Top 20 Xfce tips and howto

Xfce is a free desktop environment for Unix and other platforms such as Linux, Solaris and BSD. This system is designed to enhance the productivity, with faster loading and execution of application, while conserving the system resources. It provides a lighter and more responsive alternative for Gnome desktops. It offers an appealing interface and is easy to handle. Xfce is based on the GTK+ 2 toolkit that is similar to GNOME. Xfce comprises of a number of components that combines together to offer the full functionality of the desktop environment. What set it apart is that it offers a high performance for most of the hardware. Xfce is compatible with most of modern desktop environment running on relatively modest hardware. It can optimize the performance of the machines with less memory and processor power. Now if you are one of those who uses the Xfce to boost your Unix or a similar platform, I would like you know the lot of things you could do with this desktop environment. Have a look at the top 20 Xfce howtos and tips.

1. How to hide or show the desktop menu (right-click) and window menu (middle-click)

The display of menu icon and windows icon are controlled by the global gtk that is gtk-menu-images style property

Add this to the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file
<br /> style “menu-images” {<br /> gtk-menu-images = false<br /> }<br /> widget_class “*” style “menu-images”

This will act on all the gtk menus and not only the desktop or windows menu.

2. How to change the opacity and color of the rounded text background as well as the color of the text

Take this example

Add the following code to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file

style “xfdesktop-icon-view” {<br /> XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 75</p> <p><b>base[NORMAL] = “#00ff00″<br /> base[SELECTED] = “#5050ff”<br /> base[ACTIVE] = “#0000ff”</b></p> <p><b>fg[NORMAL] = “#ff0000″<br /> fg[SELECTED] = “#ff0000″<br /> fg[ACTIVE] = “#ff0000″<br /> }<br /> widget_class “*XfdesktopIconView*” style “xfdesktop-icon-view”

The first three entry sets the opacity, second three entry the color of rounded text background and the last three color of the label text. You can change the opacity and color according to your choice.

3. How to create new desktop file

Now from the libexo (library for Xfce containing additional widgets) you can get tools to handle desktop entry in a GUI fashion with
exo-desktop-item-edit. Using it you can create a new .desktop file by running the following command

exo-desktop-item-edit –create-new

4. How to customize Xfce startup

During start up Xfce runs through the user customizable startup file. In order to run your script you have to edit the init file and send environment variables to the GUI or other components.

In order to customize the startup code you need to edit the xinitrc file as provided in the steps below

Step 1: Copy the file /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc to ~/.config/xfce4/

Step 2: Now how will you add code to the file. Have a look at this example

To start the unicode server

source $HOME/.bashrc

# start rxvt-unicode

urxvtd -q -o -f

5. How to include the app while switching windows

There are some hidden option with Xfce that allows the panel as well as apps like Gkrellm to be included while you switch from one window to another with the Alt+Tab shortcut.

Just edit the - $HOME/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc and add the line below

cycle_minimum=false

6. How to add an application

To add an application first create a .desktop file. This is usually in /usr/share/applications for system wide , or , it may be found in ~/.local/share/application that you want to add.

Now suppose you want to create a menu named personal in the submenu Multimedia

[Desktop Entry]<br /> Encoding=UTF-8<br /> Name=personal<br /> GenericName=bar<br /> Comment=Senseless program ever<br /> Exec=foobar<br /> Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/foobar.xpm<br /> Terminal=false<br /> Type=Application<br /> Categories=Multimedia;

7. How to remove an application from the menu

There are two ways you can remove an application

i) The easier way is to remove the .desktop file in the /usr/share/application/ folder. The only drawback is that you may loose mime data (file association)

ii) The alternative way is to add the line provided below to the .desktop file.

NoDisplay=true

8. How to install the new theme

To install the theme you need to extract the theme to /usr/share/themes for a system-wide install. For single user extract it to $HOME/.themes. The path should read like this /usr/share/themes/THEMENAME/xfwm4/ or $HOME/.themes/THEMENAME/xfwm4/.
Here the THEMENAME is the name of the theme you want to use.

In order to install UI themes

Simply enter the themes to $HOME/.themes or /usr/share/themes.

Now from the Xfce Setting Manager you can select your theme.

9. How to disable moving and resizing of windows

Usually you move and resize the windows using the ALt button + mouse click, but in case you want the windows fixed without any resize you can use this trick.

Edit the - $HOME/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc (or create an new one)

Now add this line

easy_click=false

10. How to define custom panel background

To define a custom panel background follow this instance

# ~/.gtkrc-2.0<br /> style “panel-background” {<br /> bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = “foo.bar”<br /> bg_pixmap[PRELIGHT] = “foo.bar”<br /> bg_pixmap[ACTIVE] = “foo.bar”<br /> bg_pixmap[SELECTED] = “foo.bar”<br /> bg_pixmap[INSENSITIVE] = “foo.bar”<br /> }<br /> style “panel-color” {<br /> fg[NORMAL] = “#222222″<br /> fg[ACTIVE] = “#111111″<br /> bg[NORMAL] = “#edeff2″<br /> bg[PRELIGHT] = “#3d6eab”<br /> bg[ACTIVE] = “#3d6eab”<br /> }<br /> widget_class “*Panel*” style “panel-background”<br /> widget “*PanelWidget*” style “panel-color”<br /> widget “*PanelApplet*” style “panel-color”<br /> widget “*Panel*” style “panel-color”<br /> widget_class “*Panel*” style “panel-color”<br /> class “*Panel*” style “panel-color”<br /> class “*Tray*” style “panel-color”<br /> class “*tray*” style “panel-color”

11. How to create links

Links can be created in Xfce with one or two square brackets . Here are some tricks for link

For a simple internal link
[[Article name]]

For an internal link with link text:
[[Article name | text you want to link]]

For a numbered external link:
[https://www.site.com]

For an external link with link text:

[https://www.site.com link text]

12. How to lock the screen saver

If you have a xscreensaver, you can lock the screen using it using a xflock4 script in the panel. Now fall back to xlock4.

To execute the xflock4 you can click on the Lock the screen system button of the panel. Alternatively, you can use the Control+Alt+Delete keyboard shortcut for xlock4.

13. How to add heading

For headings you need to use the equal sign. The more equal you use the smaller the heading

==Heading 2==

===Heading 3===

====Heading 4====

14. Shortcut to start the xfrun

The application launcher xfrun4 can directly started with a Alt+F2 keyboard shortcut.

15. How to insert images

The images can be inserted in the same way as the links. Use squared brackets

[[Image:Name.jpg]]

To add alt.text to the image
[[Image:Name.jpg | alt text]]

Insert image with a specific size
[[Image:Name.jpg | 200px | ]]

How to make a thumbnail image

[[Image:Name.jpg | thumb | ]]

To align the image
[[Image:Name.jpg | right|]]

16. How to indent the text

Indents can be created plain with bullets or number

: indent
: indent
:: more indent
::: even more indent

* bullet
* bullet
** sub-bullet
* bullet

# numbered list
# numbered list
## sub-list
# numbered list

17. How to edit the entries

All the versions of libxfce4menu doesn’t offer the option to Merge from the menu specification. It means that you can build a nice menu editor. To add/remove or edit menu entries you need to copy the files manually.

If you have the gvim installed, get the desktop entry file /usr/share/applications/gvim.desktop. Copy the file to your home directory in ~/.local/share/applications. Now you can modify it.

For introducing new menu items, recreate new desktop entry files inside the latter directory

exo-desktop-item-edit.

For instance you can create run exo-desktop-item-edit –create-new ~/.local/share/applications/.

18. Moving windows between Workspaces

With Xfce you can move the windows from one workspace to another simply by dragging them in the pager applet.

19. How to style the text

To introduce the text style you can use wikimarkup or HTML

For italic

“italic”

For bold

”’bold”’

For italic and bold

””’italic and bold””’

To strike Off

<s>strike</s>

For underline

<u>underline</u>

For red color text (change the color according to your requirement)

<span> style =”color:red;”>red text </span>

20. Adjusting the Workspaces and Margins

In case you keep a portion of the screen exposed even when the new windows is opened or windows is optimized, you need to do a simple thing. Go to the Xfce Setting Manager and customize the margins according to your requirement.

[Pic courtesy: labor-liber.org]