program. Ran it full screen. When I exited, all the icons were up at the top of the screen. The real problem is
that some of the icons are missing.  The name of the program that the icon represents is listed in /home/doug/Desktop but the icon is missing from
the display. (In Dolphin, the icon shows up.) If I try to copy the icon to the display, or send a new copy to the desktop by right-clicking the
menu item, using Kate as an example, get a message "This action would overwrite '/usr/share/applications/kde4/kate.desktop' with itself. Please enter
a new file name." How do I get all my original icons back, with their original names? I guess maybe 1/5 of the icons I had are missing.
This is an even worse situation than I had with running a Windows program under Wine, which I brought up to the forum some time ago, without a cure.
(At that time, all the icons bunched up in the upper left corner after exiting the Windows program but at least they were all there.)

[Just17]

Your description sounds like some of the icons are 'off-screen'

Is your display set to the correct resolution after running Eureka?

[dougmack]

That was my first thought also.  Everything looks about the right size, and going to pcl Cotrol Center, I read 1920x1080, which I believe is correct. That's the maximum definition of the monitor, anyway--Viewsonic VX2450WM.
It also looks correct on the HDMI output to the hdtv, which of course is also missing the icons.

The display also fills the screen; when I move the cursor to an edge, it doesn't move to some "other" space, and the TV display is the same as the
monitor.

I printed a screen shot a few weeks ago, and I don't know if there's any logic to the missing ones, altho they seem to have been at mid-screen or below--
but others that were on the bottom are still on screen.

I won't mind restoring these by hand if I have to, but I don't have any clue as to how I would do that.  (I already had to move the existing ones back to their
normal places, but that was just dragging them into position.)

I will learn from this not to use dos-box anymore.  I'll have to use a Windows system for DOS programs.  It's too bad.

Suggestions, please?

--doug

[Just17]

I suppose you have right clicked and "Refresh Desktop" with no results?

Open the Desktop folder in Dolphin and see the list of '.desktop' files and compare it to the displayed icons.

From there you could try a few things .....  open one 'invisible' .desktop file with Kwrite and save it again and see if there is any change.

Try making a small change to the file and save it.

Delete one file and recreate it by creating a new icon ...  or dragging/dropping as you mentioned above.

[kjpetrie]

Being a DOS program, when you ran it full screen it probably changed the resolution temporarily to 640 x 480, as that was the native resolution for all screens in the DOS days. KDE doesn't react well to being run at a reduced resolution. (I presume that's what you were using. If not, this post is unlikely to be very helpful). There is unlikely to be any advantage to running a DOS program full screen as the small window provides all the resolution it can use.

How to get your icons back? If they're icons right clicking and selecting an option such as sort icons should do it. If they're widgets you might need to unlock widgets and play with screen activity settings until you get a scroll bar which will allow you to scroll around and find them. As others have said, they're probably still present but hidden outside the screen area or behind something else.

[dougmack]

SOLVED! Thank you!  I certainly tried "Refresh desktop", which did nothing.  I did open the Desktop file and compared, which is where I got the list to check
out what was missing. I was a bit afraid to do "Sort Icons" but at that point, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried first what seemed top be "native" and
it did nothing, but then I tried "By Name" and lo and behold, all the icons came back, all loaded into the left hand side of the screen.  So I moved them all
to where they belong, and BINGO!

It may be true that you get all the definition there is with a tiny screen in DOSBOX, but it's so much easier to read in full screen.  Nevertheless, I won't try
that again!  As it happens, I have to run the Eureka program in the same DOSBOX on Windows 7, but the screen is well-behaved in that os, so that's
what I'll do, when I need it.

As I mentioned, a similar, but less severe problem occurs if I run MS Pinball in PCLOS--you certainly have to run that full screen. It would certainly be useful
if whoever does the screen programming would at least figure out a way to save the existing screen layout and restore it, and make that a simple
command, or, better yet, some kind of wrapper that could enclose things like DOSBOX and Pinball. I can't believe I'm the only one who would appreciate
that!

Thanx again!  --doug

[Yankee]

Hi,

I use Dosbox on LXDE.   Can't recall screen problems as you
described.   Changed the default output in /home/user/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf
from output=surface to output=overlay.   Might not screw the
screen up when you exit Dosbox.   output=surface is kinda archaic.
output=opengl is probably the best but I haven't needed it.

If it doesn't you'll have to refresh everything one more time
before you give up Dosbox completely.

I don't always get a complete full screen but almost a complete
full screen.

regards,

Y

[dougmack]

Didn't work.  I changed surface to overlay, and it scrambled the icons on exit, and "lost" one, which I recovered the same way I did last time.  So it didn't
"lose" as many, but it's no solution. If I get real ambitious, I might try opengl, but I'm kinda tired of putting everything back!
Thanx for trying, tho!

There's a free app for Windows called "Desktop Save and Restore."  When you have the desktop laid out the way you like it, you right click on the screen
and tell it to save.  Then if something louses it up, you right click and tell it restore, and voilà! it's back the way you made it. We could sure use a Linux
version of that!

--doug

[Old-Polack]

Didn't work.  I changed surface to overlay, and it scrambled the icons on exit, and "lost" one, which I recovered the same way I did last time.  So it didn't
"lose" as many, but it's no solution. If I get real ambitious, I might try opengl, but I'm kinda tired of putting everything back!
Thanx for trying, tho!

There's a free app for Windows called "Desktop Save and Restore."  When you have the desktop laid out the way you like it, you right click on the screen
and tell it to save.  Then if something louses it up, you right click and tell it restore, and voilà! it's back the way you made it. We could sure use a Linux
version of that!

--doug

When the desktop is as you like it, copy the .kde4 directory and paste it to .kde4-good. If the desktop gets messed up, copy .kde4-good and paste it as .kde4. You'll be asked if you want to overwrite the then messed up .kde4, so say yes. Log out and back in, and all should be good again.

[dougmack]

Thank you, OP.  It's not as neat as the Windows trick, but it's certainly better than the alternative that I was doing!
Which file in the .kde4 directory controls the desktop?  Wouldn't it be possible to write a script that would save that file on command,
and then re-run it on a further command, without having to log out and back in? This would be similar to the Windows app, except without
being able to access it from a screen click.  I learned just a little bit of bash programming about 3 years ago, and I might give it a try,
if I knew which file controls the screen layout.  Or is it more complicated than that?

--doug

[Old-Polack]

Thank you, OP.  It's not as neat as the Windows trick, but it's certainly better than the alternative that I was doing!
Which file in the .kde4 directory controls the desktop?  Wouldn't it be possible to write a script that would save that file on command,
and then re-run it on a further command, without having to log out and back in? This would be similar to the Windows app, except without
being able to access it from a screen click.  I learned just a little bit of bash programming about 3 years ago, and I might give it a try,
if I knew which file controls the screen layout.  Or is it more complicated than that?

--doug

Once the desktop is as you like it, it doesn't really matter which files are directly changed, if the entire .kde directory is copied. Whatever gets messed up by using your games, will be corrected when the reverse copy takes place, overwriting the damaged ones, as well as those not affected.

I don't know if the log out/log in is really necessary. I offered that as a safety measure to insure the corrected files were read, and nothing of the damaged information remained in memory.

As far as a script is concerned, to fix the desktop, I would think this one liner would work;

Code: [Select]

rm -rf ~/.kde4 && cp -a ~/.kde4-good ~/.kde4