\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
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\title{Desktop Matters!: SuperKaramba}
\author{Jimmy O'Regan}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
This article, covering SuperKaramba, was written for issue 104, but I quickly found that there wasn't too much I could say about SuperKaramba without writing an example, and I didn't feel like doing that at the time. Perhaps at some stage in the future LG will include an expanded version of this article.
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}

\begin{figure}
   \centering
   \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{/home/jimmy/lg/p/jimmy/sk-default.eps}
   \caption{SuperKaramba}
   \label{fig:sk-default}
\end{figure}

\href{http://netdragon.sourceforge.net/}{SuperKaramba} is one of a few things available for the Linux desktop which  made  my  jaw  drop.  It's  like the dock applets available for WindowMaker  taken  to  the most ridiculous level possible. Where dock applets  can  only  be  placed in the dock, and have to be the correct size, SuperKaramba turns the entire desktop into a dock, and there is no limit on size.

Since  I  started  writing this article, Apple announced that the next version   of   MacOSX  will  include  \href{http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html}{``Dashboard''},  which  is  like SuperKaramba, which just goes to show that Linux is no longer merely a follower in the desktop space. 

\section{Starting SuperKaramba}

\begin{figure}
   \centering
   \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{/home/jimmy/lg/p/jimmy/sk-start.eps}
   \caption{Starting SuperKaramba}
   \label{fig:sk-start}
\end{figure}

SuperKaramba  themes are Python scripts, which supply various actions, and  ``theme''  files, which supply the default desktop position (though this can be changed, to suit your own tastes).

For  the  most  part, the comparison to WindowMaker dockapps holds for the  themes available: there are various items to monitor your system, control  media players such as XMMS and Noatun, display news headlines
etc.  There  are also a number of ``whole desktop'' items, which provide the user with a different experience.

To  start  SuperKaramba,  just  run \texttt{superkaramba} from an xterm or from KDE's  run  menu (Alt-F2). This brings up a menu, which you can see to the  right.  SuperKaramba  comes  with  some  useful  themes  with the standard  package;  the first image in this article shows some of them in  use.  To  have  a  look  at  these,  choose  ``Open  ...'' from the SuperKaramba  window,  and  browse to the directory where SuperKaramba
installed  its  themes  -  \texttt{/usr/share/apps/superkaramba/themes/}  on my system - and open a theme.

To work with a theme, right click on it. To open another theme, select ``Open  new theme'', or press Ctrl-O while the mouse is over a theme. To move it, first use the right mouse menu to check if it's locked or not -  the  menu  entry  ``Toggle  locked  position'' will have a crosshairs beside  a theme which can be moved, and a lock beside one which can't. As the menu entry suggests, clicking this entry changes this.

\section{Getting new themes}

SuperKaramba  has  an  option  to  download new themes; this has never worked  for  me though. Getting new themes is easy - you can simply go to  \href{http://kde-look.org/}{KDE-Look.org}  and  look in the \href{http://kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=38}{Karamba} section, or go to the newly opened \href{http://www.superkaramba.com/}{SuperKaramba.com}.

\textbf{Monitors}:  \href{http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=7876}{doomCPU} is an amusing CPU monitor - it shows your system load using player health images from Doom.

Among  the  ``completely new desktop look''  are  \href{http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13398}{DynTaskBar} with
\href{http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13500}{DynSysTray} (or  you  can  get  \href{http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=7890}{something  similar}  in  a single
tarball).

\end{document}