what is Window Buttons

Skaperen · 2019-01-09 15:34:13

i found that a user had a plugin between two others that had no visual appearance. i found it because i was moving another plugin and saw that red marker jump over it. i was expecting it to be a separator. instead, it was named "Window Buttons" the properties was confusing. the description in the add-plugin list said "Switch between open windows using buttons". i bet someone here knows what this means.

MountainDewManiac · 2019-01-09 16:20:09

Pretty much exactly that, although it isn't the best explanation. Open a few applications and observe whichever panel you have it on.

Regards,
MDM

Skaperen · 2019-01-09 16:30:22

i don't see any buttons. why would it be blank on the panel?

MountainDewManiac · 2019-01-09 16:45:48

Because you did not follow my suggestion, lol?

Regards,
MDM

ToZ · 2019-01-09 17:27:09

They are the "buttons" (also known as tasklist) at the top of the following image (not including "Applications - thats a plugin).

You can place them at the top, bottom, left, right, (free-floating if you want) and they can be icon+text or just icon.

Skaperen · 2019-01-09 19:18:17

MountainDewManiac wrote:

Because you did not follow my suggestion, lol?
Regards,
MDM

probably because i misunderstood something, being new to GUI concepts while not being new to programming and systems. it's still not in my head what i missed.

edit:

which thread did you give suggestions on?

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-01-09 19:51:21)

Skaperen · 2019-01-09 19:40:44

@Toz: i don't see those buttons on my screen. you can see it here. this plugin shows nothing i recognize on my screen. and i think i know about everything that is visible (has an icon or text).

MountainDewManiac · 2019-01-09 20:46:23

Skaperen wrote:

which thread did you give suggestions on?

THIS one, in post #2.

Skaperen wrote:

i don't see those buttons on my screen.

And I covered that in post #4.

Are you not a native English speaker, perhaps? Because there seems to be some sort of difficulty in communication here, and I very much dislike assuming that someone might be the kind of person who sees an object laying in their driveway and ends up spending ten hours with fifteen different sorts of measuring/imaging/etc. devices, trying to figure out what that object is... instead of just immediately recognizing it's a simple gravel. Which (regardless of whether or not that fits) is not meant to be disrespectful; it's just... differing personality types and such - people with markedly different "mental makeups" (or even, occasionally, only slightly different ones) often seem to have communication issues, because they have different basic assumptions about things, that's all.

Does the following help?

I am speculating here, but my guess is that, since that panel applet, by its very nature, needs to have a varying amount of "buttons" displayed, only displays as many as is required for functionality; and when that number is zero, that is how many get displayed.

Again, there is some speculation on my part. But it seems logical to me (and, I assume, others - including its developer).

I am sorry if I am raising your frustration level instead of lowering it. Especially since that is not my intention. If it helps any at all (probably not?), know that there is some frustration here, too, due to my apparent difficulty in communication.

Regards,
MDM

Last edited by MountainDewManiac (2019-01-09 20:47:38)

ToZ · 2019-01-09 20:52:27

That is weird. What is the Row Size of your panel (Right-click the panel and select Panel > Panel Preferences)? Does increasing the size make them appear?

Also, try removing and re-adding the plugin (Right-click the panel and select Panel > Panel Preferences, go to the Items tab).

Skaperen · 2019-01-10 00:01:18

> THIS one, in post #2.

there are no applications on the panel. i could open a few by command line but they would not be on any panel.

> Are you not a native English speaker, perhaps?

English is my first language. i am studying Norwegian. i can read a few others to a limited extent.

> ... and when that number is zero, that is how many get displayed.

that must be what is going on. nothing being displayed has given no clue about what it does or what kind of buttons are involved. from Toz's posted image, maybe its buttons a text on the panel. i would like to get confirmation of that.

i think it is less about communication difficulty and more about software not performing as expected, or at least not the same. i have a more complicated setup with multiple users, multiple workspaces, and a not-yet-complete transition which means Unity is around to mess things up, except where i still need to have it. i hope to eventually eliminate all need for Unity. then i can uninstall it a make plans to install Xubuntu in 2020.

Skaperen · 2019-01-10 00:16:00

ToZ wrote:

That is weird. What is the Row Size of your panel (Right-click the panel and select Panel > Panel Preferences)? Does increasing the size make them appear?

the row size is 24. increasing it does not make things appear. increasing it so much that stuff on the left bumps into stuff on the right results in things disappearing,

ToZ wrote:

Also, try removing and re-adding the plugin (Right-click the panel and select Panel > Panel Preferences, go to the Items tab).

nothing appeared.

ToZ · 2019-01-10 00:34:51

Try restarting the panel:

xfce4-panel -r

If still nothing, can you post back the contents of ~/.gtkrc-2.0? Maybe something in there is causing a problem.

Skaperen · 2019-01-10 07:11:07

i restarted it and no buttons appeared. there is no ~/.gtkrc-2.0

i captured the screen again and put the file here

MountainDewManiac · 2019-01-10 07:43:22

I wish to apologize. I was under the impression that you were seeing no representations of Window Buttons on your panel with no applications running, and that this assumed thing was why you were not seeing anything. But your terminal window should, I think, qualify - and so, presumably, would whichever web browser that you are running when you visit this forum.

I do not know what I was thinking. Apparently... I wasn't.

Regards,
MDM

Skaperen · 2019-01-10 08:12:35

as far as i can recall (and at my age, memory is getting fuzzy) i never added "Window Buttons" and was surprised it was not a Separator in that gap (found because i was moving something else). i didn't know that it should have buttons on the panel itself, else my thread starter post would be reporting them missing instead of admitting my ignorance of this plugin. people with ignorance should be doing prayers at the idol-of-the-google and i neglected to do that.

as far as i yet know, there is nothing of this plugin i really want to have so i have no vested interest in knowing why it isn't showing anything. i could just remove it and move on and be happy. not everything works but enough does to suit my needs for now. as soon as i get a fast-to-use user-switcher going, and make my startup scripts work w/o unity, i'll be ready to dump unity.

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-01-10 08:15:43)

ToZ · 2019-01-10 12:06:10

Skaperen wrote:

i restarted it and no buttons appeared. there is no ~/.gtkrc-2.0
i captured the screen again and put the file here

Let's try running the panel in debug mode to see if it helps:

xfce4-panel -q
PANEL_DEBUG=1 xfce4-panel

Post back all of the output.

Skaperen · 2019-01-10 19:52:35

the output is here.

ToZ · 2019-01-10 21:04:56

Not much help there - it references it but doesn't give any diagnostic info. What does your panel config look like?

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -lv

Skaperen · 2019-01-11 01:26:07

http://ipal.net/xfce/20190110-201916-02 … k-like.log

so it looks like there are tools/ways to get config info. i hope there are also ways to set things. i have been trying stuff in ~/Desktop. among other things i have learned it freaks out on symlinks.

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-01-11 01:30:36)

Skaperen · 2019-01-11 01:42:49

here is another user named "vid":

http://ipal.net/xfce/Screenshot_2019-01-10_20-35-48.png

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-01-11 01:44:18)

Skaperen · 2019-01-11 01:53:38

is this a plugin that manages buttons for windows that i open up? if so, the the question would be why it occupies (blank) space on the panel for 2 users and how the buttons for other users is managed ... the ones that don't have that blank space.

ToZ · 2019-01-11 15:03:42

Skaperen wrote:

is this a plugin that manages buttons for windows that i open up?

yes.

if so, the the question would be why it occupies (blank) space on the panel for 2 users and how the buttons for other users is managed ... the ones that don't have that blank space.

A good question and a strange occurrence to be happening.

For one of the users that has a blank space, run the following commands:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p $(xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -lv  | grep tasklist | awk '{print $1}') -rR
xfce4-panel -r
xfce4-panel -s
xfce4-panel --add tasklist

This should remove the errant entry from the xfconf store, restart the panel, save the panel, and manually re-add the tasklist. See if that results in the buttons being displayed again.

Skaperen · 2019-01-11 16:00:32

ToZ wrote:

Skaperen wrote:
is this a plugin that manages buttons for windows that i open up?
yes.
if so, the the question would be why it occupies (blank) space on the panel for 2 users and how the buttons for other users is managed ... the ones that don't have that blank space.
A good question and a strange occurrence to be happening.
For one of the users that has a blank space, run the following commands:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p $(xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -lv  | grep tasklist | awk '{print $1}') -rR
xfce4-panel -r
xfce4-panel -s
xfce4-panel --add tasklist
This should remove the errant entry from the xfconf store, restart the panel, save the panel, and manually re-add the tasklist. See if that results in the buttons being displayed again.

it moved the blank space over to the far right side of the panel.

Last edited by Skaperen (2019-01-11 16:01:18)

ToZ · 2019-01-11 16:41:26

Maybe a theme issue? Can you post back the following:

xfconf-query -c xsettings -lv

...and the contents of $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0 (if the file exists).

Skaperen · 2019-01-11 20:17:59

an image with that contents is here

something i noticed this morning, and thought to look at this after i saw the thing move to the far right, i that ALL users have this somewhere. most have it between stuff displayed on the left, and the big blank space between left and right. that makes me think that maybe it has to be there in order for to active windows to show on the panel. if i'm right then even you would have this little "Window Buttons" blank space. i don't know if panel logic requires something for every added plugin, but you probably need to have it to have a way to get to its Properties. and its position seems to define where those active window buttons show up. bring up a window and see if you can find this thing just to the left of the leftmost active window button.

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#1 2019-01-09 15:34:13

what is Window Buttons

#2 2019-01-09 16:20:09

Re: what is Window Buttons

#3 2019-01-09 16:30:22

Re: what is Window Buttons

#4 2019-01-09 16:45:48

Re: what is Window Buttons

#5 2019-01-09 17:27:09

Re: what is Window Buttons

#6 2019-01-09 19:18:17

Re: what is Window Buttons

#7 2019-01-09 19:40:44

Re: what is Window Buttons

#8 2019-01-09 20:46:23

Re: what is Window Buttons

#9 2019-01-09 20:52:27

Re: what is Window Buttons

#10 2019-01-10 00:01:18

Re: what is Window Buttons

#11 2019-01-10 00:16:00

Re: what is Window Buttons

#12 2019-01-10 00:34:51

Re: what is Window Buttons

#13 2019-01-10 07:11:07

Re: what is Window Buttons

#14 2019-01-10 07:43:22

Re: what is Window Buttons

#15 2019-01-10 08:12:35

Re: what is Window Buttons

#16 2019-01-10 12:06:10

Re: what is Window Buttons

#17 2019-01-10 19:52:35

Re: what is Window Buttons

#18 2019-01-10 21:04:56

Re: what is Window Buttons

#19 2019-01-11 01:26:07

Re: what is Window Buttons

#20 2019-01-11 01:42:49

Re: what is Window Buttons

#21 2019-01-11 01:53:38

Re: what is Window Buttons

#22 2019-01-11 15:03:42

Re: what is Window Buttons

#23 2019-01-11 16:00:32

Re: what is Window Buttons

#24 2019-01-11 16:41:26

Re: what is Window Buttons

#25 2019-01-11 20:17:59

Re: what is Window Buttons

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