Remarks on Xfce4

[Robert Serphillips]

I agree with you on the last point. Being able to minimize an app to
an icon on the desktop is what is preventing me from upgrading. But
the project has not reached release stage so we may see this feature
yet. Personally I've never really liked the task bar. It is a step up
from having apps show up the the contextual menu, but it doesn't feel
as natural as having them on the desktop. Maybe I'm just to accustomed
to cde/xfce3.

-Rob



On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 20:02:30 +1000
"roger at MailingList" <rstmp at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm currently running xfce4-rc3 on an x86.
> 
> My encounter with xfce was 2 and half years ago just after I
> installed Linux on my brand-new PC. I was then looking around for a
> decent window manager / desktop and found xfce3 as being the more
> capable (personal opinion) of what could run on Linux.
> 
> I have to say that most of my professional experience has been
> related to the development of applications running on Unix and
> written using Motif. That probably will explain why I'll have more a
> Unix-style approach than a Microsoft one in the following.
> 
> To me, xfce3 was very impressive, especially regarding its execution
> speed. However I believe it had some weaknesses, such as:
> - Limited number of pop up menus in the panel;
> - Configuration not that easy, such as moving a pop menu menu across
> the panel (I consider xfce3 as being less good than CDE in that
> matter, despite what some people say);
> - Inability do dock basic applications, such as CPU, memory meters
> or mail indicator, into the panel;
> - Icons (minimized applications) not having the same size.
> 
> Xfce4 is a huge improvement regarding the first 3 points.
> 
> However, the 4th point is not treated at all!
> 
> There is a task bar, which is (to me) a legacy left by Microsoft
> when it wasn't possible to run more than 2 applications at once
> without crashing the whole system. In addition, I've got the very
> bad habit of having too many applications running at the same time,
> such as something like 10 xterms and 20 editors. So the task bar is
> definitely not for me.
> 
> As regards the icon box, I don't find it very handy, though I
> actually use it. There is no title under the icons (I know there are
> tool tips) and there is obviously (that's just an icon box after
> all) no possibility of setting a position on the screen for an
> individual icon (e.g . I want this particular icon to be on the
> bottom right of the screen), so that's quite difficult to know what
> is what in the icon box (remember my 20 minimized file editors).
> Also, when the panel layer is set to "top", so is the icon box. I
> think there should be 2 separate setups; this would allow not to
> have the icon box on top when the panel is.
> 
> Please find the following general remarks regarding xfce4:
> 
> - Xfce4 is definitely not as responsive as xfce3.
> 
> - Minimizing applications as "real" icons should be possible, such
> as it's done within MWM.
> 
> - There is the possibility of adding separators into the panel. It
> would be nice to have separators also in the panel pop up menus. 
> 
> - How about having the possibility to add scrolling sub menus in the
> panel pop up menus (CDE doesn't provide it but Gnome does).
> 
> - There are only 3 options for setting the panel layer: top, normal
> and bottom. Xfce3 provided much better choice.
> 
> - I couldn't manage to set any color for any panel plug ins (system
> load, net load). The indicator is gray whatever color I try. The
> volume control scale is gray as well.
> 
> - I personally use the Mofit theme (I just don't want to kill an
> application with an accidental single-click on the right button of
> the window's menu bar). Double-clicking on the window's close button
> doesn't work all the time, regardless how the mouse double-click
> speed is set. This especially happens when trying to close several
> windows quickly one after the other. I didn't have this problem with
> xfce3.
> 
> - I couldn't find a way of setting the border color of the window
> having the focus (this was possible with xfce3 through the color
> palette). With Mofit, this color is blue. How can I change it, for
> example, to red? I believe that the ability of working with colors
> should be a windows manager requirement. I know submarine-embedded
> graphical software currently running on Solaris CDE that is being
> considered to be ported onto Linux. The graphic of this software has
> to be very dark (mostly barely black) to prevent it from glaring.
> 
> - I definitely believe that xfce4 is a pretty good piece of
> software! That's my window manager / desktop since rc1, the previous
> one having been xfce3.
> 
> Cheers,
> Roger
> _______________________________________________
> Xfce mailing list
> Xfce at xfce.org
> http://moongroup.com/mailman/listinfo/xfce
>