# The &rekonq; Handbook

&Andrea.Diamantini; &Andrea.Diamantini.mail;
&Rohan.Garg; &Rohan.Garg.mail;
&Jonathan.Kolberg; &Jonathan.Kolberg.mail;
Part of this documentation was converted from the &kde; UserBase Rekonq page.
Part of this documentation was converted from the &kde; UserBase Rekonq/FAQs page.
&FDLNotice;
2012-06-02
0.9.61 (&kde; SC 4.8)

KDE
browser
rekonq
webkit

## Introduction

Based initially on qtwebkit (and currently on kdewebkit), &rekonq; is a lightweight browser designed to use the WebKit rendering engine in combination with various &kde; technologies, allowing it to integrate seamlessly into the &kde; desktop. The name is a throwback to the venerable khtml-based &konqueror; which is currently the default &kde; web browser.

&rekonq; has already replaced &konqueror; as the default browser in Chakra and Kubuntu, with more distributions expressing similar intent for their future releases.

Like all &kde; applications, &rekonq; is highly configurable. This document describes how &rekonq; behaves with the normal, default settings.

A three button mouse can be useful when you are running &rekonq; or any other &kde; application. If your mouse only has two buttons then you should be able to set your system up so that you can simulate a a middle mouse button by pressing both buttons at the same time.

If you are used to having to double-click to perform an action, then take care, because in common with the rest of &kde;, &rekonq; defaults to single-clicking.

### Starting &rekonq;

&rekonq; can be started in the following ways

- From the application launcher select Applications Internet rekonq

- &Alt;F2 will open &krunner;, type `rekonq` (lower case) and press &Enter; to start &rekonq;

## Interface

&rekonq; main toolbar

&rekonq; main toolbar

By default, the &rekonq; window uses only one toolbar. This main toolbar consists of four navigation buttons (back, forward, reload/stop), the URL bar and a menu/button Tools. This minimalist approach to the main toolbar marks the most significant user-interface departure from the traditional multi-toolbar paradigm followed by most other browsers like &konqueror;.

Further, the main toolbar offers only limited customization – orientation (locked at the top of the window, by default), icon size (medium, by default) and icon labels (not shown, by default). This helps keep the &rekonq; UI simple and puts the focus on the web page on display.

&rekonq; URL bar

&rekonq; URL bar

&rekonq; introduces a vastly improved URL bar that offers access to search engines from the drop down completion list itself. The completion list is also populated by matching items from your history and bookmarks.

&rekonq; new tab page

&rekonq; new tab page

When started, &rekonq; displays the New Tab page, much of which is taken by a set of preview thumbnails of favorite webpages. These thumbnails offer a speedy way for the user to access their most frequently used webpages. There is also a pane at the top of this page allows the user to switch to previews of recently closed tabs and lists of bookmarked webpages, download and browsing histories.

&rekonq; hidden UI elements

&rekonq; hidden UI elements

Further configuration options activate several other UI elements hidden by default. These include a toolbar for bookmarks, a panel (a panel, being a mini-window that can be resized, detached or re-docked in the main window) each for bookmarks and history and a web inspector panel (handy for web development).

## Features

Under its minimalist appearance, &rekonq; packs a full set of powerful features. Some of them are described below:

### &kde; integration

&rekonq; is designed with the aim of being a &kde; browser. And it shows this.

#### Appearance

It obeys your themes, fonts, window decoration, menu highlighting, and many personalization options you set for your desktop.

#### Applications

&rekonq; opens a PDF file in an &okular; kpart

&rekonq; opens a PDF file in an &okular; kpart

&rekonq; plays well with other applications in the &kde; family. &rekonq; will always use your chosen default applications to handle file types. PDF files, for example will open in an embedded &okular; kpart within &rekonq; itself. Media files will open in &dragon; (or any other designated default application for that filetype).

&rekonq; shares bookmarks &etc; with &konqueror;

&rekonq; shares bookmarks &etc; with &konqueror;

Bookmarks, web shortcuts (more on these later), cookies and authentication information are shared with &konqueror;. You will see the same set of bookmarks from either application and you can log onto a website in &konqueror; and carry on seamlessly if you decide to switch to &rekonq;. Your passwords are stored securely in KWallet and can be used from either &konqueror; or &rekonq;.

Your downloads can be optionally handled by KGet. Feeds from websites can be saved to &akregator; (or Google Reader).

&rekonq; + &akregator;

&rekonq; + &akregator;

&rekonq; + &kget;

&rekonq; + &kget;

### Services

#### KIO support

&rekonq; browsing an &FTP; share

&rekonq; browsing an &FTP; share

&rekonq; supports KIO services, including cookies, cache, proxies and network settings. KIO-slaves like file:/, ftp:/, man:/, help:/, info:/ &etc; will work in &rekonq;, too.

#### Dialogs

In addition to all this, &rekonq; uses &kde;'s own file dialog for opening/saving documents. This means, you have access to the Places navigation panel from &dolphin; while you open or save documents.

Thus, &rekonq; looks, feels and behaves like a part of your &kde; desktop.

## Webkit engine

&rekonq; uses the open source WebKit rendering engine which incidentally began life as a branch of the khtml/kjs libraries from the &kde; project. WebKit is fast, powerful and used by many other popular browsers today including Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari and others.

## Auto-load/click-to-load plugins

&rekonq; demonstrating the click-to-load-plugins feature on youtube.com

&rekonq; demonstrating the click-to-load-plugins feature on youtube.com

One of the benefits of using the WebKit engine, is that plugins can be disabled from automatically loading. This comes in handy to surf websites fast, without being bogged down by flash plugins. In the so-called Click-to-load mode, you will instead see a button that you can click on to activate the plugin.

## Adblock support

&rekonq; blocking images on kde-apps.org

&rekonq; blocking images on kde-apps.org

&rekonq; comes with an automatic subscription to the Easylist filter, which is updated every week. Additionally, you can set up manual filters to block loading of elements from web pages that match your criteria. You can even download and import additional published filterlists or export your list for backup.

## Web shortcuts support

&rekonq; allows you to pick from an extensive list of web shortcuts – these are keywords that allow you to search the web quickly. For instance, entering `gg:&kde;` in the location bar will search Google for &kde;, while `wp:&kde;` will search Wikipedia for &kde;. There are dozens of these defined by default. You can edit these or even define custom shortcuts to search on your favorite websites.

## Privacy and security features

&rekonq; in private browsing mode

&rekonq; in private browsing mode

&rekonq; allows users to browse the web without retaining information about the visited pages in your history. Note that this feature does not necessarily make you anonymous on the Internet – it only prevents fresh information from being recorded on your computer. You can also delete your history, cookies and other private data anytime straight from the configuration menu button.

&rekonq; URL bar showing the SSL info icon

&rekonq; URL bar showing the SSL info icon

When viewing web pages over a secure connection, you can also view SSL information straight from the URL bar by clicking on the yellow lock icon.

## Advanced tab handling

&rekonq; showing a preview of a tab on hover

&rekonq; showing a preview of a tab on hover

&rekonq; allows you to rearrange your tabs on the fly. Just drag a tab to the left or to the right and the other tabs will move out of your way. You can also hover over a tab to see a live preview of the web page being displayed there.

A context menu (right-click menu) gives access to more tab-related functions such as the ability to detach, clone, reload the tab.

## Session restore feature

If &rekonq; crashes, it will automatically attempt to restore your session, complete with all the tabs the next time you start it. If for some reason, the browser continues to crash upon restoring the session, &rekonq; will automatically start with a fresh session the second time.

## Full screen mode

&rekonq; supports full-screening the webpage straight from the configuration menu button or through a keyboard shortcut (&Ctrl;&Shift;F, by default). In the full screen view, the main toolbar will auto-hide and the web page will be displayed over your entire screen.

## Zoom slider

&rekonq; showing the zoom slider at the bottom of the window

&rekonq; showing the zoom slider at the bottom of the window

&rekonq; has a slider to adjust the zoom at the bottom of the window with a handy button to restore the zoom back to default. Of course, you can still use keyboard (&Ctrl;+/-) or mouse (&Ctrl; mouse scroll up/down) shortcuts just the same.

The zoom slider can be enabled (or disabled) with &Ctrl;Y or with Zoom... from Tools menu.

## Detailed &rekonq; configuration

### Do the general settings of &rekonq;

You want to configure the general behavior of &rekonq;? You found the right place to get it explained.

To open the general settings click on the Tools icon and select Configure rekonq.

Now you should see this Screenshot

Here a List of configurable points and explanation for it:

When starting rekonq:

  You can configure what &rekonq; should do on startup.

Home page URL:

  You can either set your home page directly through tipping the &URL; in.

Use the New Tab Page as home page

  Enabling this option makes an empty new page the default home page of &rekonq;.

Set to Current Page

  Sets your home page to the one you are visiting at the moment.

Use KGet for downloading files

  This activates the &kget; download integration. If this is active &rekonq; will download everything through &kget;

List links with KGet

  If enabled, &rekonq; will display an additional context menu entry, which, when selected, lists all available links of the current website in &kget;.

### Configure the Tabs settings

Here you learn how to change the settings for tabs.

To come to the dialog click on the Tools icon and open Configure rekonq Tabs

Now this dialog should appear Screenshot

Here a list of configurable points and explanation for it:

New tab opens

  Here you can choose the default behavior of &rekonq; when you open the new tab.

New Tab Page starts with

  Here you can choose the default contents for the new tabs.

Don't use tabs: open links in new window

  This enables the default opening of links in new windows.

Always show tab bar

  This forces &rekonq; to show the tab bar even if there is only one tab.

Open new tabs in the background

  This makes &rekonq; not switching to new tabs.

Open new tabs after currently active one

  This makes it to default that tabs are opened next to the currently active one.

Activate previously used tab when closing the current one

  This makes &rekonq; storing your last opened tab and if you close your current one it will reopen the old one. This also can be useful if you use many tabs.

### Configure the Appearance settings

Now you should see this Screenshot

Following will explain the configurable things and what they do on the Fonts pane.

Standard font

  Here you can set your default font. The first part is the name of the font followed by the size of the font.

Fixed font

  Here you can set your font for &rekonq; labels. The same synopsis like Standard font.

Serif font

  Here you can set your font for Serif labels. The same synopsis like Standard font.

Sans Serif font

  Here you can set your font for Sans Serif labels. The same synopsis like Standard font.

Cursive font

  Here you can set your font for Cursive labels. The same synopsis like Standard font.

Fantasy font

  Here you can set your font for Fantasy labels. The same synopsis like Standard font.

Default font size:

  To configure your preferred size of font.

Minimal font size:

  You can configure the minimal size of fonts in &rekonq;. Every smaller font will grow to that size.

On the Character Encoding pane:

Default character encoding:

  Here you can explicitly set the encoding for the pages without prescribed encoding. Use the common encoding of your native language.

On the Custom Style Sheet pane:

Path to custom CSS file:

  Here you can set the path to your CSS file used to format webpages.

### Configure the WebKit settings

Now you should see this Screenshot

### Privacy configuration

Now you should see this Screenshot

As you can see using this page you can control Javascript, tracking, history, passwords, cookies, and cache settings of &rekonq;.

### Advanced configuration

Now you should see this Screenshot

Using Proxy pane you can access the system wide proxy server settings. Just press Change them! to open the corresponding &systemsettings; module.

On the Misc pane you can configure various aspects controlling the browser.

Enable smooth scrolling

  If you enable this option &rekonq; will use smooth scrolling. Uncheck this option if the scrolling becomes choppy.

### Configure the Shortcut settings

Now you should see this Screenshot

### Configure Search Engines settings

Now you should see this Screenshot

## rekonq FAQs, Tips and Tricks

### How do I set &rekonq; as my default browser?

Head to System Settings Default Applications. Here, click on Web Browser to set your default browser. Select to open http and https URLs in the following browser and enter `rekonq %u` as the browser. Click Apply.

Setting &rekonq; as the default web browser

Setting &rekonq; as the default web browser

### How do I load flash on demand?

Click on the Tools menu button, and open the Configure rekonq dialog. Click on WebKit and under Plugin settings, select to Manually Load Plugins. Click OK.

Setting &rekonq; to not automatically load plugins

Setting &rekonq; to not automatically load plugins

### How do I make &rekonq; behave like chrome/chromium?

Using KWin's window tabbing feature, we can make &rekonq; emulate the behavior of chromium by opening new windows instead of tabs within the same window. This will not however allow each window of &rekonq; to crash independently – all windows of &rekonq; crash as a single process. It merely emulates the look of Chromium, giving individual controls for each web page you load.

Click on the Tools menu button and open the Configure rekonq dialog. Click on Tabs. Unselect all options to disable all tab handling in &rekonq;. Now, &rekonq; will always open new windows instead of tabs.

Now, we'll set up KWin to automatically tab all &rekonq; windows together. Head to System Settings Window Behavior. Select Window Behavior on the left and go to the Advanced tab. Here, under Window Tabbing, check Automatically group similar windows. Click Apply.

Now, &rekonq; will open windows by default which will automatically get tabbed together.

&rekonq; configuration

&rekonq; configuration

System Settings configuration

System Settings configuration

The result

The result

### How do I enable Adblock?

Adblocking should already be enabled for you using the Easylist adblock subscription. You can further configure it by clicking on the configuration menu button and choosing Tools Ad Block to open Ad Block Settings dialog. Click on AdBlocK Filters. Here, you can add custom filters using wildcard strings (e.g. `http://www.site.com/ads/*`) or regular expressions within forward slashes (e.g. `//(ads|dclk)\./`).

Clicking OK activates your adblock filters instantly.

&rekonq; AdBlocK (automatic) configuration

&rekonq; AdBlocK (automatic) configuration

&rekonq; AdBlocK (manual) configuration

&rekonq; AdBlocK (manual) configuration

### I have more questions!

If you have &rekonq; installed, you can load up the Help document (just press F1) for more information.

&kde; Forums is always a good place to ask user-specific questions.

The &rekonq; website has release announcements for the latest stable and unstable releases along with more helpful links. You can also contact the developers on the #rekonq IRC channel or the mailing list with more questions.

### How do I contribute?

See above for now. Smiley

## Credits and License

&rekonq;

Program copyright: &underGPL;

### Developers

- &The.rekonq.Team; &The.rekonq.Team.mail;

Documentation copyright 2008 &Andrea.Diamantini; &Andrea.Diamantini.mail;

Documentation copyright 2009-2010 &Rohan.Garg; &Rohan.Garg.mail;

Documentation copyright 2010 &Jonathan.Kolberg; &Jonathan.Kolberg.mail;

List of the UserBase contributors can be found on Rekonq and Rekonq/FAQs page history.

&underFDL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &rekonq;

Stable Packages of &rekonq; can be downloaded via standard repositories of your distribution

You also can compile &rekonq; yourself see Compilation and Installation for that.

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &rekonq;, you need at least &Qt; 4.8.x and &kde; 4.7.x.

### Compilation and Installation

If you wish to compile &rekonq;, you have to install the headers of kdelibs and you need git and the build essentials installed.

Under Debian/&ubuntu; you get those through running

``sudo` `apt-get` `install` `build-essential kdelibs5-dev git-core``

Under OpenSuse you get those through running

``sudo` `zypper` `in` `libkde4-devel git-core gcc gcc-c++ make cmake``

We will be using git, as the most recent code is available on the git repository. The &kde; Projects web page for &rekonq; can be found here. Stable releases, can also be downloaded here in form of tarballs.

Now we need to checkout the latest code. To do so, in a terminal run:

``git` `clone` `git://git.kde.org/rekonq``

To compile the code type in the following

``cd` `directory_where_rekonq_source_code_is``

``mkdir` `build``

``cd` `build``

``cmake` `-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=``kde4-config` `--prefix``` `..``

``make``

``sudo` `make` `install``

&documentation.index;