In KDE, I use Konsole all the time, until I met Yakuake. I add this small tool to my long-term using applications immediately. The reason is simple. It’s pretty convenient, fast, and cool.

KDE lets me define a shortcut (I set it to Win+Ctrl+T, whilst Win+T to start it) to activate my Konsole no matter what desktop it is, or it is minimised or not. This is quite handy as whenever I want to switch to an opened Konsole instead of opening a new one, I just press the hotkey. However, it is annoy that after this I have to minimise it manually, otherwise it will be the current active window in my every 9 desktop!!

By using Yakuake, this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. I add it to my autostart applications. So instead of start a terminal and switch it every time and minimise after using it, I just press a hotkey (I set it to Alt+X as it is very handy for my left hand), a console will slide from my top screen edge, then I can type and command I want, or add more tabs. To inactivate it, just click outside this console it will slide back as nothing happens, or press the hotkey again. This applies to all my desktops. Besides, the interface is really :thumpsup_green: cool, I set it to use Konsole’s settings, others default. Here is a screenshot:

To install is quite simple: in terminal “sudo apt-get install yakuake” , then say goodbye to your old terminal emulators.

sudo apt-get install libconfuse0 libconfuse-dev libvte-dev

wget http://ovh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/tilda/tilda-0.09.2.tar.gz
tar zxvf tilda-0.09.2.tar.gz
cd tilda-0.09.2
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo checkinstall

tilda -C