Other Help Topics :: Calling all hardcore fluxbox lovers and fans!



Hi I am making an effort to move away from KDE to using Fluxbox full time. This is mainly due to my frequentt use of DSL Linux, which made me fall in love with Fluxbox and with it's power and sheer lightweight flexibility. 9although unfortunately using DSL itself as my main desktop OS is not entirely practical).

However one thing I find difficult to live without is pretty desktop icons and colourful wallpapers. (Yes I know the real hardcore guys will ask why I need these (or why I even really need a GUI at all) but really - after comming away from KDE after 5 years, I do need at least some eye candy I can relate to. And of course, I have noticed that DSL seems to be able to do these very well.

Anyway I found out about iDesk for fluxbox, which pretty much gives me all of the eye candy I am looking for.

I have been trying to follow the guide:

http://idesk.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Idesk-usage

But I haven't been very sucessful. (Indeed this has been made more difficult as the author appears to be a non native English speaker, which makes his instructions just that tad more difficult to follow).

Well anyway as far as I can make out I have to put a plain textfile in my /home/knx1967/directory called .ideskrc. (although first thing being first, can anyone please confirm that this is what I have to do?)

Second this file should have the following syntax:

Code Sample
table Config
FontName: tahoma
FontSize: 8
FontColor: #ffffff
ToolTip.FontSize: 10
ToolTip.FontName: gothic
ToolTip.ForeColor: #0000FF
ToolTip.BackColor: #FFFFFF
ToolTip.CaptionOnHover: true
ToolTip.CaptionPlacement: right
Locked: false
Transparency: 100
Shadow: true
ShadowColor: #000000
ShadowX: 1
ShadowY: 2
Bold: false
ClickDelay: 300
IconSnap: true
SnapWidth: 55
SnapHeight: 100
SnapOrigin: BottomRight
SnapShadow: true
SnapShadowTrans: 200
CaptionOnHover: false
CaptionPlacement: bottom
FillStyle: FillHLine
Background.File: /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/blue-bend.jpg
Background.Source: /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/
Background.Mode: Scale
Background.Delay: 20
Background.Color: #C2CCFF
end
table Actions
Lock: control right doubleClk
Reload: middle doubleClk
Drag: left hold
EndDrag: left singleClk
Execute[0]: left doubleClk
Execute[1]: right doubleClk
end


The first thing that struck me was the hex colour codes; but then I found a colour chart calculator on the web, so that isn't such a big issue any more. However there are still a few things in this that are confusing me. First the original author's font choice in the above example is Tahoma - and I already know that Tahoma is an MS TTF font. I don't have anything beyond the default fonts that come with KDE installed (specifically I don't have any MS core fonts installed) so what would anyone here recommend as a good substitute for Tahoma?

Additionally in this section:

Code Sample
Transparency: 100
Shadow: true
ShadowColor: #000000
ShadowX: 1
ShadowY: 2


What would be a good default value for the transparency? I need things to be sharp and clear, though I don't mind a little transparency for fun and for good effect. So is 100 a reasonable value to begin with?

In any case what exactly does this transparency refer to? Does it refer to desktop icons, or does it refer to actual Windows? Or is it in reference to fonts only?

In the following section after this there is this entry too:

Code Sample
SnapWidth: 55
SnapHeight: 100
SnapOrigin: BottomRight
SnapShadow: true
SnapShadowTrans: 200


But again, what does this mean? How high and in what position is the 'Snapwidth' (and what is it?) if set to 55 and is SnapHight 100 a good value to choose or not? Is this describing a grid that icons allign to - or is it in someway describing the positions of the icons themselves? Once more, what are good default values, if I want to lay things out on my desktop in roughly the same way I can in KDE? (my screen is set at 1024x768 BTW).

Lastly from this file there is this section:

Code Sample

FillStyle: FillHLine
Background.File: image.jpg
Background.Delay: 1
Background.Source: ~/.idesktop/icons
Background.Mode: Mirror
Background.Color: #C2CCFF


I know it might seem like an obvious question to some, but what is "FillStyle: FillHLine"? What is being filled, and what particular style FillHLine refer to? (and also, what are the alternatives?)

Finally in this file I have set my background values as follows:

Code Sample
Background.File: /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/blue-bend.jpg
Background.Source: /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/
Background.Mode: Scale
Background.Delay: 20
Background.Color: #C2CCFF


(Which is just an example for the moment). In doing this I have set my initial background to /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/blue-bend.jpg - although I have also told this software that there are additional wallpapers in /usr/kde/3.4/share/wallpapers/ and that it should select from these and randomly change the wallpaper every 20 minutes. Have I done this correctly?

Lastly in this guide there are instructions on how to actually create desktop icons.

To do this it seems you must create a folder within your home directory called .idesktop and in here you must create the fluxbox equivalent of what appear to be KDE .desktop entry files. Again it is not perhaps quite as clear to me as it should be what is required here?

The .desktop entry files for fluxbox  can it seems be called anything, providing they end in a .lnk extension  (such as home.lnk) So in this example a file is created called 'home.lnk'

This file contains the following text:

Code Sample
 table Icon
Caption: Home
ToolTip.Caption: My home
Icon: /home/you/.idesktop/home.png
Command[0]: nautilus /home/you
Command[1]: nautilus /home/you/otherDir
Width: 320
Height: 200
X: 20
Y: 20
 end


A few questions I have about this are as follows:

1) Can the Icon: line be a link to any icon, located anywhere on my computer?

2) Why in this example has he got two exec lines for his home directory? Is this required, or is he simply demonstrating that this file can cause two seperate directories to be iopened simultaniously? What if all one wanted to open was their home directory? Wouldn't this be trimmed down to just one line - as in:

Code Sample
Command[0]: nautilus /home/my_user_name_here


And last but not least with this specific file, there is an entry that gives the position and size of the icons:

Code Sample
Width: 320
Height: 200
X: 20
Y: 20


But what I find odd about this is that it isn't using standard icon sizes; as in 28x28, 32x32, 48x48 and so on. As my prefered icon size is always 48x48, what would be a good equivalent value to add here? Also how are the x and y coordinates of my screen determined? If I wanted my home directory on the top left of my screen where I would normally expect to find it, once more, what would be a reasonable value to assign here?

The major drawback to all of this is that it seems i must create by hand a .lnk file for each and every icon I wish to create. This seems as though it will be very laborious - with perhaps the possibility that I might have to write as much as 20 or 30 such files by hand. (I may not want them all on my desktop all at once - but I often chop and change the icons on my desktop - and I use about maybe 20 or 30 apps in total on a regular to not so regular basis, so having these available for ready placement on my destop would be extremly useful.

To this end I don't suppose anyone knows of a repository of .lnk files anywhere containing common desktop applications that the majority of people tend to use most often - or perhaps you might have a few of your own you can share? I know it will still take some work editing them to reflect the correct icon/directory paths and so on - but somehow editing them seems a much less daunting prospect than having to sit down and write them all out by hand.

I know this is a lot to ask, but if I can get some clear concise instructions, I will probably mail the auhor of this guide with any clarifications and/or corrections that I can come up with - so that hopefully the guide will be easier for others to follow in the future too.

So any hints tips or advice or clarification of any nature that anyone can offer in this regard would be very much welcomed.

Fluxbox as a desktop rocks BTW - although it does seem to take a bit of extra effort to get it set up just the way you want it.
You can get the eye candy just using the xtdesktop that's installed. Just grab what ever icons you want and put them in .xtdesktop, then right click the icon you want to change and select properties just change the icon line(/.xtdesktop/<your new icon name>) and select save. That's it eye candy icons.  
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4561/laptop2cm.png
Oh, i forgot to make new desktop icons right click> desktop> icon tool> add. Select your icon put a name and the launch command, it will create the ink file for ya.

For wallpaper's put them in .fluxbox/backgrouds and right click >desktop >wallpaper.
with idesk you can set transparency to icons, just like fluxbox titlebar and menu (flux 0.9.14) it's quite neat, I've used it some time ago, If you want some cool icons resource just ask. Well I really never used those icons but they were present on the desktop. They are transparent, that you can see the wallpaper underneath, but when you hover on them they get more solid. Try to find idesk-extras (linuxpackages.net)

EDIT: s/cool apps/cool icons , if I recall idesk-extra(s) provides a tool to configure icons
Your thread title was misleading....idesk has nothing to do with Fluxbox.

Anyway...for answers....

1) Yes, as long is the file is readable by the user.
2) Extra commands are for the right-click menu, just like in Xtdesk.

If the icon can be stretched using "width" and "height", I assume you can use any dimensions you want. 48x48 is the size used for the default icons in DSL.
The coordinates are the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) position of the top left corner of the icon, in pixels.  X: 0 Y: 0 would squeeze the icon up into the top left corner of the screen.
I don't know about the other questions, since i've never used idesk.

As kerry said, Xtdesk is already a part of DSL, and there is a gui that helps you create *.lnk files.  Unless idesk has features you need, Xtdesk would probably be easier.
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