Sugestions for workarounds

[gnanini]

Hi, I really enjoy xfdashboard, I'm not a developer, but I play with skins and gtk themes, so I have some Ideas. I really like the idea of a dash for Xfce and of course a gnome shell.

1) I think xfdashboard could be even cooler if it can be integrated with xfce panel, so it will be easier to theme it and use-it like the plugin that transforms gnome overview panels no docks... Xfdashboard's left panel is similar to windows buttons plugin, and launcher! A great plugin that xfce doesn't have... The switcher is not as good as xfce workspace switcher, because it doesn't shows all windows snapshot and you cannot carry windows between desktops. But both could be cooler as panel plugins and if it was possible to manipulate the panels inside xfdashboard, I think it will be a great contribution to xfce.

2) I believe xfdashboard should concentrate on xfwm4 and its features. Xfwm4 has miniatures previews from all windows of all workspaces when cycling, it is not possible to mimic this feature on xfdashboard? Or add a snapshot capture when opening windows and when changing desktops, so every miniature will have its preview. It's possible to capture every desktop wallpaper when xfdashboard launches itself and use mini previews of them. xfconf-query can be used as a monitor to detect wallpaper changes or could be possible to restart the daemon for refreshing the miniatures... Even a refresh button could be used...

3) Skippy-xd has a fix to show iconified windows, I believe xfdashboard could use it...

4)When lauching xfdashboard every other window should be set to the layer bellow and xfdashboard to above, so windows will stop glitching when changing workspaces... On openbox that doesn't happend.

5)Xfdashboard could be integrated with xfce4-appfinder for using custom actions

[gmc-holle]

Hi,

thanks for your ideas. Do you play with themes or are you creating ones?

1.) xfdashboard is developed as an application. It would be really hard to turn it into a panel plugin also. And it relies on clutter as its main library for displaying and that would be a overkill for a panel plugin even it should be integratable. I think panel plugins should be light and xfdashboard is sadly not that lightweight. I don't know what you mean with "[...] if it was possible to manipulate the panels inside xfdashboard [...]" but I think xfdashboard is very themable and therefore manipulatable.

2.) Please believe me: I do. I only test xfdashboard with xfwm4 and no other window manager. It has to work with this one. I really would like to access the miniature previews of any window xfwm4 is using for its task switcher but it isn't possible yet. I haven't found any public interface and/or function to access them. xfwm4 would need to be patched to provide such a function. In addition I have no idea how to implement it. The desktop's wallpaper is retrieved from X server's root window. So if any application changes it, it should be reflected in xfdashboard too. This way is cross desktop environment compatible without the need to monitor any value changes in xfconf which would only work the Xfce - even if xfdashboard is only designed for it.

3.) xfdashboard implements the same workaround as skippy-xd but you need to turn on this workaround in xfdashboard-settings. It is disabled by defaut. Just see xfdashboard in the xfce preferences. It has also some performance related option to tweak xfdashboard.

4.) xfdashboard keeps itself sticky on all workspaces and always above all other windows and in fullscreen. So it should not flicker. The flickering you might see depends highly on the speed of you graphics card and driver. And also the window manager might interfere. If someone has any idea hw to improve it .... please tell me.

5.) xfce4-appfinder and custom actions? I don't know any custom action in xfce4-appfinder. Sorry, I need more information.

Kind regards, Stephan

[gnanini]

Thanks... I'm very pleased that you answered so quickly... Now I have a broader picture of the scenario... I'm not a dev.

What I was saying is these custom actions that turns xfce4-appfinder and whisker-menu into powerfull tools: http://en.zimagez.com/full/fe79c10b432f0c09817defaa1cf6b7542426ae106a0cb4766924c0fb25bf0a9d6ee9081ac8e5c777e03f0ab95fbb26c21b043e6f7806b308.php

In fact the workaround on iconified windows doesn't work at my pc, and the plugin to close windows with middle click... Some time ago it worked, I don't know why...

I will try to reinstall xfdashboard and see what happens...

Once more, thanks for your attention!

[gnanini]

this still happens even with the fix turned on:

[gnanini]

I solved this with this command line: xfdashboard && wmctrl -s 0 && wmctrl -s 1 && wmctrl -s 2 && wmctrl -s 3....

It's a little flicky, but it worked... I will put it on my launchers...

[gnanini]

I've got this message from the terminal:

(xfdashboard:8639): xfdashboard-DEBUG: Do not handle command-line parameters on remote application instance

[gmc-holle]

Sorry for the very long delay. I missed to reply to you last response :(

Although I didn't changed much about the windows and how they are grabbed and shown ... does this issue still exist with the latest version 0.7.1? Do you still need to use your "little flicky" workaround? I'm going to release 0.7.2 soon and I could look at this issue before releasing.

On the other side the "workaround" is a workaround and does not mean that it will work 100%. It tries it best to work around the problem. But I would really like to have a "workaround" working best ;)

[gnanini]

I gave a look at the 7.2 release. Well, the minimized windows workaround is working, picking windows at the right dock and putting on another workspace is working as well. Windows are still popping up when changing workspaces, but at the second time I visit a workspace the problem doesn't appear.

I made a fix myself for this last issue: I use devilspie to keep every window besides xfdashboard and xfce4-panel to the below layer, these two I keep at the above layer.

Today my new computer will be complete (i5-6400 with an rx 480 gpu), so I will state here if the problem persists on new hardware.

I liked the new features, nice work!!

[gmc-holle]

I still have no idea how improve this flicker that might happen. I think the window content must be fetched first (which is used for live preview in windows view) and it takes some time to fetch the image and set it up for live preview. This would explain why the second time it is near lightning fast ;) The disadvantage would be that I cannot do anything against it.