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Mehrad :kde: :emacs: :rstats:

One of the KDE Plasma features I use almost in daily basis is the MouseMark.

Go to your settings, in Desktop Effects, Enable the MouseMark (you can change the settings of it in the button in front of it). Then press Meta+Shift and move your mouse to doodle, or press and release Meta+Shift+Ctrl to define beginning and end of an arrow (it will draw the rest.

Interestingly enough, it have been in Plasma for the past 16 years:

github.com/KDE/kde-workspace/t

@kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

@Mehrad @kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

Awesome feature, however, the arror part doesn't work for me. When I press Meta+Shift+Ctrl and move the mouse, it looks like this:

@Larvitz
😅 😂 Yeah, That's why I explicitly explained the arrow-drawing process in my toot 😉 I also had this problem and figured out how to do it today. The keybinding and behavior for arrows is poorly designed imho and I hope KDE folks improve it.

But for now, this is how you should draw an arrow:
1. move your mouse where you want the arrow head to be
2. press **and release** Meta+Ctrl+Shift
3. move your mouse to where the tail should be
4. repeat step 2

@kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

@Mehrad @kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social Doesn't really work for me. Sometimes, a random arror appears that point nowhere near the mouse cursor position and most of the times, just nothing happens. 🙁

@Larvitz
Basically this is the chuck of code responsible which is how I figured out how to draw an arrow:

github.com/KDE/kde-workspace/b

I also don't see any part in the code that can throw the error. Considering that this is such a simple code and have not changed for about a decade, I don't think the issue is wayland/x11 either.

I suggest filing a bug report with the screenshot of the error and etc.:

bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?quick

@kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

GitHubkde-workspace/kwin/effects/mousemark/mousemark.cpp at 257b997132217fd73a1b3be14db49735b64235e7 · KDE/kde-workspaceProvides the interface and basic tools for the KDE workspace. - KDE/kde-workspace

@Larvitz
It seems the Github mirror is way out of date. I checked the invent.kde.org (the KDE's Gitlab instance) and found out that during the past 6 months MouseMark has received some updates, especially about the logic of arrow drawing:

invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/c

But as far as I can tell, even if you have the latest build from the latest source code, the general process of drawing is the same:

invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/b

@kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

invent.kde.orgGroups · ExploreGitLab Community Edition

@Mehrad @kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social On my Desktop computer, running Arch Linux with Plasma 6.0.0, it works correctly. On my laptop with Fedora 39 and Plasma 5.27.10, it is bugged and doesn't work properly (Both running under Wayland).

Anyway, a great feature! Thank you very much for pointing it out.

@Larvitz
I'm on Manjaro with Plasma 5.27.10 and it works for me "as expected", meaning based on the code in the Github and without the improvements from that PR that I linked to in my previous toot.

Perhaps in Plasma6 they have shipped these fixes because the PR was merged some months before the feature freeze of Plasma6:

community.kde.org/Schedules/Pl

community.kde.orgSchedules/Plasma 6 - KDE Community Wiki

I’ve been using plasma for over 6 years now and I’m just now finding out about this feature.

Anyone know how to make it more intuitive? Like, only allow one, use an easier keyboard shortcut to activate?

I couldnt find “autoremove” and how to change the shortcut to activate

@Pantherina I don't know what you mean by Autoremove, but here are some tips:

Undo the last line by Meta+Shift+F12

Clean everything by Meta+Shift+F11

In the latest version (at least the one that is in KDE's git repo, users can change all those keybindings. Checkout `mousemark.kcfg ` and `mousemark_config.ui ` files in this link:

invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/c

I don't yet have , so I'm not sure if it is already shipped there or not. But the code is done and it is just the matter of time :)

@Mehrad @Pantherina

Yes, in Plasma 6 you can change those shortcuts.

I have modified mine to:

Meta + Ctrl + Alt: draw line
Meta +Ctrl + Alt + Shift: draw arrow
Meta + Delete: delete last line
Meta + Canc: delete all

Interesting, I think there was a Firefox addon way back that did this and mouse gestures.

What do you use it for?

@jlow Online presentations and video calls. Also I draw and doodle the task at hand and play with it. Helps me to have a visual understanding of the analysis I'm doing.

During COVID it was really helpful during video presentations.

Can you also send images of you using it? Not that I didn’t believe it but I want to see how other people have been using it

@Mehrad @kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social Can't you just do that with a screenshot utility like Flameshot?

@Lenni
You can, and also @flameshot provides more tools and colors, but it is a "still frame" because Flameshot captures the screenshot first, and then let the user to annotate it. Therefore it is not useful if a video is playing in the background or slides are changing or moving through the code.

Side note:: I'm one of the maintainers of Flameshot ;) and I'm glad you have found it handy :ablobcatattention:

github.com/orgs/flameshot-org/

@kde@lemmy.kde.social @kde@floss.social

GitHubFlameshotPowerful yet simple to use screenshot software. Flameshot has 10 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.