icons on the desktop

[Edscott Wilson Garcia]

The xfce development team is please to inform that the feature of icons
on the desktop is now implemented for xfce and will appear sometime in
the next few days with the release of xffm-4.3.3.

The implementation consists of a very minimalistic filemanager that runs
on the root window and uses the xffm libraries for simple stuff like
copying and rendering icons and processing double click.

To run you execute xffm-deskview. 

The following questions are probably going to arise, so I take a moment
to answer in advance.

Q. Why doesn't the pop up menu appear?

The default is to let oldstyle window managars (like xfwm3 and fvwm)
handle the popup menu.

Q. How can I make the heavier popup menu used by xfdesktop appear?

Define the environment variable USE_DESKTOP_MENU from the mcs manager
plugin. This feature can be turned on and off on the run and requires
that libxfcegui4 be installed previous to the installation of xffm.

Q. I don't have the mcs-manager running and still want the same
xfdesktop menu, how then?

Execute something like this: "USE_DESKTOP_MENU=sure xffm-deskview"

Q. I can see the xfdektop menu, but why can't I see the icons alongside
the menu entries?

The icons make the menu heavier, and are off by default. To enable, use
the mcs manager to define the environmente variable
USE_DESKTOP_MENU_ICONS.

Q. How do I set the background color?

Use a named color (like brown, seagreen, navyblue, etc.) listed
in /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt. The default background color is black.

Q. How do I use a png image for the background?

After xffm-deskview is up and running, execute your favourite program to
set the root background. In particular, fvwm-root works fine (soon there
may be a similar program in the xfce-distribution).

Q. How can I make the background image change at timed intervals?

Just write a script that executes your favourite program to set the root
background at the timed interval. Xffm-deskview will look out for
changes in the root background and update accordingly.

Q. How can I set the background image upon xffm-deskview startup?

Set the environment variable (either by mcs-manager or your usual way)
DESKTOP_BG_COMMAND with the instruction you would normally use for your
favourite background setting program. In particular, I use ""fvwm-root
-r /path/to/background/image.png". 


Q. I just want to install xffm-deskview, but not xffm-treeview nor
xffm-iconview nor xfdiff nor anything else. How then?

In future versions this will be configurable, but not today. You might
try a "make" and then a selective "make install" on individual
directories of the xffm distribution.


Q. When will xffm-4.3.3 be released?

In a few days time. Currently a few pending issues are being closed at
the svn branch 4.3.3.0 where development is taking place.
 
enjoy (soon),



-- 
Edscott Wilson Garcia <edscott at xfce.org>