Xfce

From Indie IT Wiki

Xfce (pronounced as four individual letters) is a free software desktop environment for Unix and Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It consists of separately packaged components that together provide the full functionality of the desktop environment, but which can be selected in subsets to create the user's preferred personal working environment. Xfce is mainly used for its ability to run a modern desktop environment on relatively modest hardware.

Move Panel To Top Of Screen Display

Right-click the panel and select Panel > Panel Preferences and on the Display tab, make sure that "Lock Panel" is unchecked. This should display a handle at the front of the panel. Click, hold and drag the panel with your mouse to the top of the screen.

HOWTO: Edit Whisper Menu

https://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu

HOWTO: Remove Google Chrome Or Chromium From The XFCE Menu

sudo aptitude purge ~ichrom
rm -rfv ~/.local/share/applications/chrom*

HOWTO: Add Desktop Shortcuts

  1. Open Thunar File Manager
  2. Browse to /usr/share/applications
  3. Find the application
  4. Right-Click and choose Send To > Desktop (create link)

Location Of Trash Wastebasket Folder

~/.local/share/Trash/files/

Adding Themes and Icons

Download and unzip your themes and icons into the following directories:-

~/.themes
~/.icons

http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/install_new_themes

Perfect Theme / Windows / Icons

Zukitwo

Download and unzip into your ~/.themes/ directory. Then enable using the following...

Settings Manager > Appearance > Style > Zukitwo
Settings Manager > Window Manager > Theme > Zukitwo
Settings Manager > Window Manager Tweaks > Compositor > Enable Display Compositing > Unticked

How To Disable Hyperlinks In Xfce4-Terminal

Add or edit the following line in your .config/Terminal/terminalrc file.

MiscHighlightUrls=FALSE

Adding A New Bottom Quick-Launch Panel

  • Top Panel > Right-Click > Panel > Panel Preferences
  • Click the + button next to Panel 1 to add a new Panel
  • Click Close button
  • Move the new Panel 2 to the bottom of the screen
  • Bottom Panel > Right-Click > Panel > Panel Preferences
  • Customise the size and appearance as needed
  • Choose the Items tab to add as many Launcher items as needed
    • Click the + button
    • Choose Launcher, then click the Add button
    • Right-click on the new Launcher icon, and choose Properties
    • Click the + button
    • Search for a Program, then click the Add button, then click Close button

So much easier than Gnome 3... ;-)

Put Bottom Quick-Launch Panel In Middle

Add a Separator item to each end of the panel and tick expand.

Changing The Keyboard Layout To GB UK

setxkbmap -print
xkb_keymap {
xkb_keycodes  { include "evdev+aliases(qwerty)"	};
       xkb_types     { include "complete"	};
       xkb_compat    { include "complete"	};
       xkb_symbols   { include "pc+us+inet(evdev)"	};
       xkb_geometry  { include "pc(pc104)"	};
};
setxkbmap gb
setxkbmap -print
       xkb_keymap {
       xkb_keycodes  { include "evdev+aliases(qwerty)"	};
       xkb_types     { include "complete"	};
       xkb_compat    { include "complete"	};
       xkb_symbols   { include "pc+gb+inet(evdev)"	};
       xkb_geometry  { include "pc(pc104)"	};
};
emerge -q xfce-extra/xfce4-xkb-plugin

Changing The Associated Programs To "Open With" In Thunar File Manager

nano ~/.local/share/applications/*

LightDM User Auto Login

Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
user-session=xubuntu
autologin-user=student
autologin-user-timeout=0

Lock The Panel (Kiosk Mode)

  • Create the new user
  • Set up their panel and desktop as required
  • Log out
  • Log in as Admin user
  • sudo -i
  • cp -iv /home/student/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml /etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/
  • edit the xfce4-panel.xml file as follows:-
<channel name="xfce4-panel" version="1.0" locked="*" unlocked="ubuntu;root;@wheel">
  • Reboot and Log In as user to test

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5681

http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfconf/tree/docs/spec/perchannel-xml.txt

Open Menu With Windows Key

  • Open keyboard settings
  • Add and save the entry: xfce4-popup-whiskermenu
  • Edit the above entry to use the left Windows key