Icons & the Desktop.....creating a workflow aesthetic?

[MochiMoppel]

No, it wasn't mentioned, and that's what surprised me because @geo_c came so close when he used the Display menu

The only thing that doesn't work for me is saving only the window width without also saving the screen position. Values are correctly saved to /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Settings.xml but ROX doesn't seem to care.

[geo_c]

No, it wasn't mentioned, and that's what surprised me because @geo_c came so close when he used the Display menu

Actually, I have used the save directory settings function from the display menu, but then when I change directories in one of my 'permanent' windows, I find I accidentally mess up my finely tuned preset dimensions. So I ditched that approach.

And now I have about 8 window scripts going. I have an initial launch script for dual monitors, one for single monitor, and to both of those I added the lines wmctrl -b add,sticky on the 'panel strips' in addition to moving xfe and libre to desktop 2 with wmctrl -t 1 so that when I'm using a single monitor I can switch from a 'rox manager desktop' to a 'browse/file view desktop.'

Then I have two scripts to re-set the four ROX windows should I move them or re-size them while working, one for single monitor, and one for dual monitor, which reset the dimensions of the open ROX windows.

And I have two scripts to size and place all the application windows that I normally use. I set the application windows in productive positions and add the placement settings to a script called pwinset, which will size and place my daily apps like notecase, sylpheed, gimp, musescore, ungoogled chromium, libre, xfe, geany, and quiteRSS. I can just keep adding the applications as I go. I run the script from either of the 'panel strips' whenever I need to size and place the applications I'm working in at the time, and of course the script has all of my daily applications included, but only acts on the currently open ones.

Lastly, I have two scripts for each monitor setup to open LibreWolf at my preferred size and placement, which I think would be nice for all those who complain that LibreWolf doesn't remember window position.

So it keeps getting more elaborate in design, but increasingly simple to use, somewhat elegant I guess. I downloaded the wmctrl manual and that helps whenever I'm ready to incorporate a new setting. I also have the ROX manual on hand, but you know, that gets a little over my head in places.

I really enjoy how you give me 'just enough' information to keep me going, and then provide the solution without spoon feeding me the exact script all the time.

[MochiMoppel]

Actually, I have used the save directory settings function from the display menu, but then when I change directories in one of my 'permanent' windows, I find I accidentally mess up my finely tuned preset dimensions. So I ditched that approach.

This suggests that you didn't use the function correctly.

Suppose you have set your default display view to list view, small icons. Now you want to set it to large icons only for the strip window:
1) in the strip window set it to large icons (via '=' key or right-click Display menu)
2) Right-click Display -> Save Current Display Settings.
3) In "Select settings to save" you must deselect the "Position" and "Size" options. They are selected by default but would cause the mess you experienced because you are bending some rules here:

a) You let wmctrl set the ROX window to width 75px. The minimum width for a ROX window is 100px. When you "fan out" your ROX window you will not be able to manually slide it back to 75px - with or without using the "Save Current Display Settings".

b) You position the window partly outside of the screen area. This works manually or with wmctrl as you already know. However when you let ROX save this position then ROX will dutifully save theses values but when you switch directories and then switch back to your originating directory ROX will shift the window out of the off-screen area and will position it into the visible screen area. You may call it a mess, but actually it's a feature. For example it allows to position a window always at the right screen edge, even if you change monitors with different resolutions or dimensions. No need to adjust the setting. It also prevents a window to vanish completely into the off-screen nirvana. So if you want to avoid ROX messing with your dimensions you should give ROX no Position/Size instructions and leave the positioning solely to wmctrl.

Your individual icon size setting, and that's what the objective was, should work without any further mess.

[geo_c]

This suggests that you didn't use the function correctly.

3) In "Select settings to save" you must deselect the "Position" and "Size" options. They are selected by default but would cause the mess you experienced because you are bending some rules here:

a) You let wmctrl set the ROX window to width 75px. The minimum width for a ROX window is 100px. When you "fan out" your ROX window you will not be able to manually slide it back to 75px - with or without using the "Save Current Display Settings".

b) However when you let ROX save this position then ROX will dutifully save theses values but when you switch directories and then switch back to your originating directory ROX will shift the window out of the off-screen area and will position it into the visible screen area. So if you want to avoid ROX messing with your dimensions you should give ROX no Position/Size instructions and leave the positioning solely to wmctrl.

Yes, you've got the handle on the whole situation. I don't think I took notice of the 'save size and position' option, or it's possible I did and thought, 'that's exactly what I want,' without considering the fact ROX would keep windows from trailing off the edge of the screen and so forth. What I didn't know, but what I'd started to suspect, was the minimum window size being 100, whereas I'm setting these strips to 75. In the beginning I was trying to do everything with panel strips by fanning them out, Since then I decided to open up a couple more ROX windows, I don't really change directories of the panel strips anymore. I use them more like true launch bars.

I'm constantly fiddling, so as I go I will probably make use of the save display settings option now that I understand them properly.

What's nice about the scripts I described in the previous post, is even if I fan out the strips, I can simply click the rwinset (ROX window set) script to set them all back.

The one weak area of my wmctrl reset scripts are the window names that I use. I'm using basic (partial) strings, and if the window is not open to the launch directory anymore, it won't be resized. Furthermore, if the window name is too similar to another window name, then the wrong window may be resized and set (which happened more than a few times as I was editing scripts in Geany and launching them.) wmctrl has a name window function, so as I utilize the scripts more, I may want to add lines to the launch script that rename the windows after opening and then use those names in the reset scripts.

[MochiMoppel]

I don't really change directories of the panel strips anymore. I use them more like true launch bars.

I still don't understand why you need 2 of them. It appears to me that the one on the right is much easier to maintain than the left one, and if you switch the content of the right strip you could have as many launch items in the strip as you want.

I've tried your approach without using wmctrl, only with standard ROX settings. Just to see what is possible with a minimum of effort. Since I don't have a folder with links to my favorite applications I used the directory /usr/share/applications, the one with the .desktop files. The screenshot shows the top right portion of my screen in original size. As you can see, small icons leave enough space left for a meaningful portion of the file names and make optimal use of vertical space. You prefer large icons with no text, which of course is fine if you know what the icons stand for. I'm more a text guy. Small icons however can become a problem when using symlinks because ROX will overlay them with its symlink symbol. In all it's an interesting concept.

Since you coined the new term "panel strips": From what you describe your newest setup comes pretty close to "real" ROX panels - at least in appearance. I personally use a genuine ROX panel at the top of may screen (see screenshot) and find it very useful. I force it to be always visible, that's why the strip window (or even a maximized window) can't cover it. Anyway, it's a different topic.

minimal_rox-strip.png (33.73 KiB) Viewed 4865 times

[geo_c]

]I still don't understand why you need 2 of them. It appears to me that the one on the right is much easier to maintain than the left one, and if you switch the content of the right strip you could have as many launch items in the strip as you want.

Well that's true, and I actually have some of the launch items duplicated in the two windows. It's ultimately a speed and versatility decision to have two of them. Using dual monitors, this method always gives me a panel strip one screen width or less away from my mouse. Some might think it overkill, but basically I'm bouncing between my two panel strips, two rox windows, a cairo dock, and the start menu. The launcher icons in the cairo dock are all consistent with the rox windows. I have a lot of choices, but I don't have to think very hard to choose how to move around my directory structures, launch apps and scripts. And the same for viewing, opening, and editing files. It all becomes very intuitive after a awhile. I guess it's my jazz musician mentality. Practice and prepare every conceivable and natural variation of the material, then on the bandstand, just do it instinctively with as little thought as is necessary to pursue a creative end.

The left panel strip is not as cantankerous as you might think, because I always have a window next to it (xfe) that can be brought forward by clicking the top of the screen, or I might have gimp on the monitor between the two strips, so there's always something covering the scroll bar when I'm not using it.

I've tried your approach without using wmctrl, only with standard ROX settings. Just to see what is possible with a minimum of effort. Since I don't have a folder with links to my favorite applications I used the directory /usr/share/applications, the one with the .desktop files. The screenshot shows the top right portion of my screen in original size. As you can see, small icons leave enough space left for a meaningful portion of the file names and make optimal use of vertical space. You prefer large icons with no text, which of course is fine if you know what the icons stand for. I'm more a text guy. Small icons however can become a problem when using symlinks because ROX will overlay them with its symlink symbol. In all it's an interesting concept.

I've never been big on icon texts. Most of my past desktop icon texts have never been more than 3 or 4 characters long, and I've been doing it that way since the early days of using windows. You probably noticed my customized icon theme, which involves a lot of application icons, so I'm very familiar with them.

You've reminded me that the small icon covered by a link arrow that ROX adds is one of the reasons I decided to go with big icons as the default setting. I like it better.

Another interesting intuitive thing that is just coming together for me is only displaying the name field in ROX and XFE. I was quite certain after first setting things this way that I would soon realize I couldn't live without the date, size, and extension fields. But nothing could be further from the truth. I've been working for a couple weeks this way and I don't miss them a bit. If I need to see that information it's available to me in XFE by sliding the horizontal scrollbar on the window. But I almost never do it. When I need some file information, more likely than not I just right click on a particular file and look at the properties.

To sum up the answer for why I'm doing it this way: It's my aesthetic! and it's yielding a productive workflow. Win-win, and I'm very happy! Especially because 'win' is not an abbreviation for 'windows.'

Since you coined the new term "panel strips": From what you describe your newest setup comes pretty close to "real" ROX panels - at least in appearance. I personally use a genuine ROX panel at the top of may screen (see screenshot) and find it very useful. I force it to be always visible, that's why the strip window (or even a maximized window) can't cover it. Anyway, it's a different topic.
minimal_rox-strip

You know, about two weeks ago I tried creating a panel with rox and wasn't having much luck. I began to think maybe my jackalpup system wasn't configured for it. And maybe it goes to my lack of understanding about 'sessions.'

[williams2]

You can write a script to make a real rox panel appear and disappear on the right side of the screen when you press a shortcut key.

for example, you could create a script named charm, and drag the script to the pinboard (desktop) so you can execute it when you press the shortcut key, say Win+C

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
f=/tmp/flag
if test -f $f
then
  rox -r=
  rm -f $f
else
  rox -r charm
  touch $f
fi

So the rox "charm" panel will appear and disappear each time Win+C is pressed.

You can have different panels with different functions (different icons to click), of course.
You can drag applications to a rox panel the same way you would drag it to the pinboard.

If you don't like the idea of such a panel, some one else might like it. Or not.

[greengeek]

Anyway, it's a different topic.

"Fviewer" ? Is there a thread?

[geo_c]

Might be time to break this thread off into a new one.

@williams2 I decided to test this, so I copied the script, put it in my-applications, made it executable, and drug it onto the desktop. I've got a panel on the right side of my screen. Now I will try and figure out how to use a true panel.

Thanks!
@geo_c

EDIT-follow-up: So that's pretty nice! My first thought is I don't like it for opening directories, because it opens a new ROX window, and the random popping open of ROX windows is one thing I was attempting to eliminate with all my wmctrl scripts. But for launching scripts and applications it seems to be exactly what I was doing with my pseudo-panel.

I'm not sure why I had difficulty creating a panel a few weeks back, but I don't think I was very patient with it. I don't understand most of the commands in this script, so I'll take a look at rox -h

[MochiMoppel]

The one weak area of my wmctrl reset scripts are the window names that I use. ... I may want to add lines to the launch script that rename the windows after opening and then use those names in the reset scripts.

I guess your are talking about wmctrl's -r <WIN> -N <STR> option which would change the window title. Would only work if you never change the directory of the strip window because ROX will reset the title. You can create a unique title portion by using a ROX-Filer filter. Another - and probably cleaner - way is to use a unique class name for the window. Of course nothing of that matters if you settle for panels.
 
 

"Fviewer" ? Is there a thread?

Modern version of MMview. Sorry, no thread.

[geo_c]

The one weak area of my wmctrl reset scripts are the window names that I use. ... I may want to add lines to the launch script that rename the windows after opening and then use those names in the reset scripts.

I guess your are talking about wmctrl's -r <WIN> -N <STR> option which would change the window title. Would only work if you never change the directory of the strip window because ROX will reset the title. You can create a unique title portion by using a ROX-Filer filter. Another - and probably cleaner - way is to use a unique class name for the window. Of course nothing of that matters if you settle for panels.

The name thing has not been much of an issue when not editing and launching scripts in the directories where I have ROX filers open.

The ROX panel as opposed to my faux panels is nearly identical in practical terms except for one small but significant thing. In my faux panel the mouse scroll wheel functions, whereas in the ROX panel one has to move the mouse to the top or the bottom of the window to get it to scroll. Of course there may be a setting for that. I haven't replaced using my 'panel strips' just yet, but I have both the ROX panel and my strips available, and sometimes I have them both on the desktop, one on top of the other, just for kicks.
 
 

[geo_c]

With the help of everybody on this thread I have achieved a one-click/turn-key desktop workspace, with launcher windows, pre-set file manager windows and browser/viewer window, along with scripts to reset and keep my desktop applications efficiently arranged as I go.

I now turn my attention back to the ICONS

I went to https://www.gnome-look.org/browse?cat=132 to have a look at some icons, and I downloaded a few sets to create my own library. But even though I wasn't planning to actually install the themes, as they appear to be configured for gnome desktop, I began to wonder what is involved in installing an icon theme in puppy. I've never really done a theme install before. I simply planned to use the icon sets as a cache of icon images for my own ends, but as a couple of these themes had some nice looks, I began to wonder about installing them and giving them a whirl.

I played around in an experimental system save. The first thing I did was copy the theme directories into usr/local/lib/x11/themes.

I noticed that the theme directories showed up in JWMdesk as themes, but did not seem to actually be loaded and usable, which is what I expected.

The next thing I tried was to change the ROX icon theme. The new themes were available as choices in ROX options. Choosing them kind of worked, but behaved erratically. For instance the themes would switch, but as I scrolled though various directories each window would be stuck on a different theme. For instance if I switched the theme in options while located in mnt/home/data, that directory would switch icons, but the /mnt/home directory window would be stuck on the previously chosen theme.

So I know nothing. That much is clear. Is there a thread that covers this topic in the forum somewhere, so I can learn enough to ask an intelligent question?

[666philb]

hi @geo_c ,

themes go in /usr/share/themes or /root/.themes

as you found out the theme is set in rox in it's options and you may need to restart X for them to be consistent in rox.

puppy also has it's own theme directory for both the jwm menu and the desktop icons /usr/local/lib/X11/themes.
these are custom built by picking and renaming 32-33 icons from the main theme (see other themes located their). the icon switcher should then work changing both desktop and menu themes and then rox options.

then there's gtk2 and gtk3 icon theme which can be set using lxappearance or manually by editing /root/.gtkrc-2.0 & /root/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini.

themes should then be consistent across applications

[geo_c]

hi @geo_c ,

themes go in /usr/share/themes or /root/.themes

as you found out the theme is set in rox in it's options and you may need to restart X for them to be consistent in rox.

puppy also has it's own theme directory for both the jwm menu and the desktop icons /usr/local/lib/X11/themes.
these are custom built by picking and renaming 32-33 icons from the main theme (see other themes located their). the icon switcher should then work changing both desktop and menu themes and then rox options.

then there's gtk2 and gtk3 icon theme which can be set using lxappearance or manually by editing /root/.gtkrc-2.0 & /root/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini.

themes should then be consistent across applications

Months back I did get the hang of using my own icons by renaming the desktop icons in the x11/themes directory. You're right, once X is restarted the ROX icons behave again. I'll take a look at gtk settings files.

[JASpup]

I had an issue a while back with icons missing from an alt-file manager: http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.p ... r&start=10

The set someone found to replace them significantly improved its appearance.

They problem is the set is WAY too large defeating the purpose.

It would be an interesting knowledge test to learn what to whittle down or how to find a smaller set that completes the app, but overall it is not worth the effort when you don't know what you're looking for and can use another Puppy when conservation isn't a priority.

The goal with the final manager was the mounting and unmounting of partitions without pmount or the command line, learned from the X-series.

[geo_c]

I had an issue a while back with icons missing from an alt-file manager:

I'm wondering about icons in Xfe, there's a directory for them, so I might play around with them. I've been using the search function in Xfe and it's very handy.

BTW, last night I re-worked my hard-drive and usb icons, they look a lot spiffier, of course my icons are designed for black backgrounds. They look like this:

[JASpup]

I'm wondering about icons in Xfe, there's a directory for them, so I might play around with them. I've been using the search function in Xfe and it's very handy.

BTW, last night I re-worked my hard-drive and usb icons, they look a lot spiffier, of course my icons are designed for black backgrounds. They look like this:

lookin' spiff
xfe's search function is why i started using it, though not counting on icons
i just wanted thunar to skip pmount, which i'm not looking at in jwm these days for lack of need, mounting with desktop partitions. it's sort of clumsy but effective. despite the fact thunar is native xfce, no one seems to care that we cannot mount partitions in file managers without special ops

[geo_c]

no one seems to care that we cannot mount partitions in file managers without special ops

Well being that I have at least 4 or 5 file manager windows open continually, I have the MOUNT_drv script linked from several different locations, and I rather like it. It doesn't matter what file manager I'm using or not using at any given moment, I can mount partitions using pmount from the MOUNT_drv script without any ROX windows opening, then use the mounted partitions from any given app or file manager. Seems like a win-win.

Incredibly, throughout this whole 'creating a workflow' process, I've come to approach file management from a whole new perspective. The workspace is controlled by scripts launched from two perpetually open ROX panels and two ROX windows. Traditional data management may be done from these windows, or from my Xfe manager window which is also persistently open. Using this setup on dual monitors has greatly aided my ability to manage, create, edit, and backup icon sets, as the icons are located in several different places, so opening them from a certain location and copying them to another, while backing them up in my archive on the fly is becoming an easy process.

As an example, I might have the two ROX windows open to /usr/local/lib/x11/themes/geotheme-drk and /usr/share/icons with gimp opened up between my two panel strips on the big second monitor. XFE is open to /usr/local/lib/x11/themes/geotheme-drk and my data archive directory in /home. Drag an icon into gimp, edit, export to x11/themes/geotheme-drk. Set the icon to an application launcher or script located in the one of the panel strips, and repeat the process. As I go I copy the X11/themes directory to my archive using a quick F5 copy command in XFE. So it's easy to tweak, test, and backup all in one continuous flow.

At any point that I want to backup to another partition, a click on MOUNT_drv in one of the panels gives me a list of mounted partitions to make available in Xfe or ROX, or gimp. As it stands now, a few solid hours of editing like this has given me a desktop where I am looking at entirely my own thoroughly tweaked icons in all the docks and panels.

[Flash]

Topic continued here.