Use Epiphany to set your xfdesktop background
Hi ladies ang guys,As of my blog entry auto-update-background-list-for-xfdesktop I used to tell how I update my background with a uniq file in the background list. That worked with a shell script that 1) took as argument an image file 2) updated the background list 3) and reloaded xfdesktop.
I updated that script and put it in my git (git.m8t.mine.nu). It can now take a remote file as argument. That combined with the web browser Epiphany, you can apply a background within the browser.
Download that script and make it executable inside your $PATH.
Now run Epiphany with the extensions then:
- go to Tools > Extension... and enable the Actions extension
- After the Actions are enabled go to Edit > Actions
- Press Add and create an action called "Update xfdesktop background"
- And set the command to "set-xfdesktop-image.sh"
- Check Images in the Applies to
- Click Add.
Now go to my wallpapers gallery, choose a wallpaper (click on it to get the fullsize), and right click it. You can apply it by choosing the item "Update xfdesktop background" in the context menu.
Have fun with my hack around xfdesktop,
Mike
Xfce Volstatus Icon 0.1.0
Yesterday I released the first version of my Xfce Volstatus Icon. It’s a pretty simple little app; all it does is sit quietly (and invisibly) in your system tray until you plug in a removable device (like a USB flash disk or an iPod), and then it turns into a little icon that you can click to easily and safely unmount and/or eject the device so you can physically remove it.
The code for the icon itself is relatively simple; it’s all less than 2000 lines of C. Another 2000 lines resides in ‘ghal’, a library I’ve written to act as gobject bindings for libhal and libhal-storage. Currently it’s not documented at all, and it’s not released as a separate library dependency, but included in the xfce4-volstatus-icon source package. I first wrote the libhal bindings for Airconfig, and then extended them for volstatus to include libhal-storage.
The upshot is that you can create a GHalContext object, and connect to gsignals on the object such as device-added and device-removed. You can enumerate devices (GHalDevice objects) on the system via their UDIs. Now ghal also knows about ’special’ devices, which are subclasses of GHalDevice: GHalDrive, GHalVolume, and GHalVolumeDisc. The cool thing is that you don’t have to know what they are explicitly. ghal_context_device_from_udi() will create the right kind of device and return it to you cast to a GHalDevice; you can use e.g. GHAL_IS_DRIVE() to determine if it’s also a GHalDrive, etc. Currently you can use ghal_context_find_device_by_capability() to find devices of particular types if you know the HAL capability strings, but I plan to add convenience API to abstract the capability strings.
I’d also like to add more objects, like GHalComputer (the root computer object), and support for performing actions on particular devices (like mount/unmount for volumes, suspend/hibernate for the power management interfaces, etc.). I’m also debating including some parts of Airconfig in there as well (mainly the interface control stuff), though I’m not yet convinced that that’s necessary or useful, especially since it currently relies on a custom HAL addon and method-invocation scripts. At any rate, I think it’s pretty useful for people who want to use HAL just like any other glib/gobject-type services, and I’ll turn it into a standalone library Real Soon Now[tm].
(Yes, I know about libhal-glib, written by Richard Hughes for gnome-power-manager. However, I don’t really like the API that much, and it obviously has a decidedly power-management-slanted focus that I don’t need.)
Marihela Xfwm theme
I relooked a little bit the Moheli theme with some ideas that throwed my head.
You can go to my gallery, the last screenshots are the most recents. Pick this one.
Dwarf GTK+ theme for Xfce
I was using the Xfce-stellar theme for quite more than a week now. Today I renewed that theme by using the most recent features from the Xfce GTK+ engine like gradients and borders for menu items.It was an easy hack since both the Xfce-stellar theme and the new default for Xfce are really clean. I mostly changed colors and some other misty stuff. I choosed the name Dwarf, coming from the White Dwarf, since it has a direct relation to Stellar. If you like the next screenshot you can download the theme here: Dwarf.tar.gz.
Edit: I have done some updates while I was travelling by train. There is a gallery with several screenshots and the tarball has been updated too.
Back from CeBIT marathon
I just came back from my CeBIT marathon (i mean my one day trip to CeBIT). The first word that comes into my mind after visiting CeBIT is “_HUGE_”. This event takes place into around 23 showrooms, each of them big enough to host an entire commercial aircraft. I have been walking all day long (including a 6km long walk just for the trip to the nearest Burger King) and i’m exhausted now.
I dropped by the GNOME and KDE booth and was a bit deceived. In comparison with the other booths, these ones were pretty small and without any attractive posters, sport car :p or whatever. But I took some pictures of the suggestion board that had some interesting notes :D.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t meet with Jens because he was working today. May be next time.
Xfce and Choice
Since my last entry, a several important things happened. A number of users and developers chose to engage in a flamewar on the mailing lists. A few developers chose to leave. Many chose to just ignore the problems and focus on their work. Meanwhile, the council has chosen to start doing something about it. Since that last entry ("It's not about choice"), many things have happened. Well, we're Gentoo. We're flexible. We choose when to do things and when to do nothing. We'll adapt, and hopefully we'll weather the storm.
This weekend I chose (there's that word again) to update my Xfce Guide for 4.4, which is now being stabilized. Kudos to the arch teams and the xfce team; you guys rock!
You'll find new package suggestions, new descriptions, tips, links, and even a chapter on migrating from 4.2 to 4.4.
Now, you can choose (that was the last one, I promise) to do many things, but I hope you'll choose (okay, maybe not; I'm such a tease) to read the updated guide and try out Xfce 4.4 yourself.
And now, I choose to go to bed, since the PST to PDT change means the clock just struck 3AM.
Edit: Who's this joker over here? Who chose to write up that kind of wackiness?!?
Xfce and Choice
Since my last entry, a several important things happened. A number of users and developers chose to engage in a flamewar on the mailing lists. A few developers chose to leave. Many chose to just ignore the problems and focus on their work. Meanwhile, the council has chosen to start doing something about it. Since that last entry ("It's not about choice"), many things have happened. Well, we're Gentoo. We're flexible. We choose when to do things and when to do nothing. We'll adapt, and hopefully we'll weather the storm.
This weekend I chose (there's that word again) to update my Xfce Guide for 4.4, which is now being stabilized. Kudos to the arch teams and the xfce team; you guys rock!
You'll find new package suggestions, new descriptions, tips, links, and even a chapter on migrating from 4.2 to 4.4.
Now, you can choose (that was the last one, I promise) to do many things, but I hope you'll choose (okay, maybe not; I'm such a tease) to read the updated guide and try out Xfce 4.4 yourself.
And now, I choose to go to bed, since the PST to PDT change means the clock just struck 3AM.
Edit: Who's this joker over here? Who chose to write up that kind of wackiness?!?
Bugzilla Permissions
Finally! I can’t wait until 3.0 final (or, rather, 3.0.1 or 3.0.2) is released. It’ll be nice to be able to properly restrict permissions on b.x.o.
Xfce 4.4.0 Released!
This is just a copy and paste of my /. story submission, but whatever:
After more than two years since our previous stable feature release, the Xfce Team is proud to announce the release of Xfce 4.4.0. This release features our new file manager, Thunar, as well as many improvements and feature additions to Xfce’s core components.
Head over to our brand-new website and take a look at our visual tour, or go straight to the downloads.
Xfce goodness
I added my new Xfce Configuration Guide to our documentation repository tonight. I hope it'll get some of you to try out the wonderful creamy goodness that is Xfce. 
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xfce-config.xml
* It might take an hour or two to show up; the mirrors have to finish syncing first.