KDE is now my favorite desktop

Out of interest, what do you use the context menu for in a terminal emulator so often that it bothers you? I can't even remember the last time I opened it.

I hide all UI and use only the context menu, 90% of the time to open a new tab, 5% of the time to split a tab, and 4% of the time to bring up the config dialog. 1% to open a new window, though I'm often doing Ctrl+Alt+T for that recently.

This is what I've done since SGI 4DWM Terminal (and ancient NT Command Prompt), and almost all other terminal emulators can be configured to do so. Konsole stands alone (to my knowledge) in its insistence on cruft all over the interface. The terminal widget itself seems fine.

To be clear, I don't mind obscure options, but they should live in the control panel. See my cousin comment for more details.

You can eliminate that 90% by Ctrl+Shift+T.

All these things have keyboard shortcuts If the context menu bothers you, it would seem worth it to use them for frequent actions. CTRL+Shift+T opens a new tab for instance. It's way more efficient anyway in an app that's so keyboard centric.

I don't find that context menu so bad to be honest. If you use it often you should know where things are anyway.

Overall I'm quite surprised at the hate Konsole receives in this HN thread. Removing the toolbars is two clicks away and only needs to be done once. Even the menu bar can be hidden. Such a konsole window would be just the terminal, no cruft, no UI elements. To me we are in the "some people will never be happy for no clear reasons" territory.

I've been using it for years I'm very happy with it. Its search feature is awesome, and its ability to have infinite scroll history is very nice too, it has decent performance.

The one terrible thing I have seen about konsole is that the toolbar buttons were highjacking the keyboard bindings in the terminal, but it was a bug, I think this is now fixed and a workaround was to remove the toolbar.

When I'm making a new tab, usually I'm coming from the browser or file-manager, so my hand is already on the mouse. Am clicking on the term anyway.

No other mainstream GUI term has these clutter issues. They are small issues to be sure, but unnecessary.

Doesn't help when coming from a browser. Ctrl+Alt+T works without the Terminal in focus however. Ctrl+Shift+T needs me to click in the terminal first then go back to the keyboard. Waste of time.

> To me we are in the "some people will never be happy for no clear reasons" territory.

That's because you ignore/downplay the very clear reason of space waste expressed in the conversation.

No, I mentioned that this is solved with a couple of clicks to do once if you are bothered by this. I see few reasons to complain really. One could prefer having different defaults (and I would, actually), but it's not like their are awful neither.

Had the toolbars been difficult or impossible to customize or remove, I wouldn't say, but here ulyou can make it look to your taste completely. The issue is a taste question and is a "meh" at best.

Fair enough. I usually switch to the terminal using alt+tab.

Yes, that's the downplaying part. Configuring bad default away doesn't make a user happy the bad default existed and required wasting time fixing it (of course it's not a couple of clicks, that's also downplaying, you'd have to first acquire the knowledge that it's possible (not all UIs can be customized) and how to do it (e.g., some DEs require installing some DE Shell Extension to be able to find the relevant config))

But surely you are going to use the keyboard once you have switched to the new tab? It's a terminal after all.

Defaults cannot always please every unique user. That's an impossible goal.

It's fine that impossibly picky users get to click through a few settings once to set their environment to their liking. I'm one myself sometimes.

I wonder if vocal people here who hate this minor (yes, I'll die on this hill) stuff so much took the time to even report this as an issue in KDE's bugtracker. Here's the link if it's not already done:

https://bugs.kde.org

I almost always switch windows with Alt+Tab, not with a mouse, so it fits very well for that flow. Understandable if it doesn't do the trick for you though.

> Defaults cannot always please every unique user. That's an impossible goal.

You're just continuing in your quest to ignore the issue. Just set the goal at "most users", that's fine, you'll still need to defend this actual screen waste to make an argument, but you can't hide behind a generic "can't please everyone"

> hate

There is no hate, you've made it up to make your argument sound better.

> this minor (yes, I'll die on this hill)

No one is looking at, let alone fighing, you on this imaginary hill. The other commenter explicitly said it's not a big issue. I also agree it's minor. Stop bringing more straws for your scarecrow!

> took the time to even report this

To waste it on a repeat of this argument with ~0 chance of a win? Again, you've made up that hate, so there is no motivation in doing that, a more productive use of that time is to use a better terminal (or just configure it away), so that's usually what happens

I’m well aware of all these hotkeys. The issue is I’m using the mouse with my browser, scrolling clicking etc. Reading gives me an idea so I click on my terminal that’s always open. This is the best time to open a tab imho, and have been doing it for decades.

Thankfully there are a dozen terminals to choose from that don’t make konsole’s minor mistakes. (Although chances are they made others.)

When I start typing I want to execute the new idea immediately. No other tabbed terminal (that I’ve used) prevents this besides konsole, simply because the context menu is (un)optimized to include the kitchen sink instead of the one item I want.

Folks trying to talk me into a new workflow can’t succeed because I’m multiplatform. Gnome terminal, iTerm2, Win Terminal, etc. konsole is the oddball and least used of the group. Partly because the context menu is a mess.

I'm actually surprised you're complaining about Konsole then, given iTerm2's context menu almost doesn't fit on my screen.

Would prefer it much smaller, but it has what I need, is better organized, items are at least theoretically useful, doesn’t include the full menu, and I don’t use it as much.

Bottom line, it doesn’t prevent my workflow.