Getting XFCE

Most distributions with online repositories will have XFCE available. Ubuntu users can fetch it with the Ubuntu Software Center, or from the command line with

sudo apt-get install xfce4

If your distribution does not have XFCE in repositories, you can fetch the packages or source code manually from here.

When finished with your install, log out of your current desktop environment and choose XFCE Session from your login menu.

We will be using the current stable release – XFCE 4.6.

Optional Bonus Pack – Some distributions, Ubuntu included, offer a separate package of extras like panel applets. To install it, check your distro for a package with a name like xfce4-goodies.

Basic Desktop

The example screenshots here are all based on the xfce4 package from Ubuntu’s repositories. If you used a different installation source, your desktop likely looks a bit different.

This setup is very similar to what you’d find in a Windows or KDE desktop, with your application menu in the lower left, as part of a panel with a few basic applets. Other XFCE desktops may be set up in a more Mac-like fashion, and many users like to replicate the Gnome look. XFCE is flexible enough to allow any visual approach you’d prefer.

Panel Applets

Much like Gnome, you can right-click any blank space on the panel to access its properties or to add new panel applets.

If you installed the xfce4-goodies package, you should have a fair amount of applets to choose from. If this is not enough, you have the option of installing xfapplet, which allows you to run gnome-panel applets in XFCE.

Configuration

Each config section is its own module, which can be access individually from from the application menu under Settings. Optionally, you can use the Settings Manager found in the same section.

There are a few oddities in the configuration (such as most of the keyboard config being found in the Window Manager module) but overall it’s a fairly comprehensive and useful set of tools.

Theming

While the basic desktop is nice, users always make things a little more interesting. The following are some user-made screenshots to demonstrate some of the flexibility XFCE provides.

Image from labor-liber.org

Image by Leo Scherer

image by stargazer

Built-In Compositing

If you want the benefits of graphics compositing (translucency, hardware rendering) without the bells & whistles of Compiz, XFCE has you covered here as well. To enable the built-in compositing feature, open Window Manager Tweaks from the “Settings Manager” or menu. You’ll find the Compositor tab on the right, where you can enable and configure your graphics settings.

Conclusion

XFCE is flexible enough to look any way you wish, fast enough to run on most any machine, and powerful enough to keep you satisfied. It may not have all Gnome’s features, but it’s not supposed to. XFCE promises to be lean and mean, and it’s this author’s opinion that it delivers on both counts.

If you are looking for a desktop manager with even smaller footprint, check out LXDE/Lubuntu

With the coming of KDE 4, the number of effects has multiplied, and KWin (KDE’s window manager) is now on par with Compiz (a window manager with numerous desktop effects). Moreover, KWin’s primary advantage over Compiz is that it is part of KDE and integrates perfectly with the rest of the desktop. While support for Compiz has been added, there are still some outstanding glitches when run on top of KDE.

One misconception about desktop effects is that they are solely used to increase aesthetic appeal and add no practical functionality. The reality, however, is that many desktop effects provide accessibility features and productivity enhancements, but having an awesome-looking desktop certainly doesn’t hurt.

General Settings

KDE will attempt to detect your graphics card and determine which effects will function. For most, this works just fine, but if not,you may need to install drivers for your graphics card that can support composite window managers.

To check the status of desktop effects, start System Settings and, in the “WorkSpace Appearance and Behavior” section, click “Desktop Effects“. Alternatively, you can press “Alt+F2″, type Desktop Effects, and press Enter.

“Enable desktop effects” should be checked, and the “Compositing State” should say “Desktop effects are active”. From this General tab, you can also select common settings, rather than configuring each effect individually.

If you ever need to stop desktop effects, click the “Suspend Desktop Effects” button or press “Shift+Alt+F12″ from anywhere in KDE. This is particularly useful if you are playing OpenGL or SDL games that behave erratically with effects enabled.

All Effects

The second tab, called “All Effects” shows you every available desktop effect. The enabled effects will have a check in the left-hand box next to the name, and those that have available configuration settings will have wrench icons to the right.

The first section is Appearance, which, as the name indicates, contains effects that alter the appearance of the desktop and/or windows. Fade, for example, causes windows to fade in and out smoothly when they are opened or closed. A new feature, called Blur, will cause any translucent window components to blur the backgrounds behind them.

An example of an effect that has some practical value is “Taskbar Thumbnails”. With it, you can hover your mouse over a taskbar entry and see a small thumbnail image of the window. The thumbnail is updated in real time, so if a progress bar is moving, for example, the thumbnail will actually show you the progress as it increases. Shadows also provide depth to the windows, making it easier to distinguish one from another.

While only a few of the Appearance effects have true practical value, for the Accessibility effects, functionality is their primary purpose. For example, the Zoom function allows the user to mangify the entire desktop, zooming in or out with 3D smoothing, and Track Mouse helps a user locate the mouse on the screen.

Focus is another section of effects that offers some visually pleasing and practical benefits. Dialog Parent, for example, dims the parent window behind a dialog box, helping the user focus on the active box. Dim Inactive dims any window that is not the current one you are using, particularly useful for those who are easily distracted. With Slide Back, when you change the focus to a window other than the current one, it will pull the current window to the side and then slide it underneath, providing a more natural-looking change of focus.

The Window Management effects deal with the windows and desktop organization. Here, you can configure the windows switching, desktop switching, Desktop Grid, which allows you to zoom out and see all desktops, and Present Windows, which zooms out all windows so that you can select the one you want.

In the Tools section, you have useful tech/troubleshooting effects, one that shows the frames per second (FPS) for the current desktop, and one that shows “paint”, areas of the desktop that change or refresh.

Advanced Settings

Finally, in the Advanced tab of Desktop Effects, you can change the Compositing type. OpenGL provides the most effects but requires a 3D-capable graphics card and drivers. XRender works without 3D capability, but it also disables some effects. Most of the other settings in this section vary depending on the graphics card you are using. The best way to find the correct setting is to test them, but aware that some may not work at all.

KDE desktop effects add eye candy and functionality to your desktop experience. Furthermore, Plasma and some applications make use of the compisiting system to add further effects, providing the user with a visually striking desktop environment.

In no particular order, here are a few that I have recently encountered and are worth mentioning.

Countdown Widget

With my graduation less than a month away, this widget is the perfect reminder of how many projects I have to finish before I complete my courses. But the widget itself can be used for any sort of countdown: your birthday, payday, anniversary, or anything else you want to remember.

It is a simple widget, and you can install it directly within KDE’s Add Widgets dialog.

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Click “Add Widgets”
3. Click “Get New Widgets”
4. Click “Download New Plasma Widgets”
5. Find “Countdown” and click “Install”
6. Drag the countdown icon to your desktop.

Wallpaper Clock

Another extraordinary KDE feature is the ability to use a wide variety of desktop wallpaper plugins. Rather than having a plain image as your wallpaper, you can have a slideshow, the weather, and even an interactive map of the world.

Wallpaper Clock is an add-on that connects to vladstudio.com and allows you to install their wallpaper clocks, which show the time and date in creative ways. The wallpapers are updated in real time (pun intended), changing every minute without any flickering or noticeable repainting.

You can install wallpaper clock using the normal widget installation procedure, but the actual widget will appear in your Plasma Workspace settings.

1. Right click the desktop and click “Desktop Activity Settings”.
2. Click the dropdown menu next to the label “Type” and find “Wallpaper Clock”.
3. To install new wallpaper clocks, click “Get New Wallpapers”
4. After you have downloaded the ones you want, click “Close”
5. Select the wallpaper you desire and click “OK”.

Pulse (KWin effect)

Pulse is a visual effect for KWin (KDE’s window manager). When a window appears, it zooms in and pulses with a fading ghost image of itself. When I first tried it, I found it a little overwhelming. Every window that appeared made me a little woozy, but after I turned the settings down a little, I found the effect rather refreshing. Every time a window appears, I notice it, and the effect adds a nice bit of life to the desktop. Not everyone will be able to tolerate the flashing, but for those who want to add a little spice to their desktop, this is a good effect to accomplish that goal.

Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to install KWin effects. You will have to compile this one from source, but that only takes a couple of minutes. If you are comfortable with the Linux command line and wish to proceed, be sure to follow the standard KDE building instructions.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
make install

There are many other useful KDE add-ons available for download, and you can install many of them from within the KDE dialogs. For all others, visit KDE-Look.org and KDE-Apps.org.

Since we’re focusing on configuration, the remainder of the article will assume you’ve already got Fluxbox installed. All examples and screenshots were done using Fluxbox 1.1.1 on Ubuntu 9.10.

Fluxconf

Fluxconf is the basic configuration utility for Fluxbox. It doesn’t really have much beyond the most basic config options. It likely came with your Fluxbox package and so should already be installed, and can be launched with the command:

fluxconf

Main Configuration

Much of the configuration you’re likely to want to do can be done in the file ~/.fluxbox/init file. Open it with the text editor of your choice, and you can set a wide variety of common options. Some of the more notable entries include:

• session.menuFile: (location of the file containing the Fluxbox menu)
• session.screen0.toolbar.widthPercent: (1 to 100, width of toolbar across screen))
• session.screen0.toolbar.alpha: (0 to 255, transparency of toolbar. 255 is solid)
• session.screen0.toolbar.autoHide: (true/false)
• session.screen0.toolbar.tools: (items to include in the toolbar, more detail in next section)
• session.screen0.menu.alpha: (0 to 255, transparency of menu. 255 is solid)
• session.screen0.workspaces: (number of workspaces or “virtual desktops”)

Wallpaper

Setting a persistent wallpaper in Fluxbox can be surprisingly complex. There are various options to various programs that can all be used to set the wallpaper, either temporarily or permanently. For this reason, instead of going into all the complexities here, I’ll let the Fluxbox developers explain it in their own words. They have a guide here that will explain the hows and whys in detail.

Menu Editing

Fortunately, one of the more tedious aspects of configuration, menu editing, has a nice, functional GUI. The program fluxmenu, also bundled with your average Fluxbox package, does a good job of handling your menu needs.

If, for whatever reason, fluxmenu doesn’t do the job, you can edit the file ~/.fluxbox/menu by hand. Also, make sure you update the ~/fluxbox/init file to point to your custom menu file as described in the Main Configuration section of this guide.

Mouse and Keyboard Bindings

You’ll find keyboard and mouse config in the file ~/.fluxbox/keys. If, like me, you’re used to scrolling the mouse in the opposite direction to move between workspaces, you’ll find that under OnDesktop Mouse4 and OnDesktop Mouse5 near the top of the config file.

Fluxbox names some of the keys in a way that might not be obvious at first. If you find yourself confused by Mod1 and Mod4, here are the keys to which they map:

• Mod1 = Alt
• Mod4 = Windows (aka Super) key

Transparency

You may have set some of the transparency options in the init file in a previous section. You may also have noticed that those transparencies may not have taken effect. Fluxbox, by default, does not have full compositing capabilities on its own, but you can get it through xcompmgr. They’ve created a guide located here with all the steps necessary to get xcompmgr and Fluxbox to play happily together. I’ve had mixed results getting this to work with various hardware and software combinations, so your mileage may vary.

In KDE, shortcut keys are customizable for each and every application, and you can also customize global shortcuts that affect the desktop, window manager, command interface, and other features. What follows is a brief guide to using KDE shortcuts, but first I am going to press “Ctrl-S” to save my work.

Global Shortcuts

1. To start the KDE shortcut configuration, find System Settings in the menu, or press “Alt-F2″, type “systemsettings“, and press enter.

2. Click “Keyboard & Mouse” in the Computer Administration section.

3. Click “Global Keyboard Shortcuts“.

4. Select the KDE component you wish to edit. For example, select “Run Command Interface” to edit Krunner settings.

5. Click on an action, and it will expand a section showing you the default shortcut and the option to make a custom one.

6. Select “Custom” and then click the button next to it.

7. It will then wait for you to press a key or keystroke combination. If the shortcut is already assigned, it will warn you about that. Otherwise, it will assign the new shortcut key.

8. Click Apply.

Application Shortcuts

Another handy shortcut feature of KDE is that you can assign shortcuts to an application or command. The example I am going to demonstrate solved a problem for me. I have a Mac Pro, but I Linux on it as my main OS. The CD-ROM/DVD drive has no button to open it. That is controlled by the keyboard, which worked fine when I used an Apple keyboard. When I got tired of the Apple keyboard and bought one I liked better, I needed to assign a key for opening the CD tray.

1. Right click on the K-Menu icon on the panel.

2. Click “Menu Editor”

3. Find the application you want to edit or click the “new” button to add a new command (For new commands, follow the normal procedures for adding a command to the menu).

4. Click the “Advanced” tab.

5. Where it says “Current shortcut key”, click the button next to it.

6. Enter the key combination you want.  For my eject command, I used “Fn-F10″.

7. Click “Save”.

Finally, whenever you are in a KDE application, you can assign shortcuts by doing the following:

1. In the application’s menu, click “Settings”.

2. Click “Configure Shortcuts”.

With application shortcuts, you have the option of assigning alternates so that two different shortcuts can execute an action. You can also assign a global shortcut to an application that will work even when another application has focus. For example, you can set media controls, such as volume, to be controlled even when you are not in KMix.  You can export any of your shortcut settings and import them on another computer, giving you the ultimate flexibility. Now press the shortcut to bookmark MakeTechEasier.com, and enjoy.

There are two ways to access Window Specific Settings. One is to right click on the title bar of the window you want to configure, click “Advanced“, and click “Special Window Settings“. The other is to start System Settings, click the “Window Behavior” button, and then click “Window-Specific“. From there just click “New…” to make a new rule.  In the second method you will have to manually specify the name of the window or click “Detect Window Properties” and click on the window you want to configure.

Geometry

You can set the exact size, position, desktop, and state of your window. For example, when you start Konsole, you might want it to always be a window of  “800,600″ size and want it to start on Desktop 2.

1.Tick the “Size” box and from the drop-down menu, select “Apply Initially“.

2. Tick the “Desktop” box, select “Apply Initially“, and then select “2:Desktop 2“.

3. Click OK.

There numerous possibilities just under the geometry tab. Play around with them and let us know your results.

Preferences

Keep above allows you to set a window to always be above other windows. Skip taskbar means that your window will not appear in the taskbar like normal windows.  With Closeable,  you can enable the close button on a window that might not normally allow it.

Workarounds

These settings override some default settings for your specific window. They are useful if you experience problems in a particular application because of global settings. For example, “Ignore requested geometry” will cause KWin to ignore the X geometry that an application expects. ”Maximum size” will prevent a window from getting any larger than the size you specify, something that might be useful for a netbook. “Block global shortcuts” is handy if you have an application (especially a non-KDE one) that has shortcuts that conflict with KDE global settings.

Kiosk

Here is an example of how you can put all of these features together. If you have children, run a library or run some other public place with computer terminals, you might want Firefox or another application to start fullscreen without any window manager features.

1. Right click on the window’s title bar, select Advanced, and click “Special Application Settings…”

2. Select the “Geometry” tab.

3. Tick “Fullscreen” and select “Force“.

4. Click the “Preferences” tab.

5. Tick “Skip taskbar” and select “Force“.

6. Tick “No border” and select “Force“.

The result will be a borderless, fullscreen window that is not accessible from the taskbar. If you do need to access the window’s settings, simply press “Alt-F3″ to bring up the window manager menu. KWin will let you select whole classes or types of windows to configure. If you want all dialogs to have the same functions, you can customize it to follow your whims.

Aside from these window-specific settings, KWin has a broad range of generation settings for focus stealing prevention, shading, shortcuts, desktop effects, and much more. Try them out, find what you like, and enjoy!

It’s elegant, functional, flexible, and FAST!  For those who like screenshots, this link is a Google Image search for Window Maker.

Window Maker was originally developed as a clone of the NeXTstep desktop, an ancestor of OSX.  NeXTstep was considered one of the most productive and innovative desktop environments of its time, and Window Maker has extended this legacy to modern hardware and software platforms.

Enough with the history, let’s get down to business.  For starters, you’ll want to get Window Maker installed.  Depending on your choice of Linux distribution, these first few steps can vary somewhat.  For the sake of this article, I’ll assume you’re running Ubuntu or another Debian derivative.

In any Debian derivative, you can fetch it with:

sudo apt-get install wmaker

Once installed, you can load it up by logging out of your current desktop environment back to the GDM login screen.  Go to the Sessions menu and choose Window Maker, then log in normally.  Those who don’t use a graphical login like GDM can place

exec wmaker

in the file .xinitrc in their home directory.  The default settings for Window Maker aren’t too impressive, but that’s OK, it’ll be pretty slick by the time we’re done here.

Dock and Dockapps

By default, the dock can be found in the upper right corner of the screen and probably looks something like this:

As I mentioned above, this dock was based on the NeXTstep dock, which was a direct ancestor of OSX.  Window Maker’s dock offers similar functionality, as a place to launch applications.  The real beauty of the Window Maker version, however is that it can be a home for a whole range of mini-applications called, not surprisingly, dockapps.  There are hundreds of dockapps available at http://dockapps.org/, but I’ll focus on a few of my favorites that can all be found in Debian (and probably Ubuntu) standard repositories.  The dockapps I suggest are:

• wmfire – a CPU monitor.  The more CPU is in use, the higher the flames
• Mixer.app – a volume adjustment app
• wmxmms2 – XMMS controls all packed into one little square
• wmclockmon – every desktop needs a clock
• wmmemload – a memory usage monitor
• wmnd – a network monitor

To install, just enter into the command line:

sudo apt-get install wmfire mixer.app wmxmms2 wmclockmon wmmemload wmnd

Any time you run a program in Window Maker, it creates an icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen. It’s kinda like the Windows taskbar, or the window list in Gnome. When you run a dockapp, like say wmfire, the app will start down there in that corner. To place it on your dock, simply drag it from the bottom left, to the top right and place it in the dock.  I should mention that many dockapps can be hard to drag, because you’ve often go to drag the very edge of the app, which is sometimes only a few pixels wide.

Do this with each of the dockapps we installed.  Once they’re all in place, your dock should look something like this:

To set a dockapp to launch every time Window Maker starts, right-click the border of the dockapp, hit Settings, and choose “Start when Window Maker is started“.

Multiple Desktop Setup

Every window manager in Linux supports multiple desktops, which Window Maker calls “Workspaces”, but some add extremely useful features when it comes to working with them.  Window Maker provides a few of those extra features, and two in particular are especially useful:

• the ability to scroll through workspaces with the mouse wheel, and
• the ability to assign certain apps to always open in certain workspaces.

Personally I use between 5 and 8, depending on the purpose of the machine.  On my home PC where I spend the most time, I have 7, each with a specific purpose.

Your default Window Maker setup starts with just one workspace.  To add more, right-click anywhere on the wallpaper (this is how you bring up the menu), choose “Workspaces”, then “New”.  This will create a second “page” to your desktop.  Go ahead and create as many workspaces as you like.  As I mentioned above, I usually use about 7 but that’s probably more than a lot of people would need.  The simplest, though slowest way to switch between those workspaces is by clicking the arrows on the clip icon in the top-left corner. That will flip you back and forth between the workspaces.

The better way to handle that flipping is by using the scroll wheel on your mouse.  Window Maker doesn’t set this option by default, so we’ll do it manually.  To do that, open the Window Maker preferences tool (third icon on your dock, the one with the screwdriver).  Scroll over to the right until you see the mouse icon, and set Mouse Wheel to Switch Workspace.

Click Save, and try it out.  Move the mouse over any part of your wallpaper, and scroll the wheel.  It should flip between your workspaces.

For now, to finish setting up the workspaces, all we’ve got to do is name them.  Click the arrow on the clip to go all the way down, to the Main workspace.  Right click the clip, and choose Rename Workspace.  Personally, I use the first desktop for my web browsers, so I’d name that workspace Browsers.  You can do this on each workspace to name what you want to use it for.  Here’s how I usually have mine set up:

#1 – Browsers
#2 – Terminals
#3 – Text Editors
#4 – Chat/P2P
#5 – File Management
#6 – Media
#7 – Misc

So now we’ve got all our workspaces set up, each with a specific purpose, and we’re able to scroll between them with the mouse wheel.  There’s only one thing left, and it’s one of the great things that Window Maker provides: the ability to assign certain apps to always open on the right desktop.

Let’s start with the web browser.  I’ll assume you’re using a similar setup to mine, with the first workspace being assigned to browsers.  Open up Firefox (or whatever other browser you like to use).  Right-click the titlebar at the top of the screen and choose “Attributes”.

Now you’ve got a window allowing you to check various preferences.  In the dropdown menu at the top, choose Icon and initial Workspace.  At the bottom of that page you can choose which workspace that program will start in when launched.  You’d be amazed how useful this can be when you’ve got a lot of things running.  With a flick of the mouse wheel you can move to whichever desktop your desired program is running on and know it’ll always be there.

Visual Style

Finally, to make our new Window Maker desktop complete, we’ve got to set themes/colors/icons.  Let’s start with a basic pre-packaged theme and work from there.  You can choose your theme or color scheme from the Window Maker menu.  As always, you can open that by right-clicking your desktop.  Choose Appearance > Themes or Appearance > Styles to choose a color scheme.  I recommend the color style Interlace as a great place to start designing your desktop.

Backgrounds can also be set by placing the desired image in ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/ and choosing the image from Appearance > Background > Images.

Now that you’ve got your dockapps, desktops, and theme set up, your desktop probably looks something like this:

Visually, there’s plenty more tweaking that can be done, but the purpose of this article was to cover the functionality, configuring the aspects of Window Maker that make it so amazingly useful and productive.  If you’ve gone through this tutorial, you now have a functional desktop with multiple workspaces, each with a special purpose.  You’ve got an easy way to manage those desktops (mouse wheel), dockapps to control and monitor your machine, and a nice looking interface to top it all off. 

For those who are still interested in tweaking every other part of Window Maker, I highly recommend you flip through the WPrefs utility in your dock and see some of the other options. 

For now, you should be well on your way.

Do you use Window Maker? What is the best thing that you love about Window Maker?