Xfce Forum

felipec

Member

Registered: 2022-02-09

Posts: 2

Website

xfce-config-helper 0.1 released

Over the years I've tried many ways to store my Xfce configuration in a simple way and what I've found is the best is using YAML files.

I developed a tool to read this YAML configuration and update xfconf on the fly.

The format is simple:

shortcuts:
  commands:
    "<Super>Return": xfce4-terminal
  wm:
    show_desktop: "<Super>d"
settings:
  xfwm4:
    "/general/easy_click": Super
panels:
- position: p=10;x=0;y=0
  plugins:
  - - whiskermenu
  - - tasklist
  - - pager

And to load it you just do `xfconf-load config.yml`.

For more information and installation instructions check the github repo.

If you are using Arch Linux, I've also created an AUR package: xfce-config-helper.

Thoughts?

Last edited by felipec (2022-02-09 11:53:09)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: xfce-config-helper 0.1 released

Hello, welcome, and thanks for sharing. This might be useful for people looking to automate Xfce settings.

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Signy

Member

Registered: 2020-10-20

Posts: 52

Re: xfce-config-helper 0.1 released

Thank you for your announcement, it looks as a very useful tool.
May I ask for more detailed installation instructions? It is probably just my ignorance, but for example I have no idea what to download. More people might appreciate simple step by step description of installation.

felipec

Member

Registered: 2022-02-09

Posts: 2

Website

Re: xfce-config-helper 0.1 released

@Signy Sure. Perhaps I'm taking too many things for granted, but I think many people know how to clone a git repository:

git clone https://github.com/felipec/xfce-config-helper.git

Then you simply go to the directory you just created:

cd xfce-config-helper

And do what the instructions say:

make install

This would install the scripts to `~/.local/bin/`. However, you would need ruby and their dependencies to run them.

The standard way to install those dependencies is using Ruby's gem:

gem install --user-install ruby-dbus rexml

That command depends on your distribution, but afterwards you can run:

~/.local/bin/xfconf-load config.yml

That's all you need to run the main script.

Now, to actually do something you need a configuration file you want to load.

Let's say you want to map "Cltr+Alt+Enter" to xfce4-terminal.

You create a configuration file "foo.yml":

shortcuts:
  commands:
    "<Primary><Alt>Return": xfce4-terminal

And now you call xfconf-load with that file as argument:

~/.local/bin/xfconf-load foo.yml

Of course it's simpler if you add "~/.local/bin" to your $PATH environment variable, so you don't have to specify the full path, but that's covered elsewhere: wikipedia's PATH entry.

And the end of the day this is nothing more than some Ruby scripts, with some Ruby dependencies.

If you still have some doubts, don't hesitate to reply here or open an issue ticket on GitHub.

Signy

Member

Registered: 2020-10-20

Posts: 52

Re: xfce-config-helper 0.1 released

Thank you very much, I was missing the part with git cloning (on the git readme page).
Maybe these two lines:

git clone https://github.com/felipec/xfce-config-helper.git
cd xfce-config-helper

can be added to the install part of readme page.