xfce4 development

[Olivier Fourdan]

Hi Lonnie,

> > What I would like to see is at least a program that can run as X session
> > owner (or how you would call that) so that all xfce4 apps can quit the X
> > session through that 'session' app. Like ROx session.

ROX session is not a session manager. Run the xfce4-panel as your last entry in
your .xinitrc, click on the quit button and it quits. What's more ?

> FWIW, i agree 100%.  I honestly can't see XFCE4 getting serious acceptance
> if there is no session management, especially when XFCE3 has/had it.
> Removing functionality from a product, be it software or oven mitts, is
> usually the fastest way to loose your customer base.

xfce3 never had session management. xfwm was taking care of restoring apps after
a logout/logon, but that's not real session management. It would have not worked
with remote apps, for example.

> One of the (many) reasons why i ditched KDE when they released their 2.x
> series is because they so drastically changed everything that it was no
> longer the same environment that i actually found useful.  THere was so
> much that was different from 1.x and so much that was new that it wasn't
> the same product any longer, and i wasn't the target audience, IMO.

Well, things evolve, we must move ahead.

As for the next post :

> The ability to right click on a window bar, and have it (un)shade, just as
> it did in XFCE3.  This might sound minor to some folks, but this is huge
> in my book.  It was a key feature in XFCE3, and removing it in XFCE4
> really detracts from usabilitiy in my opinion.  Yes, i know about the
> little menu that appears in XFCE4 when you right click, but its not the
> same.  I want the same one-click method.  Anything more is cumbersome

But that's the way it is. xfce4 is not just xfce3+gtk2, it's a totally different
architecture. You may not like it, but that's the way it is.

My opinion on this was stated back in September in this message posted on xfce4
development list :

http://moongroup.com/pipermail/xfce4-dev/2002-September/000514.html

xfwm was way too complicated to maintain, bugs were hard to track down. xfwm4 is
a lot better, the code is cleaner and faster. You may not be sensitive to these
arguments, but in the long term, that will make a difference.

As for shading windows, why not assigning this action to double click on the
title bar ? The xfwm4 config gui gives you that option...

Cheers,
Olivier.
--
XFce is a lightweight  desktop  environment  for  various *NIX systems. 
Designed for productivity,  it loads  and  executes  applications fast,
while conserving  system resources. XFce is all free software, released
under GNU General Public License.    Available from http://www.xfce.org