My Xfce Experience

[Dantrell B.]

Why Xfce:

I decided to switch window managers (or desktop environments) for a
very small reason. Gnome had extremely minor problems with Geany and
other programs.

The main reason I picked Xfce is because it came highly recommended.
The people I spoke to are mostly long-time users who believe that Xfce
has come a long way since it's early days.

What I like:

1. Xfce is light and fast.

2. Overall, configuration was intuitive Some things took me extra time
to find such as "User Interface Preferences". I'd think it'd be called
"Appearance" or likewise but it doesn't really matter.

3. The file manager can be made to do what I want it to--except for a
minor thing (explained below)

What I don't like:

1. As I stated before, I have bad eye sight. So it irks me that I
can't change the icon size of items in the Xfce menu.

2. The workspace pager displays icons that I can't see. I'd much
rather have names instead (I have been told that this is an indeed a
feature and it's been fixed in trunk). But furthermore, I'd like the
ability to color (text and background) my workspace names.

Edit: "This is a bug which needs to be fixed in libwnck (if at all)."

3. Back to the file manager. Now don't get me wrong, I think thunar is
great but I don't like how I currently have to select the apperance of
the location path via the [View -> Location Selector] menu.

I'd rather there be a small icon to the left of the arrow (which
appears when you are deep into the filesystem tree) or filesystem icon
(that appears when you are in / or nearby).

That icon, will let you instantly swap between pathbar and toolbar
styles (but not the current toolbar style).

I'd rather the toolbar style be adjusted so there are no icons at all,
just a textbox displaying the path. Nautilus is actually the best
example of this.

4. I don't like dependency on other icons in /usr/share/icons. If you
delete everything in there but the Rodent icon pack, things break
badly.

Speaking of icons... I'm sorry but the trash, home, filesystem, and
<folder> type icons are fugly. However, all the <file> type icons are
very pretty. I had to hack up 2 icon packs to replace the folders
because my soul was breaking. This killed some of my time.

Edit: Rodent 2 is being under-works. All should be well then. :)

5. Also speaking of icons, the systray icon for the calendar? I'm
sorry but it is not pretty and doesn't scale into the systray well.
I'd much rather have the ability to to show the date text style as
with the digital apperance of the clock.

Conclusion:

Preferred user experience is the ability to install a wm/de, configure
settings as needed, and get into their work without killing time. To
me, xfce suceeded in most of this.

The things I listed in my dislikes (there are more but I didn't want
to crush souls) are probably minor, but fixing them would be a
blessing. :)

Cookies for the hard work, you made a product that I'd, thus far,
rather use over the *boxes. I'd also absolutely use it over kde. As
for gnome, it's close. :P

Dantrell B.