(Token Disclaimer: I don’t mean to start a flame war. Let’s not argue gnome vs KDE. This is simply an observation of mine. I hope someone might have a solution for it.)
Recently I’ve been on a GPG kick and have been interested in collecting, signing and using the GPG system more and more. I really should write a tutorial on the basics of this system, but that will have to be another time.
The best app that I’ve found for managing GPG within gnome is GPA, the GNU Privacy Assistant. This in combination with Seahorse make using and managing your GPG keys pretty easy.
Well, KDE has an app that I’ve found to have a few more features (I’m not surprise, honestly) so I installed KGPG. I toggle between the two as I learn to use more of the features, but I am able to get everything I need done between the two so far.
One limitation that I was surprised to find in KGPG is that of the “Export Public Key : To Email” option. Once I have collected and signed a key I like to email the key back to the owner for import. KGPG has the option of exporting to email, which makes it a bit quicker.. however it complains about not being able to find KMail and dies.
I figured that was probably normal so I went to look for the option to change the default mail client. Again, I assume with the hundred thousand ways KDE can be customized I should be able to do something as simple as that. Well, to my surprise I was wrong.
As far as I can tell you can not change the default mail client for KGPG to use, therefore the export to mail feature is useless to me.
For those that are using KGPG natively in KDE, does this use your default client or KMail? Can this be changed? Does it just read the default client in the environment and is unable to do so in a non-KDE setup?
If someone does have a fix for this I would appreciate it. Otherwise, thanks for reading my rant about how KDE isn’t quite as customizable as I thought.
KGPG should use the KDE email client setting. It is in System Settings under “Default Applications.”
I suspect it uses KDE-wide setting for default application.
In Kubuntu, you have this in System Settings -> Personal -> Default Applications and you can set default application for e-mail, web browser, embedded text editor, IM client and terminal emulator.
I suspect your problem is that you use KDE app in non-KDE environment, therefore you do not have KDE-wide settings.
Not sure what exactly you need to install on Ubuntu to get this (I suspect you do not want whole kubuntu-desktop, right ;-))
You probably need
kcontrol
In the KDE-Components -> Component Chooser -> Email Client
KGPG uses the KDE default E-mail app, so in my case it starts Evolution. And that works (almost) perfectly. Evolution gives me an error message about not being able to find a file to attach, but the key is present in a new mail window anyway.
Not sure how you would get around that if you use it in Gnome though.
Still, I wouldn’t say that KDE isn’t quite as customizable as it should. It’s only KGPG that is lacking what I thought would be an obvious feature.
Mmm, wouldn’t it simply be a matter of seeing what file KGPG reads to determine what external program to launch, and making that file available?
I know almost nothing about KDE but if they do things in the Standard UNIX Way (flat text config files) all you should need is said config file.
KGPG is not KDE. So saying KGPG is not as configurable as you might have thought would have been better. Of course you can set KGPG to use any email client you wish, just by changing the setting in System Settings like everyone here has pointed to already.
Nautilus isn’t as configurable as I would like after using Konqueror for years, but I don’t say that Gnome isn’t as configurable because of one app now do I?
I use the KDE Control Center, but basically you need to change the Default Application Settings under KDE Components. For Email, it will display 2 options, KMail as the preferred client, or another client, and you will need to provide the executable command to that program. All KDE applications will default to that email client when there is a link to email.
This can be done under GNOME too but I don’t know where to locate it since I don’t use GNOME anymore.
KControl may not be required. Change the value of EmailClient in ~/.kde/share/config/emaildefaults
Eg emaildefaults:
[Defaults]
Profile=Default
[PROFILE_Default]
EmailAddress=username@localhost
EmailClient=/usr/bin/thunderbird
FullName=
Organization=
ReplyAddr=
ServerType=
TerminalClient=false
——————
I use KDE so I can’t really test this to see if it works. 🙂
First off, even if KGPG can’t be conifgured to use anything besides KMail, that doesn’t mean KDE applications aren’t conifgurable. This is one program. However, they can be. Just change the default mail client for KDE. That simple.