Xfce4: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 16:05, 23 August 2021
![]() Xfce4 default configuration running on QEMU | |
Name | Xfce4 |
---|---|
Graphics stack | Xfwm4 on X11 |
Toolkit | GTK 3 |
In postmarketOS | |
Package | postmarketos-ui-xfce4 |
Status | Available |
Xfce4 is a GTK-based desktop environment aiming to be fast and lightweight. It works on most devices with a working display, and runs fine without hardware acceleration. Uses latest Xfce version packages from Alpine repository.
Installation
pmbootstrap init
User interface: xfce4
Extra packages:
- Add
matchbox-keyboard
[1],corekeyboard
[2] oronboard
[3] to get an on-screen keyboard. For availability ofonboard
see Input_methods#Onboard.
- Add
Note: As the on-screen keyboard is not displayed on demand automatically, it's best to add it to autostart.
Better (touch) usability
- To hide the cursor, edit
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
: uncommentxserver-command=X
and add-nocursor
. - Change the scaling settings to 2x in
Applications/Settings/Appearance/Settings/Window Scaling
setting. - In
Window Manager
settings, choose font size of about 16. - Disable
Compositor
fromWindow Manager Tweaks
in settings to get faster experience. - In
FileManager
settings, shortcut pane icon size to 48 px and enableSingle Click
in Behavior section. - If you can't grap something by touchscreen, use the keyboard (tab key to go through the elements, arrow keys to choose).
- If you want to simulate right mouse clicks, see Input_methods#Simulate_secondary_click, but actually this is not needed.
Panel
- In
Panel
settings, increasing panel height and setting panels to hideIntelligently
will make them easier to interact with, without losing effective screen real estate. - To save space on the panel, running programs can be represented as icons only: Settings -> Panel -> Items -> Windows Button -> Edit -> uncheck Show button labels.
- Reduce the workspace switcher space by Settings -> Panel -> Items -> Workspace Switcher -> Edit -> Appearance: Buttons -> thereafter click the Workspace Settings below and rename the Workspace names to something shorter, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4.
- For shutdown and reboot, the Action Buttons plugin can be added to the panel. In their settings, Appearance can be set to Action Buttons and the list below allows to choose which ones shall be shown.
- As menu plugin, Whisker Menu is set by default. The plugin Application Menu can be used as alternatively, depending on your taste.
Horizontal mode
Depending on the device, changing Xfce4 to landscape orientation can increase usability.
- Rotate the display and touch to horizontal using Display guide.
- In panel setting, change the mode to
Deskbar
and remove other plugins. - Use CoreApps as they work best on horizontal screens.
Toggle wifi
A toggle wifi button can be created from an ampty launcher in the panel with command:
/bin/sh -c 'if [ "$(nmcli r wifi)" = "enabled" ]; then nmcli r wifi off; else nmcli r wifi on; fi'
.
However, it's more comfortable to have a feedback whether you really hit the button or missed it. This can be achieved by e.g.:
sudo apk add zenity
vi ~/toggle-wifi-zentiy.sh
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$(nmcli r wifi)" = "enabled" ]; then
if zenity --question --title "" --text "Turn off wifi?" --no-wrap; then
nmcli r wifi off
fi
else
if zenity --question --title "" --text "Turn on wifi?" --no-wrap; then
nmcli r wifi on
fi
fi
chmod +x ~/toggle-wifi-zenity.sh
- Add an empty launcher to the panel and change it to e.g.:
- Name: Toggle wifi
- Comment: Turn on/off wifi
- Command: /home/user/toggle-wifi-zentiy.sh
- Icon: network-wireless
Firefox
- To enable touch behaviour in Firefox, add a new file
sudo vi /etc/profile.d/firefox-touch-scrolling.sh
and writeexport MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1
. - Additionally, in
about:config
, changedom.w3c.touch_events.enabled
from 2 (default, auto-detect) to 1 (enabled). - To save space, in Firefox -> Menu -> More Tools -> Customize Toolbar the Title Bar option can be unchecked.
- With environment variable
MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1
active, in Firefox -> Menu -> More Tools -> Customize Toolbar, drag & drob doesn't work. However, with long click on items they can be added or removed. To move them, you need to deactivateMOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1
temporarily. - A special issue: When moving the Firefox window partially out of screen, the window manager automatically positions the window back into the screen. For some reason, touch clicks in the Firefox window are then not recognized anymore. You need to open a terminall and
killall firefox
. Moving the window out of screen can happen accidentally when interacting with the title bar area, so be careful there. - In Firefox -> Menu -> More Tools -> Customize Toolbar, at the bottom you can choos a "Density", which is mainly the size of the tabs.
- You can install the package
mobile-config-firefox
to improve touch usability of Firefox in general (more information on the package).
Appearance
- Panel transparency can be set in Settings -> Panel -> Appearance -> Style: Solid Color -> Color ->
+
-> choose a color, at the bottom the transparency level can be set (documentation).- If you want to clean up the set of custom colors, this can be done with gsettings. Get the selected color by
gsettings get org.gtk.Settings.ColorChooser selected-color
. To clean up the custom colors, paste the output as follows, e.g.gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.ColorChooser custom-colors "[(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.69796610169491529)]"
. For the second command, when doing this via ssh, DISPLAY variable needs to be put at the beginning of the command, e.g.DISPLAY=:0
.
- If you want to clean up the set of custom colors, this can be done with gsettings. Get the selected color by
- The panel size can be changed in Settings -> Panel -> Row size (pixels).
- Additional themes can be installed, e.g. package
greybird-themes
. - Also additional icons can be installed, e.g.
arc-icon-theme
,oxygen-icons
,papirus-icon-theme
,zafiro-icon-theme
.
Shut down & Restart buttons
In stable releses up to v21.06, the Shut down & Restart buttons in the Log out menu are not available. Package polkit-elogind
needs to be installed (wiki). On edge and later stable releses, this package is installed by default.
Lock screen
How to enable a keyboard for the lockscreen is described at Screen_locker#xfce4-screensaver.
To ease the locking, it can be assigned to e.g. the power button. Go to Settings -> Keyboard -> Application Shortcuts, select command xflock4 and hit the power button.
An example draft script to disable inputs while locked can be found at Screen_locker:Disable_inputs#Xfce4.
LightDM
Autologin is configured by default. If you want to use LightDM as a login screen, see Display_manager#LightDM how to set this up.
Setting the timezone
The timezone configuration in the panel clock settings doesn't work for some reason. Setting or changing the timezone can be done by e.g. sudo setup-timezone -z Europe/Amsterdam
. Available timezones can be looked up at ls /usr/share/zoneinfo
.
Phone applications
Packages calls
, chatty
and gnome-contacts
, which are used in Phosh, work also on Xfce4.
The service modemmanager is not enabled by default. This is needed for modem handling. Start it by sudo rc-service modemmanager start
and add it permanently by sudo rc-update add modemmanager default
. The connections are managed by NetworkManager, a dialog to enter the PIN shows up after boot.
Additional software
gvfs
andthunar-volman
for mounting drives and drive management.- For opening PDF files, see PDF#PDF_viewers.
Gallery
-
Nexus 5x running Xfce4
-
Example configuration with CoreKeyboard running on Nexus 5x
-
Example configuration with matchbox-keyboard running on Galaxy SII
-
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition running Xfce4
-
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition with onboard keyboard