Xfce Forum

Danielsan

Member

Registered: 2017-11-22

Posts: 89

A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Hi guys,

I am new here but I am not new with Xfce4, I am using it since 2009 across Zenwalk, Xubuntu and eventually Debian (stably since 2012).
I am pretty satisfied about Xfce4 however I am one of these people who still claim a bunch of lacking features (yes I admit it, I am one of those who wants a double panel in Thunar... ). Unfortunately I haven't any coding skill so I prepared a couple of mock-up hoping to inspire someone else. I already posted them on the G+ page but the engagement wasn't really exciting so I would like to show them also in the official forum.

I believe an important feature that is missing is a full-screen task-switcher, usually this feature is associate with a fancy animation, however I think it would not be in harmony with the Xfce4 style. Exists something ideally similar the Xfdashboard however I would not suggest it to anyone. In fact I would suggest to hack the current Window Switcher Dialog to add a further behavior to replicate the expose` effect:

The second mock-up is regarding a dock plugin for the panel. Let me states that there are a lot of docks around but no one that fits well the DE, it would be better a specific plugin. I understand that create a dock applet can be tedious or a long process (even if mate has its own mate-dock-applet) so my idea is, instead to create a full dock, it might easier or faster creating a launcher that works as a dock: a Dock Launcher. Dock launchers beside a flat windows list applet without labels on the intellihide panel can replicate the exact behavior of a full dock, we should just modify the windows list applet to permit to pin a window as dock launcher. It is cool, isn't it?

Last edited by Danielsan (2020-03-10 14:16:36)

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Misko_2083

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 211

Website

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Maybe the xfce4-dev mailing list is a better place for more direct developer input.
Or you can create a bug report requesting a review of your suggestions.

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Danielsan

Member

Registered: 2017-11-22

Posts: 89

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Maybe the xfce4-dev mailing list is a better place for more direct developer input.
Or you can create a bug report requesting a review of your suggestions.

Actually I did it but I have never received a reply...

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Debian ~ Devuan & FreeBSD + XFCE = <3

ozjd

Member

From: Hawkesbury NSW Australia

Registered: 2012-02-05

Posts: 560

Website

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Maybe the xfce4-dev mailing list is a better place for more direct developer input.
Or you can create a bug report requesting a review of your suggestions.

Actually I did it but I have never received a reply...

Well as the current focus is on migration to GTK3 they probably aren't looking for new ideas. Maybe once 4.14 is released (whenever that will be) they will be more open to discussing it.

Danielsan

Member

Registered: 2017-11-22

Posts: 89

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

@ Misko_2083

Yep, maybe it is like you said.

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Debian ~ Devuan & FreeBSD + XFCE = <3

acppcoder

Member

Registered: 2015-01-24

Posts: 9

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

maybe in a similar vein, I was interested in an option to extend the "alt-tab" menu with a desktops: e.g. first display the windows of the current desktop, then display the *desktops* (e.g. if you had 5 windows per desktop x 4 desktops, you'd see 5+3=8 items in the alt tab menu; 2 invocations of the menu would get you to any window, whilst one invocation could get you to any window on the current desktop, or the topmost window in any other desktop; the windows of each desktop could be shown in a sub-menu under the alt-tab list as you stepped through, if the hiding aspect was deemed un-ergonomic

Last edited by acppcoder (2018-01-22 14:49:57)

Reaccion Raul

Member

Registered: 2018-04-25

Posts: 20

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

I agree. The "Expose" thing specially comes very handy.

I found out about Skippy-XD some time ago ( https://github.com/antonio-malcolm/skippy-xd ). I hope somebody can fork it some day and update it 'cause it have some issues but it's the closest thing on Xfce (that i found out...)

- You don't see previews of minimized windows (it's what made me stop using it... same issue as xfdashboard).
- It redirects your mouse. If you are working fast it's annoying because the mouse it's not where you are thinking.

Also... adding an X to close windows on the previous (as in xfdashboard) would be very nice.

Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Reaccion Raul, I use Skippy-XD, really nice little program and I hope it will be developed in the future. It should be merged into Xfce project somehow. It works really good on my machine after some configuring. I bound it to Super+Space.

- It redirects your mouse. If you are working fast it's annoying because the mouse it's not where you are thinking.

You just need to configure it in ~/.config/skippy-xd/skippy-xd.rc file. This is how mine looks for example:

[general]
distance = 50
useNetWMFullscreen = true
ignoreSkipTaskbar = true
updateFreq = 30.0
lazyTrans = false
pipePath = /tmp/skippy-xd-fifo
movePointerOnStart = false
movePointerOnSelect = false
movePointerOnRaise = false
switchDesktopOnActivate = false
useNameWindowPixmap = false
forceNameWindowPixmap = false
includeFrame = true
allowUpscale = true
showAllDesktops = true
showUnmapped = true
preferredIconSize = 64
clientDisplayModes = thumbnail icon filled none
iconFillSpec = orig mid mid #2F3D44
fillSpec = orig mid mid #2F3D44
background = 1440x900 scale mid mid /home/spass/Obrazy/Tapety/xubuntu-15-10-plymouth.png

[xinerama]
showAll = true

[normal]
tint = black
tintOpacity = 0
opacity = 200

[highlight]
tint = white
tintOpacity = 0
opacity = 255

[tooltip]
show = true
followsMouse = true
offsetX = 20
offsetY = 20
align = left
border = #3F4B51
background = #2F3D44
opacity = 255
text = #CFD8DC
textShadow = none
font = Ubuntu-11:weight=normal

[bindings]
miwMouse1 = focus
miwMouse2 = close-ewmh
miwMouse3 = iconify

If you want to use it, remember to change the "background" part, or you can just leave it empty (so "background = "). You may also want to change some colors and font in [tooltip] section, and "fillSpec" in [general].

Also... adding an X to close windows on the previous (as in xfdashboard) would be very nice.

Middle mouse click closes, right click minimises.

Last edited by Spass (2018-08-16 23:13:58)

herbie643

Member

Registered: 2013-04-05

Posts: 138

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

You really need skippy-xd-fix as that will restore minimized windows making it very easy to find you app.
The one thing that could be added to skippy-xd is show workspaces as Gnome does.
Xfdashboard has the skippy-xd-fix included in case you wanted to know.

Reaccion Raul

Member

Registered: 2018-04-25

Posts: 20

Re: A couple of mock-up to inspire the devs team

Thans a lot to both of you, i will try your tricks. I agree it should be merged into the Xfce proyect. It's kind of forgotten and with the new Ubuntu the ppa doesn't even work. Kind of a lost Xfce treasure.

On this page talk about the fix thing in case anyone else is interested too.

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/07/skippy-x … r.html?m=1

Last edited by Reaccion Raul (2018-08-17 21:09:31)