Xfce Forum

lightstream

Member

Registered: 2011-12-15

Posts: 4

Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

Are there built-in desktop widgets available in XFCE?

Googling isn't very helpful, it points me towards libxfce4ui which I do have installed. HOwever no options for adding widgets to the desktop anywhere.

Can someone give a definitive answer? Thanks.

Ion Silverbolt

Member

Registered: 2010-01-14

Posts: 31

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

No built-in desktop widgets in Xfce. Most Xfce users use Conky, which is an excellent light weight system monitor. Gkrellm is also another option which uses Gtk.

Here's my conky theme:

lightstream

Member

Registered: 2011-12-15

Posts: 4

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

Gentoo huh, hardcore

Thanks for the clear answer, and suggestions. All I really want is a clock / calendar - if I could find something like that then XFCE with no panels would be very close to ideal, as I like a minimalist desktop.

Right now I have a single, very small panel that just contains a clock. Unfortunately this clock doesn't seem to have a pop-up calendar however.

Ion Silverbolt

Member

Registered: 2010-01-14

Posts: 31

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

I put together a simple calendar theme for conky if you want to use it. It can be edited to whatever. There are loads of clock themes too that you can probably append to your .conkyrc file.

Step 1: Install conky
Step 2: Edit the .conkyrc file in your home directory, and paste this in it:

# set to yes if you want Conky to be forked in the background
background yes

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window 1
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent 1

# Use Xft?
use_xft no

# Set conky on the bottom of all other applications
on_bottom yes

# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 2

# This is the number of times Conky will update before quitting.
# Set to zero to run forever.
total_run_times 0

# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes

# Default colors and also border colors
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color black

# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
#alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
alignment bottom_right
#alignment none

# Gap between borders of screen and text
# same thing as passing -x at command line
gap_x 12
gap_y 40

# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers yes

# set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
uppercase no

# number of cpu samples to average
# set to 1 to disable averaging
cpu_avg_samples 2

# number of net samples to average
# set to 1 to disable averaging
net_avg_samples 2

# Force UTF8? note that UTF8 support required XFT
override_utf8_locale no

# Add spaces to keep things from moving about?  This only affects certain objects.
use_spacer none

# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen

TEXT
${color #F6F9F9}${alignc}December $color

${color #FFFFFF}${execi 300 ~/.calendar.sh}

Step 3: Create a text file in your home directory named .calendar.sh and paste this into it:

cal | awk 'NR>1' | sed -e 's/   /    /g' -e 's/[^ ] /& /g' -e 's/..*/  & /' -e 's/ \('`date | awk '{print $3}'`'\) /\['`date | awk '{print $3}'`'\]/'

Step 4: Right click on the .calendar.sh file and make it executable.

It's not perfect in the fact that you have to change the month label every month. I'm sure it can be done automatically. I just haven't looked into it yet.

stqn

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 174

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

The Orage clock does open a calendar when clicked.

wa7qzr

Member

Registered: 2010-03-30

Posts: 8

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

I've always liked the Screenlets package of desktop widgets. It's a python thing, and they aren't part of any desktop package, but they work with everything I've tried to use them on. That
s them on the right. There are some 30 or so different widgets one can use.

secipolla

Member

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 393

Re: Does XFCE have Desktop widgets

There's Google gadgets: http://code.google.com/p/google-gadgets-for-linux/