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8 years ago 2 |
So, what can you get out of this tutorial?
You can do all of this even if you are not using the Xfce DE. Of course if you are,
they still work, but most of the job has been done for you.
These action have been done in LM17.3 with the Cinnamon DE. So you know.
1) Xfce panel
a) Installation
sudo apt-get install -y xfce4-panel
Oh, I am only going to put here the apt-get commands. If you are using something
else, well you should be able to just replace apt-get install with your command.
b) Use
In order to use the panel you have to start it. Issue this command in a terminal:
xfce4-panel
Don't close the terminal.
c) Making the dock
You will get a popup. Go with an empty panel for now.
Right click on the panel, go to Panel → Panel Preferences.
You can choose how to size it and if it is vertical or horizontal. To have a dock you
should choose the panel to hide intelligently. Also in the Appearance tab make sure
to have the alpha set to 0, so you won't get this very slim bar where the panel would
be. (It makes the panel transparent)
The best way to add items is by adding the application menu. Then simply drag and
drop items from the menu on the panel. (A red bar will indicate if you can let go)
If you want flexible separators, in the display tab make sure to have the length at
100%.
Also if you add a launcher, you can have more launchers inside it so they are
nested. Right click on launcher → Properties → Add new items. You will get this
arrow bellow the first icon in the launcher. You can theme where it appears in the
Advanced tab of the launcher.
Also you can add a Directory Menu. This is a cascading menu of a folder. You can
see it's contents without opening a file manager.
You need to add what files to see in the File Pattern. If you don't care just add: *.*
If you do want more extensions, separate them with ; like this: *.mp4;*.mp3
d) Startup
You must add this at startup. In Cinnamon go to System Settings → Startup
Applications and add custom command:
xfce4-panel
You could close the terminal now but the panel will disappear. You could log back in
or restart.
2) Whisker Menu
a) Installation
sudo apt-get install -y xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin
If you want other plugins go here: https://www.archlinux.org/groups/x86_64/xfce4-goodies/
Now that you know their name just sudo apt-get install NAME
b) Using the meta key to dropdown the menu
What I recommend is to do this ( c) is why ). Create a txt file (I recommend to put it
in your home in the bin directory) without an extension (or with .sh) and paste this in:
#!/bin/bash
xfce4-popup-whiskermenu
Make this file executable. You can right click on it and go to permissions or open a
terminal and:
chmod +x yourfile
Now create your shortcut and give it the meta key as a shortcut. If you have the
meta key set to show your other menu, then remove the menu, change it's shortcut,
or have another shortcut for the Whisker Menu. In Cinnamon you should go to
Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts → Add.
c) The search doesn't focus
I have found a way to work around this bug. Here is what you need to do.
sudo apt-get install -y wmctrl
Go to your script (that file) and replace everything with this:
#!/bin/bash
xfce4-popup-whiskermenu && sleep 0.1 && wmctrl -a Whisker Menu
What this does is: it drops the menu and wmctrl will focus and raise it every time.
The sleep is there because I noticed some times the menu opens later than the
wmctrl command is issued.
e) More features
Right click on the Whisker Menu and go to properties. Now go to commands.
If you are using Cinnamon you can add this:
All Settings: cinnamon-settings
Lock Screen: gnome-screensaver-command –activate
Log Out: /usr/bin/gnome-session-quit –no-prompt
Edit Applications: cinnamon-menu-editor
You may want to install menulibre if you want to edit the applications that appear in
the menu because the cinnamon-menu-editor can add more items but in my case
they appear only in the Other section of the menu.
In the Search Actions you can add stuff to search online. Go to that tab and click on
the plus button.
A new entry is created. The name is not really that important (you will see it when
searching so you know whit what you're searching). The pattern is what you need to
type first to use that search (so it wont pick up an application instead). For example:
YouTube
yy
firefox https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%u
If you want another one you need to search on that website, copy the url and replace
what you searched for with %u.
More:
firefox https://www.google.ro/search?q=%u Google
firefox https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%u DuckDuckGo
firefox https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=&bih=&btnG=Search&q=%u
Google images
You could also try out DuckDuckGo Bangs if you want https://duckduckgo.com/bang.
3) Drop Down Terminal
a) Installation
sudo apt-get install -y xfce4-terminal
b) Using the tilda key to dropdown the terminal
What I recommend is to do this ( c) is why). Create a txt file (I recommend to put it in
your home in the bin directory) without an extension (or with .sh) and paste this in:
#!/bin/bash
xfce4-terminal --drop-down
Make this file executable. You can right click on it and go to permissions or open a
terminal in this folder and
chmod +x yourfile
Now create your shortcut and give it the tilda key as a shortcut. If you have the tilda
key set to something else, then remove it from there or make another shortcut for the
terminal. In Cinnamon you should go to Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts →
Custom Shortcuts → Add.
c) The terminal doesn't focus
I have found a way to work around this bug. Here is what you need to do.
sudo apt-get install -y wmctrl
Go to your script (that file) and replace everything with this:
#!/bin/bash
xfce4-terminal --drop-down -T DropDownTerminal && sleep 0.1 && wmctrl -a DropDownTerminal
What this does is: it creates a terminal with the name DropDownTerminal and wmctrl
will focus and raise it every time. I did rename the terminal so it will not conflict with
other terminals. Not as important in the case of the Whisker Menu.
You can also add this to your startup applications if you want to. In Cinnamon:
System Settings – Startup Applications. Add this file as the command. The thing is
that even if you don't add it the terminal will still open up regardless.
d) Theming the terminal
Now that you have the terminal you can also use it as a normal terminal too.
If you look at the right corner of the terminal you can see a button to keep the
terminal above all windows and to access the settings. If the settings appear behind
the terminal, right click on the borders of the settings window or on it's titlebar and
choose to keep it above other windows.
To have fixed size for all terminals you can open up a terminal, go to preferences, go
to appearance and than choose the geometry. Here you can also make the terminal
transparent. Change the background colors and the text colors in the color tab. It's
up to you.
e) PS1 color (or the color of your username in the terminal)
I found a really cool way to theme this one. In the terminal preferences go to colors.
Make sure you have checked the bold text color. Choose something you like
because this is what you will color your username and also the bold text in the man
entries (anything that is in bold).
Go to your home. Find .bashrc (ctrl+h). If is not there make the file. Here you can
also add aliases, but for now if there is any PS1 in there add a # at the beginning.
Now add this on another line:
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[1m\]\u@\h \w \$\[\033[00m\] '
Save the file. Open up a terminal and you will see that all bold text including your
name are now the color you choose for the bold text in the terminal preferences.
Keep in mind that if you do this, your other terminal(s) that are not xfce may not get
colored.
f) Other cool xfce4-terminal commands
If you use man xfce4-terminal you can see more commands for the terminal. Here
are some cool ones:
xfce4-terminal --fullscreen - this will open the terminal in fullscreen and without borders and titlebar. Don't confuse with --maximize which will not remove the borders and titlebar
xfce4-terminal --hide-borders – this will hide the tilebar and the borders in a newly created terminal. --show-border will show them back.
I hope you found something useful here. Thank you for reading.
I have other stuff you might like on my github:
https://github.com/RaitaroH
Don't care vote.
Why not use XFCE itself. I have dropped Cinnamon a long time ago in favor of xfce