xfce4 eye candy?

**josolanes** · 08-01-2005

i'm running xfce 4.2 and am wondering...is there any kind of eye candy i can add to it?

it has some options that i can change (and tons of themes i can choose) but is there something similar to gdesklets that is designed to run with xfce4?

i set xfce4 to run either gnome or kde apps, which it does well, but it had some problems with gdesklets (and the kde equivalent...for some reason i can't think of its name right now) and i've never gotten used to those apps even when i used gnome and kde.

is there something like this meant for xfce4? i'd just like to add some toys to it as it looks nice right now, but it would be cool to have the option to run applets if i'd like to make it look good

thanks in advance!

**Vergil83** · 08-01-2005

there is always gkrellm. But I have never seen an xfce version of gdesklets/karamanda (whatever it is

)

Also, don't forget about xfce-goodies

**josolanes** · 08-01-2005

Originally Posted by Vergil83

there is always gkrellm. But I have never seen an xfce version of gdesklets/karamanda (whatever it is

)

Also, don't forget about xfce-goodies

i've got gkrellm

....that's my part-time system monitor

i've also got some of the plug-ins for the panel...quite a few actually

. it definately helps some, but i was looking more for a gdesklets/karamba (that's exactly it

) look and feel....really flashy

. i'll just try getting either karamba or gdesklets working again

one more, somewhat related question. how would i get the iconbox to load/work? under "settings" i have the "Lil' Star - Iconbox" and i was wondering how to load it and i don't seem think it's loaded. all i have it the panel and the taskbar. is this iconbox similiar to the one englightenment uses?

thanks for the help/suggestions

**Gullible Jones** · 08-02-2005

There's adesklets - like gdesklets, but they use Python and xlib instead of the tons of dependencies used by gdesklets, and in my experience are much less piggish and much more reliable. You may have to make your own package for adesklets, but after that things are easy: just download the desklets you want and untar them to your ~/.adesklets dir, then run the python scripts for the desklets. In order to run them when starting X, run 'adesklets' from your .xinitrc - that will run all the desklets that you had running before, during your last session. The desklets can also be moved, restarted, turned off, and configured on the fly via right-click menus.

Uhh... lessee... there's also torsmo, a system monitor... The documentation on the website is pretty good. I do have some problems getting certain fonts to work with it though.

**Vergil83** · 08-02-2005

Originally Posted by josolanes

one more, somewhat related question. how would i get the iconbox to load/work? under "settings" i have the "Lil' Star - Iconbox" and i was wondering how to load it and i don't seem think it's loaded. all i have it the panel and the taskbar. is this iconbox similiar to the one englightenment uses?

)

I would say iconbox is just like a system tray from kde/gnome. XFCE also has a "real" system tray. I don't use an iconbox so I don't know quite what it does

Originally Posted by Gullible Jones

There's adesklets - like gdesklets, but they use Python and xlib instead of the tons of dependencies used by gdesklets, and in my experience are much less piggish and much more reliable.

Cool. I have never seen those before. I will have to give it a try...... thanks

**Gullible Jones** · 08-02-2005

Originally Posted by josolanes

one more, somewhat related question. how would i get the iconbox to load/work? under "settings" i have the "Lil' Star - Iconbox" and i was wondering how to load it and i don't seem think it's loaded. all i have it the panel and the taskbar. is this iconbox similiar to the one englightenment uses? Smile)

IIRC, you start it by running "xfce4-iconbox" - XFCE will start it by default during later sessions. As for its nature, it's basically a taskbar with icons and no text - it displays all applications on a desktop, not just iconified ones.

If you want to get rid of the taskbar, by the way, you can... Middle-click on the desktop and a menu will pop up that lets you select windows and switch between desktops, ala Openbox - the XFCE4 taskbar is pretty much unnecessary. If you think it's ugly, you can just kill it - XFCE ought to remember that during the next session.

**josolanes** · 08-02-2005

WOW...thanks a lot Vergil83 and Gullible Jones!

that gave me a ton of information about xfce4 that i didn't know

...now to make it look good!

that adesklets thing is really cool too!

**Gullible Jones** · 08-02-2005

You're welcome.

BTW, if you want transparency and stuff, you can recompile XFWM4 with the --enable-compositor option... In my experience that's very, very slow though, and XFCE IMO looks better without it.

**josolanes** · 08-02-2005

Originally Posted by Gullible Jones

You're welcome.

BTW, if you want transparency and stuff, you can recompile XFWM4 with the --enable-compositor option... In my experience that's very, very slow though, and XFCE IMO looks better without it.

wow...i didn't know that either lol. i'll take your advice and not use it

.

i've used xfce4 for a little over a month and didn't know about any of the things you've mentioned. thanks a lot for all the info

**Gullible Jones** · 08-02-2005

Again, you're welcome.

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