We suggest a method of renorming of spaces of operators which are suitably approximable by sequences of operators from a given class. Further we generalize J. Johnsons’s construction of ideals of compact operators in the space of bounded operators and observe e.g. that under our renormings compact operators are -ideals in the: space of 2-absolutely summing operators or in the space of operators factorable through a Hilbert space.
In the first part of the paper we prove some new result improving all those already known about the equivalence of the nonexistence of a projection (of any norm) onto the space of compact operators and the containment of in the same space of compact operators. Then we show several results implying that the space of compact operators is uncomplemented by norm one projections in larger spaces of operators. The paper ends with a list of questions naturally rising from old results and the results...