Proposal to create a welcome app for XFCE

[Alexander Schwinn]

Hi Ajrat,

nice to see that you got something implemented. Some things I noticed 
when launching it:
- The "prev" button on page 1 shopuld be invisible, not only insensitive
- The last page should have the "finish" button instead of the "next" button
- These buttons are huge .. should have normal size I guess
- On page1 I see a headerbar with the string "welcome application" and 
directly below a bar with "Welcome" and "Welcome to Xfce Desktop" .. 
that is 2 lines of 3 too much :D
- Dont call the last page "goodbye" ... that sounds like the system 
would shutdown now :D

Here some comments to your mail:

 > It can be launched and debugged with VSCodium, and the corresponding 
configuration files are included in the repository.
It should not be required to install a specific IDE to launch / build / 
debug a project ... fo other xfce projects we dont add any ide specific 
files.

I was able to build it via default meson build steps, however starting 
it from source, gives me:

$ chmod +x ./build/bin/xfce4-welcome
$ ./build/bin/xfce4-welcome
/usr/bin/python3: can't open file 
'/usr/local/share/xfce4-welcome/xfce4-welcome/xfce4-welcome.py': [Errno 
2] No such file or directory

Not possible to run it from source, without install ?

Makes sense to add build instructions into the README ... best check how 
it is done for all projects on https://gitlab.xfce.org and do it the 
same way.

 > I also managed to build it into an rpm package, see spec file in 
.gear/xfce4-welcome.spec.

That is something we actually dont do for the projects 
on https://gitlab.xfce.org. That's done by packagers.

I have the feeling that you would profit alot from joining the matrix 
channel #xfce-dev and quickly ask Questions there before implementing 
things. Like that you probably would have skipped the rpm generation part.

Here more info: 
https://docs.xfce.org/contribute/dev/start#communication_with_the_xfce_development_team 


 > I know only one important problem in the current architecture - 
translations. ...

We use transifex for translations of all core projects. Am am not sure 
if translations can be enabled for a project in a user-branch. Best ask 
that in the matrix channel, but only after testing code-review is finished.

 > 1. Is the current approach and code quality acceptable?

A bit suprised that you wrote it in python, not in C, like most other 
Xfce projects  .. though I suppose that will be ok. Will take a look at 
the code when I find the time.

 >  2.Would you be willing to consider adding xfce4-welcome to the 
official XFCE utilities when it's completed? If so, what would be the 
process for inclusion in the official repositories?

Testing, a discussion on #xfce-dev  on what should be on the content of 
the welcome pages (I suppose it would be good to have a draft of the 
content),  a code review, and then we will see I guess :)

Best Regards,
Alex Schwinn

Am 03.11.25 um 18:14 schrieb Ajrat Makhmutov:
> On 9/19/25 16:14, Ajrat Makhmutov wrote:
>> When I have a working version that is ready for testing, I will send 
>> it to this email thread as a Work-in-Progress for your review.
>>
> Hello XFCE Developers,
>
> I'd like to share my Work In Progress project - xfce4-welcome,
> a customizable welcome application for XFCE desktop environment.
>
> The code is available at: 
> https://gitlab.xfce.org/rautyrauty/xfce4-welcome
>
> It can be launched and debugged with VSCodium, and the
> corresponding configuration files are included in the repository.
> I also managed to build it into an rpm package,
> see spec file in .gear/xfce4-welcome.spec.
>
> This is my first GUI application using Python3 and GTK, which
> required significant learning effort as my previous experience was
> primarily with C++ and Qt. I also learned Meson build system from
> scratch for this project, which added to the development time.
>
> I would greatly appreciate if you could review the code and
> architecture. I know only one important problem in the current 
> architecture - translations.
> I tried to make the pages as independent as possible so that the 
> maintainers
> of Linux distributions could safely create their pages in separate git 
> repositories.
> However, this has led to translation difficulties. It is important to 
> change the
> translation domain in python pages and translate all the text in them at
> once when creating pages. Or change the domain frequently.
>
> My main questions for XFCE maintainers:
> 1. Is the current approach and code quality acceptable?
> 2.Would you be willing to consider adding xfce4-welcome to the 
> official XFCE utilities when it's completed? If so, what would be the 
> process for inclusion in the official repositories?
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your
> feedback and hope to contribute this utility to the XFCE ecosystem.
>
> Best regards,
> Ajrat Makhmutov
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xfce4-dev mailing list
> Xfce4-dev at xfce.org
> https://mail.xfce.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce4-dev