ROX Desktop - Pinboard

Première session

jpotts — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:45:43 +0000

Bienvenue chez ROX ! Si c'est la première session ROX que vous ouvrez, vous devriez voir une barre en bas d'écran, nommée le panneau et un fond d'écran gris (le "tableau d'affichage"), comme vu ici. Les deux servent à charger fichiers et applications.

De gauche à droite, le panneau contient ces icônes:

Putting icons on the desktop background

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 22:25:32 +0000

The desktop background is called the pinboard. To enable turn it on and enable desktop-icons, use this command:

$ rox --pinboard Default

You can now drag files, directories and applications onto the pinboard to create short-cuts to them.

You cannot actually save things to the pinboard; you can only create links to things that exist in directories elsewhere.

If you use ROX-Session, then a pinboard will be set up for you on login automatically.

Can I make the pinboard transparent, like in the 1.2.x series?

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:21:43 +0000

No. Please don't ask about this. The old method doesn't work properly with Gtk+-2.0, is slow, ugly, and doesn't follow the WM standard. KDE, GNOME, XFCE and ROX all use a single screen-sized window for the backdrop now.

ROX provides plenty of support for setting the backdrop itself and allows external programs to choose a backdrop. See the Wallpaper application for an example; this program chooses a random backdrop
each time you log in, and can also be used to put the output of other programs, such as XEarth, on the backdrop at regular intervals.

Root-portal can be used to show log messages on the backdrop, replacing the old roottail. Deskmenu can be used to provide a custom root menu.

XFCE's root menu doesn't work anymore

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:20:12 +0000

The XFce root menu doesnt work with the pinboard, and 'Pass all backdrop mouse clicks to window manager' doesn't fix it.

XFce's root menu is part of the xfdesktop module, which creates a single large root window to set background image and create the root menu. ROX's pinboard also creates a large root window for desktop icons. These two compete.

However you can kill the xfdesktop and enable the ROX pinboard. When you do so the Xfce root menu will no longer work, but you will have desktop icons and the ROX-Filer menu by right clicking.

The Oroborus project has a Gtk+ 1.x application (on which xfdesktop is based) which doesn't create a large root window.

I use blackbox/fluxbox and the root menus don't work properly anymore

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:19:20 +0000

These window managers don't support the Extended Window Manager Hints specification yet, although they hope to in future releases. In the meantime, turn on the 'Pass all backdrop mouse clicks to window manager' and 'Blackbox root menus hack' options in the Options box (Compatibility section).

The pinboard only appears on one of my workspaces, or jumps in front of other windows!

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:18:14 +0000

Some older window managers don't fully support the Extended Window Manager Hints specification. In this case, you'll need to turn on the Override option in the Compatibility section of the Options box.

How do I set the background image?

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:15:31 +0000

Right click on the desktop background. Choose Backdrop... from the bottom of the menu. Drag an image in.

If no background image is set, the colour set in the Options box is used (choose ROX-Filer/Options... from the menu).

You can use Wallpaper to select a random backdrop image at regular intervals, and for other interesting effects.

Note that the pinboard is actually a screen-sized window that covers the real root window completely. Therefore, programs that try to draw on the root window directly won't have any effect.

Set As Wallpaper menu item

Thomas Leonard — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:29:22 +0000

Call I make a Set As Wallpaper menu item appear for images?

Right-click on an image and choose Customise Menu....
Drag Wallpaper (version 2.1 or later) to it.
Right-clicking on another file of that type will show a Wallpaper menu item which sets that image as the backdrop.

Using SOAP

You can also use the SOAP method (see the manual for ROX). You can make a small script that takes a file argument and call ROX to set that image as background on the pinboard. You can't use the rootwindow for background, the pinboard is actually one big window that covers your desktop!

Example script (untested, but should work):

Pinboard and panels

Thomas Leonard — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 21:50:48 +0000

How do I reorder items on the panel?

Use the middle mouse button to drag the icon to a new location within the panel. If you do not have a middle mouse button, try and enable "Emulate3Buttons" in your XF86Config; doing so, you can press the left and right buttons on your mouse simultaneously to emulate the middle mouse button.

How do I set the background image?

Right click on the desktop background. Choose Backdrop... from the bottom of the menu. Drag an image in.
If no background image is set, the colour set in the Options box is used (choose ROX-Filer/Options... from the menu).

Customization

Thomas Leonard — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 13:35:57 +0000

The desktop background

Maybe you're getting bored with that plain grey background now? There are several things you can do with the desktop background.
First, you can use it just like a panel; drag things onto the background (called the 'pinboard') to create shortcuts to them.