Xfce 4 Desktop Manager

Introduction

The xfdesktop application manages the desktop backdrop. It sets a backdrop image and/or color and it can pop up an applications menu and a list of all running applications when you click on the desktop with the right or middle mouse button respectively. As of Xfce 4.4, xfdesktop also draws icons on the desktop.

The xfdesktop package installs a settings dialog for use with the Xfce 4 Settings Manager. From this dialog you can change the backdrop image and color and change settings for the menu and the window list.

Backdrop

xfdesktop is responsible for drawing the desktop's backdrop (sometimes called "wallpaper") image. There are various options for setting a backdrop image. The final picture seen on the monitor is composed of a solid color or gradient, with an image or photo (with optional transparency) composited on top of the color or gradient. This allows for some interesting effects using semi-transparent images on top of various color arrangements.

Icons

In addition to drawing the backdrop image, xfdesktop can draw icons on the desktop.

Minimized Window Icons

One mode of operation displays minimized applications as icons on the desktop, which can be rearranged, and will remember their positions when the window is unhidden and then later minimized again. The icons also provide a right-click menu similar to the window's control menu accessed by clicking the button in the top-left corner of the window.

File/Launcher Icons

xfdesktop can also display the contents of the ~/Desktop/ on the desktop, similar to the icon views found in many other desktop environments and operating systems. Files can be arranged, copied, moved, and linked to and from a file manager, and opened using preferred applications. Application and URL launchers can also be created on the desktop. The file icon view is modeled to have a similar look and feel as the Thunar file manager.

The Applications Menu

A right-click on the desktop backdrop opens a menu that allows you to start many of the applications found on your system.

Figure 1. Applications Menu

The menu's configuration file, menu.xml, can be found under the path $sysconfdir/xdg/xfce4/menu.xml. For binary packages, $sysconfdir is often /etc and for source compiles, it defaults to /usr/local/etc.

While it is possible to edit the file manually, the recommended method for editing the menu.xml file is via the Xfce Menu Editor, which can be started by running xfce4-menueditor, or using the "Edit desktop menu" button available from the Behavior tab ofthe Desktop Settings dialog. The menu editor also supports drag'n'drop from a file manager.

If you've edited the menu via xfce4-menueditor, the user-customized menu file will be saved to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/xfce4/desktop/menu.xml. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME usually defaults to ~/.config. If editing the file manually, copying it to this location first is the preferred method.

NB: If you choose to edit the file manually, menu.xml must to be in UTF-8 encoding for the toolkit to be able to display accented or other non-ASCII characters. Therefore, you need an editor that supports UTF-8, like mousepad or gedit.

The Window List Menu

A middle-click on the desktop backdrop shows a list of all opened windows ordered by workspace. It also allows you to add or remove a workspace.

Figure 2. Window List Menu

Shows xfdesktop middle-click mouse menu.

Desktop Settings

You can start the Desktop settings dialog by clicking on the "Desktop" button in the Xfce Settings Manager.

Appearance Tab

The Appearance tab allows you to set various options related to drawing the desktop backdrop picture.

Figure 3. Desktop Settings, Appearance Tab

Shows the Appearance tab of the Backdrop Settings dialog

Color Style

The color style is one of three options: a solid color, horizontal gradient, or vertical gradient.

First Color and Second Color

When the solid color option is selected, only the first color is available. When either of the gradient options are selected, both the first and second colors are available. Both of the color buttons open a color chooser dialog:

Figure 4. Select Backdrop Color

You can use the colored ring with a triangle inside to select the color you want from the outer ring, then select the darkness or lightness of that color using the inner triangle. Corresponding values of brightness, deepness, and amount of red, green and blue light in the color appear through the entries on the right side of the window.
You can click the eyedropper, then click anywhere on your screen to select the color.
You can enter an HTML-style hexadecimal color value, or simply a color name, in the "Color Name" entry.

The selected colors will fill the entire root window, and will remain visible through a transparent backdrop image.

Image

Unselect the "Show Image" option if you want xfdesktop to ignore the backdrop image and only use the previously selected colors.

The "File" entry shows the path to the currently selected backdrop image. If you want to change it, just drop and image on the path field, or edit the path, or click the browse button, and a classic file-browsing dialog will appear.

You can create a list of backdrop images that will be randomly used at startup. Click the "New list" button to open the list editing dialog:

Figure 5. Backdrop List Editor

You may want to change the default path and name of your custom list of backdrops in the "List file" entry.

You can easily add an image file by clicking the "plus" button. That action will open a file-browsing window. You can remove a file, if you select it in the list and click the "minus" button. When your list is complete, click the "Save" button to save it. If you want to modify its content later, use the "Edit list" button in the Desktop Settings dialog.

You can recover an older list by dropping its name.list file on the backdrop settings dialog from a file manager.

To refresh the backdrop with a new random image from the list just run the xfdesktop command again, e.g. from a terminal or the run dialog, or xfdesktop [--reload].

Four Style options (Tiled, Scaled, Centered and Stretched) are available to specify the fitting of the backdrop image on the screen, depending on its size. You can also select the "Auto" item if you want to let xfdesktop take care of this setting.

The slider at the bottom of the dialog allows you to adjust the brightness of the backdrop image and/or color.

xfdesktop supports xinerama and multiscreen modes. In multiscreen mode, the Appearance tab shows one tab per screen.

Behavior Tab

Figure 6. Desktop Settings, Appearance Tab

The first two options allow you to enable or disable the Window List Menu and the Applications Menu. There is also a button that launches the Xfce Menu Editor, which is used to edit the Applications Menu.

The behavior of the desktop icons can be set here as well. There are three options: None, to disable desktop icons entirely; Minimized application icons, to show icons for minimized/hidden applications on the desktop; and File/launcher icons, to show the contents of your ~/Desktop directory on the desktop.

If desktop icons are enabled, you can control the size of the icon itself (in pixels), and the font size used to display the icon text (in points). Selecting the "Use system font size" checkbox will tell xfdesktop to use the font size selected in the User Interface Settings dialog.

Xfce Menu Editor

The recommended way to edit the Applications Menu is via the Xfce Menu Editor.

Figure 7. Xfce Menu Editor

The Xfce Menu Editor shows the menu as a tree of items. Existing items can be edited by selecting the item and using the toolbar buttons or context menu. Items can be moved around by dragging them with the mouse. New items can be used with the Add button or menu item.

There are five kinds of menu items:

Title: A Title item has no function; it just serves as a way to insert text and/or an icon into the menu.
Submenu: A submenu item allows you to attach a submenu to the menu.
Launcher: Launchers run an application when clicked.
Separator: A separator item draws a line across the menu.
Quit: The Quit menu item brings up a dialog that allows you to log out, or shutdown or reboot your computer.

If the application supports Startup Notification, you may check the box, and the mouse cursor will turn into an hourglass while the application is loading. If you are not sure if the application supports Startup Notification, leave the box unchecked.

If the application is a console application and requires a terminal to run, check the "Run in teriminal" box.

In addition to menu items, there are two types of "speical" items that can be added to the menu via the "Add external" option in the Edit menu. The system menu searches for .desktop files in some predetermined locations on your hard disk and creates a menu tree of the applications found. The "file" external allows you to store other menus in other menu files and merge them together with the current menu.

Hidden Options

There are a number of hidden options that cannot be set by the Xfce Settings Manager. These require use of a text editor.

Icon View Text Appearance

The colors of the icon text and the icon text background, as well as the opacity of the icon text background, can be customized by putting directives simiar to the following in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file:

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 75

    base[NORMAL] = "#00ff00"
    base[SELECTED] = "#5050ff"
    base[ACTIVE] = "#0000ff"

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ff0000"
    fg[SELECTED] = "#ff0000"
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#ff0000"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

The first entry sets the opacity of the rounded text background. The three "base" entries set the text background color, and the three "fg" entries set the text color.

The "NORMAL" entries set the color for the regular, unselected state. The "SELECTED" entries set the color for when the icon is selected, and the desktop has keyboard focus. The "ACTIVE" entries set the color for when the icon is selected, but the desktop does not have keyboard focus.

Extra File Icons

In addition to file and launcher icons, xfdesktop can also display icons for removable volumes plugged into your computer. It can also display an icon for your filesystem root, home directory, and trash can. By default, these are all enabled, but can be disabled via hidden options. Create or edit the file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/xfce4/desktop/xfdesktoprc and add something similar to the following:

[file-icons]
show-filesystem=true
show-home=true
show-trash=true
show-removable=true

To disable that particular feature, change the "true" to "false" and save the file. If an entry is omitted, it defaults to "true". Restart xfdesktop for the changes to take effect.

Icons In the Applications and Window List Menus

If you wish that icons are not shown in the Applications Menu and the Window List Menu, add the following to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0:

style "menu-images" {
    gtk-menu-images = false
}
widget_class "*" style "menu-images"

Unfortunately, this will act on all Gtk menus, not just on the Applications and Window List menus. There is currently no way to set this property for just these two menus.

Miscellaneous

You can open the menu or window list from the commandline as well. This can be useful for keyboard shortcuts. To open the menu run the command xfdesktop --menu, and for the windowlist use xfdesktop --windowlist. To cause the current running instance to quit, run xfdesktop --quit.

About `xfdesktop`

xfdesktop was written by Brian Tarricone (<kelnos@xfce.org>), Jasper Huijsmans (<jasper@xfce.org>), and Benedikt Meurer (<benny@xfce.org>). For more information, please visit the Xfce website.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, use the bug tracking system at http://bugzilla.xfce.org/.

If you have questions about the use or installation of this package, please ask on the xfce mailing list. Development discussion takes place on the xfce4-dev mailing list.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.