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Parole Media Player 0.8.1 Released

  • October 17, 2015
  • Sean Davis
It’s been nearly 8 months since the first release in Parole’s 0.8 stable series. Yesterday, Parole Media Player 0.8.1 was released in time to be included in Xubuntu 15.10.  This release includes several bug fixes and makes for another great release. What’s New? New Feature-ish New hidden setting to persistently hide the menubar been sessions. This … Continue reading Parole Media Player 0.8.1 Released

Catfish 1.3.3 Released

  • October 13, 2015
  • Sean Davis
The latest version of Catfish (1.3.3) was released on October 8th.  This release follows the current development cycle where I am improving usability and tackling bugs big and small.   Changes Since 1.3.0 New Features The headerbar window decorations are now optional, and can be toggled with the use-headerbar setting Updated Translations: German, Greek, Finnish, French, … Continue reading Catfish 1.3.3 Released

Xfce Panel Switch: Introduction

  • October 13, 2015
  • Sean Davis
Xubuntu 15.10 “Wily Werewolf” introduces a new application for managing panel layouts in Xfce, Xfce Panel Switch. This is a simple utility application that fills a void for appearance tweakers and distributors alike.   Features Backup and restore panel configurations Share panel layouts with simple exporting and importing Choose from one of 5 included layouts, or … Continue reading Xfce Panel Switch: Introduction

LightDM GTK+ Greeter 2.0.1 and Settings 1.2.0 Releases

  • May 21, 2015
  • Sean Davis
LightDM GTK+ Greeter and it’s accompanying configuration application have been updated!  A number of bugs have been fixed in the greeter, and a new multihead configuration dialog has been added to LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings. Update 2015/06/16 Both applications have been added to the Stable PPA.  Some users are reporting a solid-color background on some … Continue reading LightDM GTK+ Greeter 2.0.1 and Settings 1.2.0 Releases

What’s New in Xubuntu 15.04

  • April 23, 2015
  • Sean Davis
Another 6 months of development has come and gone and we have a new Xubuntu release!  This release includes the hotly anticipated Xfce 4.12, released on February 28, as well as all of the typical application, appearance, documentation, and translation updates. Left: Xubuntu 14.10, Right: Xubuntu 15.04 What’s New? With the release of Xfce 4.12, … Continue reading What’s New in Xubuntu 15.04

News from Xfce 4.12, part 3

  • February 19, 2015
  • Skunnyk

A bunch of news from the development of Xfce 4.12 !
Since my previous post in november (read it !) , many things have happened.
First, the most awaited news ... wait for it... a date has been decided ! 4.12 will released by the last week end of February 2015 ! (yes, 1 week from now)

Now, I would like to draw your attention to a list of threads on the xfce4-dev mailist :

Core Apps :

xfce4-panel :

  • The intelligent panel hiding feature (see my previous post) has been released in 4.11.2 !

xfwm4 :

Oh wow, many commits, such features ! You can read the 4.11.3 announcement here

  • Add titleless maximization feature.
  • Client Side Decoration (CSD) support ! (Compositor need to be enabled). A screenshot with and without on gedit (an application that need CSD) CSD on xfwm4
  • Windows preview in alt+tab (Compositor need to be enabled too). Windows preview in alttab
  • Nice, right ? :)

xfce4-settings :

  • Release of 4.11.4
  • Add touchpad support with libinput (yes, already !)
  • Better monitor and multi monitor support
  • Add Gtk+ theme palettes in the appearance dialog (see screenshot)
  • Add previews for icon themes in appearance settings (see screenshot) Themes and icons preview

xfce4-session :

  • Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes !
  • The "logind runtime detection to support suspend/hibernate" patch has been merged.
  • Release of 4.11.1

thunar :

  • Add support for the GTK 3 bookmarks file,
  • Bugfixes, support for binary file size units
  • Release of 1.6.4

gtk-xfce-engine :

xfce4-dev-tools :

  • Fixes, dependencies update etc
  • Release of 4.11.1

xfconf :

  • Not many exciting changes for this release, mostly translation updates, small fixes and code tweaks.. 4.11.0

Apps :

xfce4-screenshooter :

  • Support of imgur uploads ! Yes ! imgur upload
  • Release of 1.8.2 . Thank gaston !

xfce4-taskmanager :

  • Big cleanup of UI, with new treeview mode, general UI/graph overhaul and lot of bugfixes) xfce4-taskmanager
  • Release of 1.1.0 with all theses changes. Thanks gaston, ochosi and Cavalier

xfce4-power-manager :

Panel Plugins :

Some love for panel plugins, from Harald Judt and Landry Breuil, mostly build/bugfixes and translations updates :

As you can see, xfce development is more active than ever !
So be prepared to be amazed by 4.12 in a few weeks !

Sources :

News from Xfce 4.12, part 3

  • February 19, 2015
  • Skunnyk

A bunch of news from the development of Xfce 4.12 !
Since my previous post in november (read it !) , many things have happened.
First, the most awaited news … wait for it… a date has been decided ! 4.12 will released by the last week end of February 2015 ! (yes, 1 week from now)

Now, I would like to draw your attention to a list of threads on the xfce4-dev mailist :

Core Apps :

xfce4-panel :

  • The intelligent panel hiding feature (see my previous post) has been released in 4.11.2 !

xfwm4 :

Oh wow, many commits, such features ! You can read the 4.11.3 announcement here

  • Add titleless maximization feature.
  • Client Side Decoration (CSD) support ! (Compositor need to be enabled). A screenshot with and without on gedit (an application that need CSD) CSD on xfwm4
  • Windows preview in alt+tab (Compositor need to be enabled too). Windows preview in alttab
  • Nice, right ? :)

xfce4-settings :

  • Release of 4.11.4
  • Add touchpad support with libinput (yes, already !)
  • Better monitor and multi monitor support
  • Add Gtk+ theme palettes in the appearance dialog (see screenshot)
  • Add previews for icon themes in appearance settings (see screenshot) Themes and icons preview

xfce4-session :

  • Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes !
  • The “logind runtime detection to support suspend/hibernate” patch has been merged.
  • Release of 4.11.1

thunar :

  • Add support for the GTK 3 bookmarks file,
  • Bugfixes, support for binary file size units
  • Release of 1.6.4

gtk-xfce-engine :

xfce4-dev-tools :

  • Fixes, dependencies update etc
  • Release of 4.11.1

xfconf :

  • Not many exciting changes for this release, mostly translation updates, small fixes and code tweaks.. 4.11.0

Apps :

xfce4-screenshooter :

  • Support of imgur uploads ! Yes ! imgur upload
  • Release of 1.8.2 . Thank gaston !

xfce4-taskmanager :

  • Big cleanup of UI, with new treeview mode, general UI/graph overhaul and lot of bugfixes) xfce4-taskmanager
  • Release of 1.1.0 with all theses changes. Thanks gaston, ochosi and Cavalier

xfce4-power-manager :

Panel Plugins :

Some love for panel plugins, from Harald Judt and Landry Breuil, mostly build/bugfixes and translations updates :

As you can see, xfce development is more active than ever !
So be prepared to be amazed by 4.12 in a few weeks !

Sources :

News from Xfce 4.12, part 3

  • February 19, 2015
  • Skunnyk

A bunch of news from the development of Xfce 4.12 !
Since my previous post in november (read it !) , many things have happened.
First, the most awaited news … wait for it… a date has been decided ! 4.12 will released by the last week end of February 2015 ! (yes, 1 week from now)

Now, I would like to draw your attention to a list of threads on the xfce4-dev mailist :

Core Apps :

xfce4-panel :

  • The intelligent panel hiding feature (see my previous post) has been released in 4.11.2 !

xfwm4 :

Oh wow, many commits, such features ! You can read the 4.11.3 announcement here

  • Add titleless maximization feature.
  • Client Side Decoration (CSD) support ! (Compositor need to be enabled). A screenshot with and without on gedit (an application that need CSD) CSD on xfwm4
  • Windows preview in alt+tab (Compositor need to be enabled too). Windows preview in alttab
  • Nice, right ? :)

xfce4-settings :

  • Release of 4.11.4
  • Add touchpad support with libinput (yes, already !)
  • Better monitor and multi monitor support
  • Add Gtk+ theme palettes in the appearance dialog (see screenshot)
  • Add previews for icon themes in appearance settings (see screenshot) Themes and icons preview

xfce4-session :

  • Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes !
  • The “logind runtime detection to support suspend/hibernate” patch has been merged.
  • Release of 4.11.1

thunar :

  • Add support for the GTK 3 bookmarks file,
  • Bugfixes, support for binary file size units
  • Release of 1.6.4

gtk-xfce-engine :

xfce4-dev-tools :

  • Fixes, dependencies update etc
  • Release of 4.11.1

xfconf :

  • Not many exciting changes for this release, mostly translation updates, small fixes and code tweaks.. 4.11.0

Apps :

xfce4-screenshooter :

  • Support of imgur uploads ! Yes ! imgur upload
  • Release of 1.8.2 . Thank gaston !

xfce4-taskmanager :

  • Big cleanup of UI, with new treeview mode, general UI/graph overhaul and lot of bugfixes) xfce4-taskmanager
  • Release of 1.1.0 with all theses changes. Thanks gaston, ochosi and Cavalier

xfce4-power-manager :

Panel Plugins :

Some love for panel plugins, from Harald Judt and Landry Breuil, mostly build/bugfixes and translations updates :

As you can see, xfce development is more active than ever !
So be prepared to be amazed by 4.12 in a few weeks !

Sources :

Simple desktops with Xubuntu

  • January 25, 2015
  • Pasi Lallinaho

In 2012, I wrote an article about default configuration for an operating system and the challenges involved with it. For a related, but slightly different topic, I thought it would be useful to share some of my experiences in setting up environments for more or less technically limited people.

Please note that this is just a pointer and a suggestion and the needs and wants of real people may and will vary.

Relevant visual elements

Panel

The first thing I would suggest to do is to remove any unnecessary panel applets (and panels, where appropriate). Automatically hidden panels can be really hard to use, especially for those users who have limited experience with mice or other problems that affect hand-cursor coordination. These can vary anywhere from bad eyesight to difficulties with accurate movement or simply having a hard time understanding the concept of a cursor.

What is relevant in the panels for a simple desktop experience? If you are striving for the simplest possible configuration, I would say that you only need launchers for applications, window list of open applications, a clock and a shutdown button with no choice of logout, suspend or other actions. With this setup, I recommend using the confirmation dialog to prevent unwanted shutdown cycles.

When deciding which launchers to show, please remember that you can enable access to the full application menu on right-clicking the desktop. Because of that option, it’s not always worth the trouble to try to add a launcher for every application, especially if they are used only rarely. Consider picking ones that users need daily, weekly or monthly, depending on how much you want to avoid right-clicking.

I believe people that want or need a simple desktop don’t want to see anything that they think is irrelevant. This is especially true to indicators, because they use symbols that are more or less hard to understand for a technically limited person.

There are a few exceptions: If you’re setting up a laptop that’s actually unplugged now and then, you might want to show the battery indicator. If you have a laptop that needs to be used in various locations, you’ll want to show the network manager as well. If controlling volume is necessary, you might want to consider whether the sound indicator or shortcut keys (Fn+Fx in laptops) are the better choice.

Desktop

In addition to the panel launchers, it’s wise to add launchers for the desktop as well along with a shutdown button. Make sure the launchers use generic names instead of application names eg. Email instead of Mozilla Thunderbird. It’s usually wise to bump up the icon and label size up as well. If the users will not run several applications at a time, you can simply drop the panel and only use the desktop icons. If you want to show the clock without a panel, you can use a simple Conky setup. Conky is available in the Ubuntu repositories.

Other accessibility considerations

If the users have problems with their eyesight, there are a few things that can help make the system more usable for them.

The first one is adjusting the font and DPI settings. Bumping up the font size by just one step and increasing the DPI value makes the text more easily readable. Xubuntu has a very legible default font, even in smallish fonts, but it’s good to remember you can change the font as well

The other thing you can do is change the window border theme. The default Xubuntu theme is designed to be elegant and keep out of the way, but sometimes this is not ideal. If the user has a hard time seeing where a window ends and the other starts, it might be a good idea to try another window border theme. On the other hand, if too many buttons is the problem – or you simply don’t need or want to enable some features – you can remove some of the window buttons as well.

There is also many accessibility configuration options under the Accessibility tab in Window Manager Tweaks found in the Settings Manager. The one I tend to turn off is rolling up windows with the mouse wheel. This prevents the accidentally “disappearing” windows.

Accessibility version of Greybird?

Currently, Greybird, the Xubuntu default theme, ships two window border themes: a regular and a compact one. It has been brought up to discussion by me and others that we should ship an accessibility version as well. This accessibility version would sport bigger window buttons as well as a bigger border to grab for resizing the window.

So far, the accessibility on the drawing board phase and not much has been done yet, as it’s currently one of the most low priority items for the development teams of Xubuntu and Shimmer. That being said, all constructive feedback is welcome. Furthermore, if we see a lot of people asking for the accessibility version, it’s likely that its priority will be bumped up at least a little.

Smoother user experience

Since we are talking about a simple desktop experience, I can assume at least part of our target group is people who don’t either understand or want to understand why updating is important or how to install updates. For this reason, I’d simply turn on the automatical security updates but turn off all manual updates.

Depending on the situation, I would make sure apport will not pop up and ask to send new bug reports. It’s self-evident that bug reports are important, but if the user doesn’t understand or want to understand the importance, it’s better to turn any reporting that needs user input off. The possibility that these users with the simplest possible desktops would run into bugs that haven’t been already found is really rare. Moreover, the possibility of developers getting further information from these users are really slim.

While I don’t use autologin myself and can’t suggest using it for security reasons, setting it up might save a lot of frustration. But please, only use autologin after a good assessment of the situation and understanding the security considerations related to that.

Manual maintenance needs

Even though a system can run smoothly without daily maintenance, manual maintenance is sometimes required. I’ve been maintaining a few computers for family remotely during the years, and the two tools I’ve needed the most are an SSH server and remote desktop viewing ability – for which I’m currently using an X11vnc setup.

While SSH is usually fine for most of the regular maintenance, being able to view (and use) the desktop remotely has been an invaluable help in situations where the user can’t describe the issue accurately enough via text or voice based communication. This is even more useful if the computer is far from you and you have limited possibilities to access it physically.

Naturally, you need to take security considerations into account when accessing a computer remotely. Making servers listen on unusual ports and securing with them firewalls is highly encouraged.

Summary

There are numerous opinions on the best desktop configuration, both in the look and feel. However, if you are setting a system up for somebody else, you will need to consider how they usually use the computer and how you could support their workflow to make the experience smoother.

Xfce allows a great deal of customizability by default. On top of that, the Xubuntu team has worked to bring the users even more tools that can help them configure their system. The options brought by these alone give you a vast amount of different things you can control. This article is just scratching the surface for even those options. If you want to go deeper, there is always more software on the Ubuntu repositories that can help you set up the system in the way you like it.

If you have other ideas and suggestions for simple and/or accessible desktops, feel free to drop them in the comments. If you write (or have written) a blog article about customizing Xubuntu, especially ones that cover accessbility issues, I’d like to hear back from those as well.

Happy configuring!

News from xfce 4.12, part 2 !

  • November 19, 2014
  • Skunnyk

Update 19/02/2015 : A new post is available !

Following my first post about the Xfce development status 4 months ago (you can (re) read it here), let's go for a bunch of reviews of the last commits.

A little clarifications about comments on my 1st post : I'm NOT a core xfce dev, I'm just a small contributor, who try to help as much as I can.

Note: You can see lots of screenshots about all theses news features on the xfce forum, in the What's New in Xfce topic from ToZ.

xfce4-power-manager :

  • A new xfce4-power-manager release (compatible with xfce 4.10), thanks to Eric Koegell and Simon Steinbeiss
  • Provide a better support of systemd and upower
  • Brightness plugin has been merged into the battery indicator plugin so a new plugin is born, "Power Manager plugin"
  • Some design changes, see screenshots
  • The roadmap to 1.5 : https://wiki.xfce.org/design/power-manager

xfdesktop :

  • Add a --next option to force wallpaper changes
  • Add a move to trash menu option
  • Add an --enable-debug option added to xfdesktop-settings
  • Add optional blurring on shadow on text of icons, see Screenshots

xfce4-panel :

  • Implementation of a intelligent auto-hide functionality by Jannis Pohlmann !
  • Whenever the active window changes or whenever the geometry of an already active window changes, the algorithm checks whether the active window and the panel overlap. If this is the case, the panel is hidden. Otherwise, it is made or remains visible.
  • A quick demo (only available in git version for now)

xfce4-session :

  • Add logind runtime detection to support suspend/hibernate
  • Support for upower 0.99
  • Add DragonflyBSD to host check

xfce4-settings :

  • Reapply settings when external keyboard connects
  • New display settings dialog
  • Add support for upower 0.99

Thunar :

  • Default application not respected with glib >= 2.4
  • Check for thumbnails in the location
  • Add appdata file
  • Add pkexec policy. This way if the user of a desktop system wants to use thunar to modify files as root and has the proper credentials they can.

Apps / Plugins :

  • Mousepad and Parole have been ported to gtk3 !
  • Partial rewrite of squeeze (Archive manager)
  • Multiples releases/bugfixes of xfce4-netload-plugin, xfce4-weather-plugin, xfce4-equake-plugin

Development Releases of core components :

Maintenances/New Releases (for xfce 4.10 ) :

Others :

  • A side note about light-locker, a simple session-locker for lightdm, which work really great with xfce :). If you want a nice and modern locker, try it !
  • Debian Jessie will use xfce 4.10 (as 4.12 is not ready on 5th November, the date of Debian Freeze)
  • If you are an ArchLinux user, and want to test the devel version of xfce, you can use my [xfce411] repo. NO WARRANTY, support or whatever ! Use it at your own risks. Read the README ;)
  • Last minute : A reorganisation of the team is running, to list our current force, identify weak spots (where we urgently need new contributors), welcome new members etc. See https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce4-dev/2014-November/030946.html for more informations !

Sources :

  • Thanks to ToZ on the xfce forum
  • The #xfce-dev IRC chan on Freenode, the best way to be involved in Xfce development
  • Xfce4 dev list