Xfce News
The little mouse told me...

I have written a quick script to update the list of the images for the background in Xfdesktop.

#!/bin/sh
# Update the background.list so the new downloaded wallpapers are available
# to show up in Xfdesktop.
LIST=$HOME/.config/xfce4/desktop/background.list
echo "# xfce backdrop list" > $LIST
find $HOME/images/background/ -type f >> $LIST

Note: change in the last line the folder to the backgrounds.

This script can be either putted in an .zshrc file. Or better, if you use Xfce, save the script, under the name update-desktop-list.sh for example, to your personal bin folder (in my case $HOME/.local/bin) which is correctly set in the PATH, and run xfce4-autostart-editor. You can add the command update-desktop-list.sh.

Finally you have to set up Xfdesktop to use the list (located at $LIST) of backgrounds. Go to Settings > Desktop manager, and select the list as the file. If it doesn't exist run the script a first time.

I have looked around the patch for gnome-terminal from Kristian Høgsberg and also the one for Terminal from Benny, and I managed to do the same for Terminal again since the vte libs have been modified, and support for real-transparency has been added. It was really simple, just init the rgba colormap, and call vte_terminal_set_opacity :) It requires version 0.13.3 or higher of vte.

Now someone could come with a good solution to integrate this nicely in Terminal. I think about a hidden option in ~/.config/Terminal/terminalrc, or even a slider.

Here is a first patch. It sets a hard-coded color for the alpha channel (0xDDDD).

Edit: And here comes a second patch which adds a hidden option for the opacity (ColorOpacity). It has to be in decimal, where 0xCCCC is 52428. Don't apply it over the first patch.

Edit 2: Benny commited changes to the trunk with support for real transparency, and a check for the version of libvte.

This weekend, we just released the second release candidate in preparation for Xfce 4.4.0. Check out the list of changes from rc1, or go ahead and get to the downloads.

I’m really happy with this release (where xfdesktop is concerned, at least). I closed something like 26 bugs, and I’m much more comfortable with xfdesktop’s stability level. There are still some features that I wanted to get in for 4.4 that aren’t going to make it, but I think the desktop manager is pretty usable and stable, and works well at this point. Give it a try.

Oh, and if you’re bothered by the fact that icons that ‘fall off’ the screen (due to the icon size being too large) never reappear when you lower the icon size, grab the patch from this bug and apply it to rc2.