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자주 묻는 질문

이것은 Xfce에 대해 자주 묻는 질문들입니다. 자유롭게 이 페이지를 개선하고 내용을 확장해나가십시오, 그러나 다른 사용자 분들이 읽기 쉽고 깔끔하게 유지해주셔야 합니다.

시작하기

Xfce에 대해서

"Xfce"는 뭐고 왜 내가 사용해야 하죠?

Xfce 는 유닉스와 다른 (리눅스, 솔라리스, BSD와 같은)유닉스 계열 플랫폼에서 사용하는 데스크톱 환경입니다. Olivier Fourdan은 “생산성을 염두에 두고 설계했습니다. 시스템 자원을 절약하면서 프로그램을 빨리 불러오고 실행합니다.” 라고 말했습니다. 이 철학은 빠른 환경, 모뎀, *NIX 머신에 대한 효율적인 작업 환경을 찾는 이들에게 매력요소로 작용할 것입니다.

Xfce는 어떻게 발음하고 어떤 의미가 있는거죠?

“엑스 에프 시 이(Ecks Eff See Eee)”. Xfce라는 이름은 본래 XForms 일반 환경(XForms Common Environment)을 의미했지만, 이후 Xfce를 재작성했고, XForms 툴킷을 더 이상 사용하지 않았습니다. 이름은 되살렸지만 F는 더이상 대문자로 표시하지 않습니다(“XFce”가 아니라 “Xfce”입니다). 현재 약자는 그 어떤 의미도 담지 않고 있습니다 (X Freakin' Cool Environment라고 하면 어떨까요?).

로고가 의미하는 것은 무엇입니까??

전 세계를 지배하는, 징글맞은, 등등의 무슨 이유에서든, 분명한 쥐입니다. (그 이상의 의미도 그 이하의 의미도 아닙니다. :P)

현재 Xfce가 동작하는 플랫폼은 무엇입니까?

여러가지 목적으로 Xfce를 개발합니다. 현재 리눅스, 솔라리스, BSD를 지원하며, 아이릭스(IRIX), 맥OSX, 윈도우즈와 같은 곳에서는 아직 실행을 못하는 것으로 알려져 있습니다.

Xfce는 어떤 라이선스하에 배포합니까?

Xfce 4 요소들은 자유 오픈소스 라이선스를 따릅니다: 프로그램에 대해 GPL 또는 BSDL을, 그리고 라이브러리에 대해 LGPL 또는 BSDL을 따릅니다. 이 소스코드의 문서를 읽어보거나, 더 자세한 내용에 대해 Xfce 홈페이지 를 보도록 합니다.

공식 릴리즈 기간은 얼마나 걸립니까?

정해둔 계획은 없지만 개발자들이 만나려고 하는 목표는 있습니다. 이 말은, 보상 없는 작업에 대해 기한을 정해둔 것에 의존하지 않는다는 뜻입니다. 그래서 전체적인 목표는 제각각의 목표를 달성할 때 새 버전을 출시하는 것입니다. 불행하게도, 이런 방식은 그 어떤 릴리즈 계획의 진보된 성명서를 용인하지 않습니다. 프로그램의 출시 소식을 자주 읽어 다시 확인해주시기 바랍니다.

설치

Xfce 는 최소 두가지 방법으로 설치할 수 있습니다:

Xfce 사용하기

콘솔에서 로그인 했을 때 Xfce를 시작할 수 있을까요?

다음 세가지 방법이 있습니다.

  • 그냥 로그인 하고 startxfce4명령을 입력합니다.
  • 여러분의 홈 디렉터리에 있는 .xinitrcexec startxfce4를 추가하고 startx명령을 사용할 수 있습니다.
  • 여러분이 tty1에 로그인 했을 때 Xfce 를 자동으로 시작하게 하고 싶다면 여러분의 .bash_profile/.bashrc 파일에 다음 내용을 넣습니다.
if [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" -o "$(tty)" = "/dev/vc/1" ] ; then
  startxfce4
fi

Xfce를 다른 디스플레이 관리자와 사용할 수 있을까요?

물론이죠. :D 그리고 아마도 이런 기능은 대부분 배포판의 기본적인 기능일 것입니다.

LXDM 설정하기

LXDM은 LXDE의 디스플레이 관리자 입니다. is the display manager of LXDE. But it is universal. I (Paiiou) think that it is an excellent manager for Xfce: no dependencies on GNOME or KDE, nice interface, very complete. Most distributions have a package to install. Regarding the configuration, check the presence of a file (or add) /usr/share/xsessions/06xfce4.desktop (the location may differ depending on the distributions), such as:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Xfce4
Comment=Use this session to run Xfce4 as your desktop environment
TryExec=/usr/bin/startxfce4
Exec=/usr/bin/startxfce4
Icon=/usr/local/share/pixmaps/xfce4_xicon1.png
Type=Application

Lines TryExec and Exec may also differ between distributions.

Setting up SLiM

If you want to avoid Gnome or KDE dependencies and a more attractive interface than XDM, you can give SLiM a try. Read the SLiM manual for more information.

Setting up GDM

If you installed Xfce system-wide and you want to use the GNOME Display Manager (gdm) to start your Xfce session, you will have to create a .desktop file to teach gdm how to start the Xfce session. This is a sample desktop file, Xfce.desktop:

  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Name=Xfce4
  Comment=Use this session to run Xfce 4.4 as your desktop environment
  Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  Icon=/usr/local/share/pixmaps/xfce4_xicon1.png
  Type=Application

It is usually enough to simply copy the example file to the Session directory used by gdm; this directory is usually located in /etc/dm/Sessions, /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions, /usr/share/xsessions, /usr/X11/share/gnome/xsessions or some other location, refer to the documentation of your system for details. You need to restart gdm after you created the file.

Setting up KDM

If you installed Xfce system-wide and you want to use the KDE Display Manager (kdm) to start your Xfce session, you will have to create a .desktop file to teach kdm how to start the Xfce session.

First you need to find where kdm searches for its .desktop files:

  locate kde.desktop

Common locations are /usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions or /usr/local/share/kdm/sessions. Once you found the kdm session directory, you need to create a new file Xfce.desktop with the following:

  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Type=XSession
  Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  TryExec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  Name=Xfce4
  Comment=The Xfce4 Desktop Environment

Login problems

When I start Xfce a dialog pops up saying "Could not look up internet address for..."

Xfce simply wants your hostname to be in /etc/hosts. Example input: 127.0.0.1 localhost

Logout problems

When I try to log out by pressing the logout button in the panel, I get a dialog asking me whether I want to quit the panel and/or xfce4-session-logout reports that no session manager is running, but it is!

For some reason, your X applications can not connect to the session manager. Possible causes are: your hostname cannot be resolved (see Login problems section), your home partition or partition containing /tmp is filled up, your hostname contains non-ascii characters (no umlauts allowed, in particular) or that either ~/.ICEauthority or /tmp/.ICE-unix has wrong permissions. Also check .xsession-errors for clues.

Usage

Keyboard

Is there some way to call the menu with the keyboard in the xfce?

Assign a key with the Keyboard Settings → Shortcuts to the command xfdesktop -menu. (This does not work reliable since Linux Kernel is tickless, so xfdesktop -menu needs a fix) The menu will popup where your mouse is located. You can also use xfce4-popup-applicationsmenu to popup the panel menu (also provided by xfdesktop and make sure you have the plugin in your panel ^_~).

Is it possible to focus the Verve plugin with a key?

Assign a key to the command verve-focus

My windows button does not work in the Keyboard Settings > Shortcuts.

The windows button (also known as the superkey) not working as a modifier is related to the toolkit, GTK+ in the case of Xfce. If you want to have the windows-key working we recommend you to upgrade GTK+ to at least version 2.10.0.

How do I get numlock to start on login?

There are two possibilities to achieve this. Or you should use a display manager that turns the numlock on (eg. gdm, check the settings) or you can use a little program called numlockx, adding numlockx on in your .xinitrc will do the job.

Is it possible to use Media keys in the Shortcut Editor?

Use xmodmap to assign keycodes to your Media keys to make them available for the Xfce shortcut editor:

To determine keycodes of the multimedia keys use the program xev. Create a .Xmodmap file in your $HOME directory containing those keycodes and assign keysyms to them. Example:

 keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
 keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
 keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
 keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
 keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
 keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
 keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
 keycode 237 = XF86AudioMedia
 keycode 230 = XF86Favorites
 keycode 236 = XF86Mail
 keycode 178 = XF86WWW

All possible keysyms can be found in /usr/lib/X11/XKeysymDB or /usr/share/X11/XKeysymDB. To ensure that the .Xmodmap file is loaded when you start Xfce add /usr/bin/xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap to your .xinitrc or .xprofile file. When you start the shortcut editor the assigned keysyms should show up when you press one of your multimedia keys. Now it is possible to assign a command to them. Note: Several problems with auto-loading of .Xmodmap files at xfce startup have been reported (also when issued as autostart command). Search the xfce bugzilla sites for current problems. As a workaround, run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap by hand every time, or try out editing the somewhat less straightforward xkb configuration files.

How to determine keycodes with ''xev''

All keyboards are different, keycodes can differ(eg. my keyboard with few keycodes above, not working) and of course not everyone has time to search XKeysymDB file. You can acquire keycodes from your keyboard with xev. In terminal type:

  xev | grep -A2 --line-buffered '^KeyRelease' | sed -n '/keycode /s/^*keycode \([0-9]*\).* (.*, \(.*\)).*$/\1 \2/p'

then press key of which keycode you need, eg. I press “Stop” and got output “174 XF86AudioStop”.

What should I do to change keyboard layout?

There are several options. One is to use xfce4-xkb-plugin, see http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/xfce4-xkb-plugin . You can also use the setxkbmap command with the two letter keyboard code as argument; you can edit your X server configuration file to choose a different keyboard layout (change the value after Option “XkbLayout”, e.g.: Option “XkbLayout” “dvorak”).

Is it possible to change the default shortcut keys?

Yes, of course… Keyboard shortcuts are defined on two locations. The shortcuts to handle the window manager are defined in the Settings Manager > Window Manager Settings > Keyboard. The Default theme can not be changed, but when you add a theme you can change that one. More global keyboard shortcuts, like volume adjustements, can be found in Settings Manager > Keyboard Preferences > Shortcuts. Again you need to add a new theme before you can start customizing it.

How do I make a shortcut that doesn't steal focus?

You can't.

Ok, why were the default shortcuts suddenly changed in 4.6?

How do I enable menu accelerators?

Menu accelerators let you set a keyboard shortcut to a menu item or entry. To enable menu accelerators go to the main menu and select:

Settings → Appearance → Settings tab

and select the 'Enable Editable Accelerators' option.

Alternatively you can run the command xfce4-appearance-settings from a terminal or from the Alt-F2 run command instead of using the menu to get to the appearance settings to enable accelerators.

키오스크

Xfce를 공공 환경에서 사용하고 사람들이 메뉴를 못건드리게 하고 싶어요 -_-.

키오스크 모드 (xfce4-session패널 문서를 보세요)를 사용하세요.

The left-click to get the menu on the title bar menu button seems a little slow. How do I change that?

The left-button single-click menu button display speed is linked to the double click speed. If one wants the menu to appear quicker, just change the double click speed in the Xfce 4 Settings Manager Mouse properties to be faster. Or, one can right click on the title bar to get the menu displayed almost instantly without adjusting the double-click speed. The menu will display both ways.

How do I display a list of all windows?

There are two possibilities. The first is by middle clicking on the desktop (if you have xfdesktop running) or you can add the window list plugin to the panel (is provided with a xfce4-popup-windowlist command).

How to edit the auto generated menu with the menu editor?

cp ~/.cache/xfce4/desktop/menu-cache-name-of-the-generated-file.xml ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/menu2.xml
cd ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/
cat menu.xml > menu3.xml
cat menu2.xml >> menu3.xml
mv menu.xml menu.orig.xml
mv menu3.xml menu.xml

Now, you already have a menu with all the categories in the main tree with some duplicates, but you must first edit menu.xml with your favorite editor and remove the 4 following lines in the middle of the file, otherwise the menu editor will complain about a wrong format:

</xfdesktop-menu>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xfdesktop-menu>

<xfdesktop-menu>

That's all. Now you can run the menu editor, remove the few duplicates and edit all as you like.

Settings > Desktop > Menu > Menu Editor

Notes: by removing the “system” line, you will remove all the duplicates menu entries from the auto generated file. So, if it is changed in this auto generated file, they don't appear anymore, but you will get rid of most of the duplicates.

To restore the original menu, just do in a terminal:

mv menu.xml menu3.xml; mv menu.orig.xml menu.xml

What are the exact commands used when launching the 'Setting' applications?

Please see this wiki entry.

File Manager

You can find more information about Thunar on the homepage or in the wiki.

Can I disable the trash?

No, you can not. But you can do for example:

  1. use 'SHIFT + del' to bypass the trash bin and immediately delete something for real.
  2. use cron to clean the trash every now and then.
  3. or create custom action for permanent delete(like in gnome) with action: rm %f then in context menu you'll have button “permanent delete”

I want to assign a keyboard shortcut in Thunar to "whatever action" in the menus

Thunar allows you to edit menu accelerators by simply hovering over the chosen action and by pressing the new keyboard shortcut you want to assign. To activate the editable menu accelerators select the “Editable menu accelerators” entry in the User Interface Settings plugin.

Where are the deleted items from the trash located?

Thunar is following the freedesktop standards in this. Following the links below you can find out more of this freedesktop specifications. Read more here and here.

You will find your deleted items in ~/.local/share/Trash/files

Can Thunar display video thumbnails?

Two possible ways. First, You'll need to build thunar with support for gconf (GNOME thumbnailers) and install one of the available movie thumbnailers for GNOME, i.e. Totem includes the totem-video-thumbnailer. Second, You can get thumbnails without GNOME by installing thunar-thumbnailers plugin.

When will it support samba/network browsing?

It already does! Just mount your shares and go to them with Thunar! Just kidding.

You are obviously asking about Thunar being able to discover remote machines on a network and mount/unmount shares from them. What you are asking for is nice, but there is no common framework for it yet that Thunar can build on.

Thunar is designed to be a file manager, not a network file system manager. Once such a beast exists, Thunar and all other applications will be able to use it, and you can browse your samba or NFS shares in firefox or emacs, whatever.

Short answer: not any time soon unless you write it yourself.

For Linux users, and especially Xubuntu users, the following thread can help: Xubuntu How to: Thunar Native Windows Network Browsing. You will need fusesmb. For me it worked like a charm with Feisty. You should read the post from EatMorePie, as it avoids unnecessary steps.

Desktop Manager

I want to disable the trash, home and filesystem icons on my desktop, is that possible?

Yes, in Xfce 4.4 you can hide some of the desktop icons. You can read more about those hidden settings here.

My Xfce Desktop doesn't have any shortcut icons, why?

  • Xfce 4.2: You will need a third party program to provide you the icons. Suggestions are: pcmanfm, rox, nautilus etc etc… Beware that those programs will kill xfdesktop and the ability to use the right click menu.
  • Xfce 4.4: You can enable the icons in : Settings > Desktop Preferences > Behavior > Desktop Icons. You will need to build xfdesktop with thunar-vfs and dbus support. (./configure –enable-thunar-vfs –enable-exo)

I have more questions about xfdesktop

Window Manager

Firefox jumps between workspaces, why?

When a new tab is opened from an external link in Firefox, it asks the WM to show the window containing the new tab. If the window that has requested to be raised is not on the current desktop, the Xfce Window manager will bring it to the current desktop by default. If you do not want this behavior, there is a hidden option to control this behavior. For Xfce 4.4 in ~/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc you can put the following:

  activate_action=bring|switch|none

For Xfce 4.6 and 4.8 you can go to Xfce Menu > Settings > Window Manager Tweaks and go to the tab Focus, or you need to use the xfconf-query tool to change the setting:

  xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/activate_action -s bring|switch|none

As the name suggests, the “bring” option moves the window requesting to be raised to the current workspace, the “switch” option switches workspaces, and the “none” option takes no action.

The above command edits the file “~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml” by adding or modifying this line: “ <property name=“activate_action” type=“string” value=“switch”/> ”

Some of the windows are always centered, why?

The Xfce Window Manager has a feature called smart placement which can be adjusted based on the window size. Basically it will automatically center windows that are below a certain size and once they get bigger than that, new windows will try to be arranged automatically in the best place to have coverage. You can adjust the minimum size setting under Settings → Window Manager Tweaks → Placement.

Is it possible to have windows remember their position?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: If the application supports it, it will restore itself at the location and size you last specified (example: Terminal or Thunar). If the application doesn't support it you can use a window matching application like devilspie or wmctrl

How do I programmatically switch workspaces, move windows, etc?

wmctrl is a commandline tool that can switch workspaces, move windows between workspaces, move window positions, maximize windows, etc.

libwnck is a library that does similar things.

A window suddenly became transparent! How do I undo this?

If display compositing is enabled, the Xfce Window Manager allows you to adjust the opacity of a window by hovering your mouse over the title bar, holding down the Alt key, and using the scroll wheel (down lowers the opacity, and up raises it). So use Alt+ScrollWheelUp to reset the transparency.

Session Manager

Some of my applications are always started when I login

There are two possible reasons why the application is started: It is saved in the last session or it is listed in the auto started applications. Follow 1 of the two steps below to get rid of the applications.

  • Start the xfce4-autostart-editor and remove the application(s). You can also manually delete those files in ~/Desktop/Autostart and ~/.config/autostart.
  • Most of the time closing all the applications and save your session when you logout is sufficient. If this doesn't work, remove the content of the ~/.cache/sessions/ directory when you're not logged in. And if you don't want xfce remember every session you should turn off (uncheck) “Automatically save session on logout” in Settings Manager → Sessions and Startup (tab General)

I'm unable to shutdown or restart my computer when running Xfce.

There are two way to fix this: sudo and hal/dbus. Default starting from version 4.4 is hal.

Using sudo

You have to allow the user(s) to execute $installdir/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper with sudo. Install sudo and run visudo (root) and add the following line (replace prefix with the correct path):

 %users ALL = NOPASSWD:<prefix>/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper

Add the user to the users group (root):

 gpasswd -a <username> users

When you logout and login again, the shutdown and restart buttons should be sensitive. For more information you can referrer to the xfce4-session and sudo documentation.

Using hal and dbus

Make sure that the hal and dbus daemons are started on boot, and that you are running a recent version of dbus (at least 1.1). Refer to your distribution for exact steps.

In the steps below the groupname “power” is used. This is DEPENDING ON YOUR DISTRIBUTION.

Your /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf should contain a section similar to this:

<policy group="power">
  <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement"/>
  ...
</policy>

Add the user to the power group (root):

 gpasswd -a <username> power

When you logout and login again, the shutdown and restart buttons should be sensitive.

I don't see the logout dialog when I press the quit button

Enable the checkbox “Prompt on logout” in the session manager settings.

Panels

How do I disable the taskbar in Xfce 4.2?

Just don't run it at startup…

  • If you use the session manager, kill the taskbar, save your session on logout, and the taskbar will be gone when you'll log back in.
  • If you don't use the session manager, comment out the xftaskbar4 line in your $sysconfdir/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc or ~/.config/xfce4/xinitrc.
  • If you use the session manager and want to remove the taskbar system-wide, comment out the taskbar line in the $sysconfdir/xgd/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc file.

What is the "use startup notification" option?

If you select this option, the window manager will show an hourglass while the program is loading. The startup notification libraries have to be installed. They are probably available with your distribution. This feature is only supported by modern applications (Gtk2.x and Qt3.x based).

Please note that the API is not yet frozen, and therefore Xfce 4 is only guaranteed to work with the startup-notification library version >= 0.5.

Visual Appearance

Applications

Help, my panel/task bar/desktop/window borders has disappeared

As Xfce is modular by design all of those visual elements are actually separate processes. You can just start their process again to regain them. If you want to make sure that they are started again next time you login you should check the “Save session for future logins” in the logout dialog or check “Save session automatically on logout” in “Sessions and startup settings”.

Panel xfce4-panel
Taskbar xftaskbar4 (Xfce 4.2 only)
Window Manager xfwm4
Desktop xfdesktop (can depend on the dbus service, Xfce 4.4 only)

My desktop is so nice, I want to make a screenshot! How can I do that in Xfce?

There are at least 6 possibilities:

    • Add it to your panel and click to make a screenshot, or use the xfce4-screenshooter stand-alone application.
    • Dedicated application for doing screenshots and application captures
    • Add a keyboard shortcut (i.e. Control-Printscreen) for the “salasaga_screencapture” command
  1. The Gimp
    • e.g. “scrot -s -t 150×150” (either select a window or select a rectangle with the mouse)
  2. Import from ImageMagick
    • e.g. “import image.png” (select a window with the mouse)
  3. Using good old xv with grab function

The file chooser is very slow, what is it?

It is more likely that the icon theme you are using renders too many SVGs making it very hard to scroll. Switch to another icon theme.

Response to Terminal application is slow?

For NVidia users, add this to your settings:

nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=0 -a GlyphCache=1

For all users, your driver may not support argb visuals very well. You can disable it for Terminal by exporting the environment variable XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1. To disable it for Terminal only, put the next lines inside ~/bin/Terminal for example (given you have a personal bin directory, you can also put it inside /usr/local/bin):

#!/bin/sh
XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 /usr/bin/Terminal

Themes

The gtk-xfce-engine themes do not appear in the "user interface" settings dialog

The gtk-xfce-engine-2 package has to be installed using same prefix as Gtk2 itself. When installed from sources, the engine is, by default, installed in /usr/local, while Gtk2 is often installed in /usr. Just install gtk-xfce-engine-2 again using ./configure –prefix=/usr, and the themes will hopefully become available.

How can I customize my Xfce desktop environment

You can read everything about changing themes in the How to install new themes wiki page.

Windows

How do I enable panel transparency and window shadows?

Enable the Composite extension in the X11 config file and make sure Xfwm4 is compiled with embedded compositor (xfwm4 -V).

 Section "Extensions"
   Option "Composite" "Enable"
 EndSection

Pay attention: recent versions of X.org turn composite on by default. If you experience speed problems or any other glitches you have to disable it explicitly:

 Section "Extensions"
   Option "Composite" "Disable"
 EndSection

If you have a reasonably new X.org (7.1, possibly 7.0) and your graphics card is listed as “supported” at X.org's EXA status page, you should also enable EXA by adding this line to the card's Device section in your xorg.conf:

   Option "AccelMethod" "exa"

Enabling EXA will normally provide a speed increase for compositing and font rendering, but may cause a small reduction in OpenGL rendering speed.

Once the Composite extension is activated, go to Settings → Panel and Settings → Window Manager Tweaks.

ATI users (X.org radeon driver)

ATI R3xx/R4xx (9500 to X850, X1050) users may also need this in the device section for the card:

 Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
 Option "AccelDFS" "true"			# but see radeon(4)
 Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
 Option "EnableDepthMoves" "true"
nVidia users

NVidia users may also need this in the device section for the card:

 Option "RenderAccel" "true"
 Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"

Read /usr/share/doc/nvidia-glx/README.txt.gz (and search for “RenderAccel” and “AllowGLXWithComposite”) to see if they are recommended at all for your system. At least for recent NVidia GLX drivers, “AllowGLXWithComposite” “true” is only for X servers older than X11R6.9.0, and “RenderAccel” “true” is the default setting, and therefore not required. If you are running a recent NVidia driver and a recent xorg-server, you do not need these settings (and should not use the “AllowGLXWithComposite” “true” setting).

Panel

Is it possible to change the icon used by the icon box or task bar for a given application?

It's not possible. This setting has to be managed by the application itself.

I've installed a plug-in for the panel, but the indicators don't use different colors. What can I do?

First, try another Gtk theme, since some themes override the color. If it doesn't solve the problem, you probably have an old ~/.gtkrc-2.0 : remove it and try again.

How do I set the panel layer in Xfce 4.2 and 4.4?

In order to improve focus management this option was removed.

Is there a world clock applet?

You need to add the Orage Clock to the panel. Then you can middle-click the clock to open the “Global Time” window, to which you can add any number of clocks.

Development

How can I report bugs?

You can report bugs here or ask on the mailing lists or forums for help. If you want to report a bug please read the Xfce debug guide and the Pidgin get a backtrace to ensure your bug report actually makes sense and is useful.

How often are new releases made?

Whenever we feel like it is ready to be released. If you are unhappy with this you can always choose to hire the whole Xfce developer crew and pay us (we accept VISA/MasterCard, but not American Express)… Then we can even tailor it to your liking…

I have asked a question / reported a bug on the mailing list / bugs.xfce.org and no one is answering

2 possibilities:

  • Give it time. Maybe the responsible developer is on vacation, maybe he didn't check the mailing list / bugzilla yet. Keep in mind that someone may be having a bad day and may not care to respond at all. Time can help.
  • Try givng more detailed information. Perhaps no one can figure out what it is you are trying to say, and they just don't want to take the time to contact you or reply to your post to find out. Usually, the more information, the better.
  • Maybe you have been disrespectful when asking your question / reporting a bug. While you are totally allowed to rate a product just as you please, you do have to realise that in the case of open source products you didn't pay for the product or the support on the product, and the developers may not value your feedback. So when you report something that affects you, you are actually asking a favor. When reporting such a problem you can improve your chances on goodwill of the developers by asking your question in a polite, respectfull way. Do realise that even if you do so the developer might not be interested in/lack time to implement the feature/fix the bug you reported. A patch that fixes the issue might still convince him to spend time on it. |Read what Jannis has to say on the topic
  • When you are reporting a legitimate issue, it is understood that you are taking your valuable time to offer feedback to the developers. That does not mean that they will appreciate it, so don't have any expectations for a particular type of response. Sometimes you must just roll with the punches and meet them on their own terms. Unreasonable expectations often lead to bad feelings, so you are better off just not having them in the first place. Everyone thinks differently, and you should expect that your issue and/or approach may be misunderstood.