Quick tutorial that shows beginners how to remove the shortcut icons from Xfce4 Desktop in (X)Ubuntu 14.10, (X)Ubuntu 14.04.
Xfce4 shows Home, Devices, Trash icons on desktop out-of-the-box. You can’t simply remove them from the right-click context menu. But it’s easy to hide or disable them via the Desktop Settings utility.
1. Open Desktop Settings from the Application Menu. Or right-click on desktop and select it from the pop-up context menu.
2. When the utility opens, navigate to Icons tab. Un-check all the boxes under Desktop Icons.
Note that you might need to re-size the window so that you can see the checkboxes.
This should remove user’s Home, Trash, and Devices icons.
If you want to hide all desktop icons besides removing application shortcuts from ~/Desktops folder, just set Icon Type to None. Note that this also changes the desktop right-click menu.
This simple tutorial shows Xubuntu or Xfce4 users how to get the titlebar & control buttons of maximized window on the panel using Windowck plugin.
First take a look at the result (Ubuntu 14.04 with Xfce 4.10). You’ll see the title of current Firefox tab on top panel and the window control buttons on the top-right.
To get started:
1. Install the xfce4-windowck-plugin, written by Alessio Piccoli and Cédric Leporcq.
Download the binary from the link below that matches your OS type:
64-bit system – xfce4-windowck-plugin_xxx~trusty_amd64.deb
32-bit system – xfce4-windowck-plugin_xxx~trusty_i386.deb
Then double-click the package to open with Software Center and click the install button to install it.
2. Add the ‘Window Header – Title’ and ‘Window Header – Buttons’ to panel.
Now right-click on panel and navigate to panel -> panel preferences. Add the two panel items ‘Window Header – Title’ & ‘Window Header – Buttons’ and move them to appropriate locations:
After that, maximize a window and you’ll see the window title and buttons on the panel.
3. To get better appearances, do:
Use Window Menu instead of Window Buttons in panel, see above picture
Hide the original titlebar when the window is maximized.
To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:
sudo apt-get install maximus
gconftool-2 --set /apps/maximus/no_maximize --type=bool true
Log out and back in to get it work.
4.(Optional) Uninstall.
Just remove the two panel items from the above picture and run below command to restore maximized window decorations:
As you may know, Xfce4 terminal supports the Quake style drop-down mode since version 0.6. Just a parameter --drop-down will start xfce4-terminal just like quake, yakuake, or tilda.
It is advised to bind this feature to a shortcut in the keyboard preferences. Below steps will teach you how:
1. Open xfce4-setting-manager from Application menu or Alt+F2 Application Finder box.
2. Click on the Keyboard icon under Hardware section.
3. Under Application Shortcuts tab, click on the Add button and type in the command box xfce4-terminal --drop-down
4. Click on OK and set a keyboard shortcut in next window.
Now you’re able to press the keyboard shortcut to launch a drop-down Xfce4 terminal. Click the button at right-bottom to open the preferences dialog and edit the width, height, opacity, duration and more!
Whisker Menu, the default application launcher of Linux Mint Xfce Desktop now is at version 1.3.0. According to the changelog, now you can drag app launchers from Whisker Menu to Panel or Desktop.
Whisker Menu 1.3 ChangeLog:
Fix menu artifacts when switching categories
Fix undefined behavior in slots
Add command to launch menu editor
Add command to switch users
Add hiding commands
Add browsing for commands
Add hiding category and launcher icons
Add loading default settings from a file
Add search actions
Add running arbitrary programs in PATH
Add dragging launchers to panel or desktop
Add support for custom menu files
Defer loading applications until window is shown
Merge configuration dialog tabs
Rearrange source files to match standard layout of Xfce plugins
Click “Mark Executable” button if you get below window. The desktop icon will work properly next time you open it.
Install Whisker Menu:
If you’re on Xfce Desktop with Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint 13/14/15/16 and their derivatives. Whisker Menu can be easily installed from PPA.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one:
The Whisker Menu for Xfce recently released version 1.2.1 with bug fixes and improvements.
As you may know, Whisker Menu is an alternate application launcher for Xfce. With it, you can browser, search, and marked as favorites through all of your installed applications. Changes in version 1.2.1:
Fix incorrect comparison for checking icon sizes
Add window title to allow identifying menu window
Add tips to README for popup script and compiz workaround
For Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives you can easily install or upgrade to this release by running commands below one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
Skippy-XD is a program for X which provides Mac OS Exposé-like features. It is a standalone application for providing a window picker with live previews (including live video) on Linux desktops that run an X server with composite support. Thus it is not part of the window manager, and the composite is not being used all the time.
To use Skippy-XD, you need Xfce (xfwm4) or a NetWM compliant window manager (LXDE, Openbox-based window managers, etc.).
This tutorial shows you how to install this task-switcher via PPA in (X)Ubuntu 13.10, (X)Ubuntu 13.04, (X)Ubuntu 12.10, (X)Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint Xfce.
Mac OS X’s Exposé windows picker in Ubuntu 13.10 Xfce 4.10
Install Skippy-XD:
The Skippy-XD code has been released in 2004, and only slightly improved in 2011. Currently Skippy-XD is under (somewhat) active development and the latest GIT code is available in the PPA below.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one to install it from PPA:
Whisker Menu for Xfce released v1.2.0 with more options and bugfixes. Here’s how to install it in XUbuntu 13.10, XUbuntu 13.04, Xubuntu 12.04, XUbuntu 12.10 and other Linux distributions.
Whisker Menu is an alternate application launcher for Xfce. With it, you can browser, search, and marked as favorites through all of your installed applications.
What’s New in version 1.2.0:
Fix popup script to show correct version information
Fix memory leak when reloading applications
Fix favorites and recent deleted when menu failed to load
Add option to load menu hierarchy
Add option to not include favorites in recently used
Add options to set custom commands
Add option to show recently used by default
Add option to position search entry next to panel button
Add option to position command buttons next to search entry
Xfce Theme Manager, an integrated theme manager for Xfce Desktop now is available for (X)Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander.
With this tool, you can manage:
GTK themes
window borders and controls
icon themes
cursors
wallpapers
panel size and style, backdrop adjustments, fonts and other view options
Screenshots:
xfce theme manager gtk
xfce theme manager advanced
xfce theme manager icons
To install Xfce Theme Manager in (X)Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy and Linux Mint 16 Xfce, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one:
Want the Linux Mint 15 Whisker Menu on your Xfce Desktop? Well, here’s how to do it via PPA in (X)Ubuntu 13.10, (X)Ubuntu 13.04, (X)Ubuntu 12.04 and (X)Ubuntu 12.10.
Whisker Menu is an alternate application launcher for Xfce, which is used as default in Linux Mint 15 Xfce. By default, it displays list of your favorite apps. You can browse through all of your installed applications by clicking on the category buttons on the side. Or you can quickly access your app by the search box.
Install Whisker Menu via PPA:
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gottcode/gcppa
Update package lists:
sudo apt-get update
Install the app launcher:
sudo apt-get install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin
Once installed, right-click on your panel and go to Panel -> Add New Items…. Find out Whisker Menu and click to add it to launcher.
By default, it’s in the right corner. Right-click on the icon and move it to the left. Modify the icon and title in its properties window. Also you can remove the previous ‘application menu’ from its right-click menu.
Xfce4 Composite Editor is a simple GUI tool that allows to configure the various Xfce4 Window Manager compositor settings that are not available via the Window Manager Tweaks control panel.
The developer of Xfce Theme Manager wrote this simple tool, and it has the ability to control below settings:
Shadow opacity.
Shadow delta X, Y, width and height.
move window opacity.
inactive window opacity.
frame opacity.
resize window opacity.
popup opacity.
Also it provides options to swich on / off composite, dock shadow, frame shadow, pop-up shadow and Restart VM to apply changes.
Below is what the developer said in GTK-Apps, “These settings are available via the xconf settings editor but that is one of the most awkward GUI’s I have ever used as you have to select the xfwm4 channel, expand the tree, scroll to the option you want, select it, click edit, change the setting and click save, then the tree gets collapsed and you have to start again! So this nice simple GUI to control the composite manager, the settings are self explanatory.”
Install Xfce4 Composite Editor
The PPA repository has been created to make it easy to install for (X)Ubuntu users. So far, it supports 13.04 Raring, 12.10 Quantal, and 12.04 Precise.
To add the PPA and install this app, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands:
