Tim: How to troubleshoot kdialog passive popups

Tim, A small problem that has bugged me for a while. On my HTPC I use kdialog passive popups to remind me when a TV recording starts or stops. This is helpful to me when I run XBMC because I run XBMC in full screen. Originally when I built my HTPC I used KDE 3.5.10. The popups always appeared in front of XBMC, which satisfied my intent. Through the past many months I updated the HTPC: the operating system from Slackware 12.2 to 14.0, KDE 3.5.10 to Trinity GIT, Nvidia proprietary drivers, and XBMC from 9.01 to 10.1. The popups no longer appear in front of XBMC. When I toggle XBMC from full screen to windowed mode I can see the kdialog popups, but not when XBMC is in full mode. The popups appear in front of other apps. This is not a killer problem. :-) I realize there are several variables at play, but I don't know how the kdialog mechanism works. I'd appreciate ideas for determining whether Trinity (twin?) or kdialog is the culprit. Thanks! Darrell