The K Desktop Environment

Next Previous Table of Contents

3. General Usage

SMP (Dual CPU's) Support
If you don't have a SMP systems, none of the SMP options will show up in the menu, but if you have, you will be represented with both a SMP on/off option at the top of the options menu, and a (when SMP is turned on) second color settings menu for the second diagram. If you choose to have SMP off, you will only see one diagram showing the values from both CPU's together, if you choose to have SMP on, there will be one diagram per CPU showing their individual loads. It should also be mentioned, that this is not the REAL system Load, this is a percentual usage out of the total performance the CPU(s) can offer the system!
Split'ing systemload and userload
Enable this option to have the diagram split up into one upper part and one lower part, the upper part of the diagram will show the userload, the apps you're using when working with all kinds of stuff, the lower part which is a white scale, shows the system's load, that includes daemons and other low level parts of the system and kernel.
Changing diagram style
The Style option in the main menu will let you change the look of the diagram. There are a single line option, which only draws a straight line across the diagram, a filled option, and a third shaded option which shades the diagram in a nice Black To Color tone, this is probably the most decent look :)
Changing the update speed
Choose speed from the main menu to change the update interval of the diagram. This value is defined in MS, tousands of a second, and there are presets from 100ms up to 5000ms. Choose a lower value to get a more responsive diagram, choose a higher to get a slower, but much more stable and less flickering one.
Changing Diagram Color(s)
Choose Color In or Color Out from the menu to change theese settings.
Clear and Active
Theese two functions are located near the top of the options menu. The Clear option will erase all readings in the diagram and set the values to zero, with other words, it will become all black. The Active option is the powerswitch for the whole program, this can be used to shut down the diagram so that it don't measure any readings.
Grid and Labels
Theese two functions, are also located near the top of the options menu. Grid will toggle a background gridplate of lines to make the diagram look a bit better (actually it only looks really messed up with that grid on :), the Labels option is more usefull, it will turn on small text labels in the upperleft corner of the diagram showing which one of the two directions (in or out) the diagram stands for.
Soft diagram curve
This option at the top of the menu, will turn on smooth curve, this means that the curve won't even show very fast changes, but instead move slowly up and down with a little delay on the movements. This feature is really nice and makes the diagrams look a lot better, especially when the update speed is set to a low flickering rate.
Popup Dialog Info
Leftclick on one of the diagrams to bring up a small Popup Infobox. To hide it, Leftclick on the diagram again, or Rightclick on the Popup itself. While the Popup is shown, you can move it around with the Left mouse button. This Popup is both sticky and allways on top, so that you can have it in a corner all the time if you like.
Sessionmanagement
If the program is still running when KDE is shut down, it will restart when KDE is restarted.
Settings saving
The settings choosed in the configuration menues are saved to the programs own configurationfile right away at the same monent as they're set, this means you don't have to care about saving the settings since this is done automaticlly.

Next Previous Table of Contents