A short outside history of Xfce

[Stefan Stuhr]

ons, 03 05 2006 kl. 11:17 -0400, skrev Joe Klemmer:
> 	Some here have noticed my desire for Xfce to be as CDE-like as
> possible.  Many (most?) are likely wondering why.  Here is a quick
> history of Xfce so that you will see where I'm coming from.  This is not
> a comprehensive history nor is it to be taken as gospel.  Olivier
> Fourdan is the only real authority for the true history.  Ok, once upon
> a time...
[...]
> 	As you can see here, the origins of Xfce are as a CDE'like panel.  The
> world may have moved past this but it's still the single main reason for
> some of us (ok, me) to use it.  Now you know where I'm coming from and
> why I ask for and look for the things I do.
> 
> 	Thank you all for coming.  I will be signing autographed copies of my
> memoirs from 1400 to 1900 on Saturday in the main pavilion.

I have never tried CDE myself. But I do really like and use especially
one CDE feature which isn't supported by GNOME and KDE, and which I was
introduced to with Xfce 4.0: The launcher "arrow" sub menus.

I have just tried to see how close I could get to make my Xfce
installation look like CDE, based on Solaris screenshots[1].
The result:
http://www.sstuhr.dk/screenshot1.png

      * The window manager theme is "Mofit".
      * The GTK2 theme is Xfce-stellar.
      * The backdrop is xfce-stellar-tile.png, which is included with
        Xfdesktop.
      * The icon theme, Tango, isn't CDE-ish at all, but it should be
        possible to find and/or make a CDE-ish icon theme.
      * The only non-Xfce part of the screenshot, beside the Tango icons
        and some of the minimized applications, is the panel pager,
        which is the GNOME panel pager applet running in Xfapplet.

It could look more like CDE:
      * The Action Buttons panel plugin could support more actions, like
        in Xfce 4.0 and 4.2.
      * The launcher arrow buttons could be on top of the launcher
        buttons (maybe there should be a global CDE compatibility option
        that could be used for this, among other things; panel global or
        Xfce global?).
      * The pager could either get optional support for showing desktop
        names instead of miniature windows, like the GNOME pager, or a
        CDE-like desktop switcher plugin with real buttons could be made
        as a goodie. The later seems to be most CDE-like.
      * The Xfce-stellar GTK2 theme doesn't draw the panel handles at
        all.

[1]:
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=278&slide=39
     - especially http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/278_or/64.png

Stefan