# Xfce 4 Desktop Manager

### Jasper Huijsmans

`<huysmans@users.sourceforge.net>`

### François Le Clainche

`<fleclainche@wanadoo.fr>`

### Brian Tarricone

`<kelnos@xfce.org>`

This manual describes `xfdesktop` version 4.1.

Copyright © 2003 Jasper Huijsmans

Copyright © 2003 François Le Clainche

Copyright © 2004 Brian Tarricone

## Introduction

The `xfdesktop` application manages the desktop backdrop. It sets a backdrop image and/or color and it can optionall pop up an applications menu when you click on it with the right mouse button. It also displays a window list of all running applications after a middle button clic. Along with the application, a settings dialog is installed for use with the Xfce 4 Settings Manager. This dialog allows you to change the backdrop image and color. You can also request xfdesktop to not set the backdrop, in order to allow another program to perform that task.

## Backdrop

You can start the backdrop properties dialog by clicking on the "Backdrop" button in the settings manager dialog.

Figure 1. Backdrop Settings

Color

  Click the "Backdrop color" button, and a new dialog will appear :

  Figure 2. Select backdrop color

  This dialog allows you to choose a color for the desktop backdrop. This color will fill the entire root window, and will remain visible through a transparent backdrop image. There are several ways to do that:

  - you can use the colored ring with a triangle inside: select the color you want from the outer ring, then select the darkness or lightness of that color using the inner triangle. Corresponding values of brightness, deepness, and amount of red, green and blue light in the color appear through the entries on the right side of the window.
  - you can click the eyedropper, then click anywhere on your screen to select the color.
  - you can enter an HTML-style hexadecimal color value, or simply a color name, in the "Color Name" entry

  Select the "Use color only" option if you want `xfdesktop` to ignore the backdrop image and only use the choosen color.

Image

  The "File" entry shows the path to the currently selected backdrop image. If you want to change it, just drop and image on the dialog from a file manager, or edit the path, or click the "Browse" button, and a classic file-browsing dialog will appear.

  Three Style options (Tiled, Scaled, and Centered) can be used to specify the fitting of the backdrop image on the screen, depending on its size. You can also select the "Automatic" item if you want to let `xfdesktop` take care of this setting.

  You can create a list of backdrop images that will be randomly used at startup. Click the "New list" button to open the list editing dialog:

  Figure 3. Backdrop List

  You may want to change the default path and name of your custom list of backdrops in the "List file" entry.

  You can easily add an image file by clicking the "plus" button. That action will open a file-browsing window. You can remove a file, if you select it in the list and click the "minus" button. When your list is complete, click the "Save" button to save it. If you want to modify its content later, use the "Edit list" button of the Backdrop settings manager.

  You can recover an older list by dropping its name.list file on the backdrop settings dialog from a file manager.

  To refresh the backdrop with a new random image from the list just run the `xfdesktop` command again, e.g. from a terminal or the run dialog, or `xfdesktop` [-reload].

Don't set backdrop

  There are many programs that can set the backdrop image. If you prefer to use one of those programs, you can check this option and xfdesktop will refrain from setting the backdrop.

## `xfdesktop` root menu

`xfdesktop` provides a mouse menu that appears when you click on the desktop backdrop with your right or middle mouse button.

A right-click on the desktop backdrop opens a menu that allows you to start some applications. Its configuration file, menu.xml, can be found under the path `$sysconfdir/xfce4/menu.xml`. For binary packages $sysconfdir is often `/etc` and for source compiles it defaults to `/usr/local/etc`.

While it is possible to edit the file manually, the recommended method for editing the menu.xml file is via the Xfce 4 Menu Editor, which can be found by running `xfce4-menueditor`. The menu editor also supports drag'n'drop from the file manager.

NOTE: If you choose to edit the file manually, menu.xml has to be in UTF-8 encoding for the toolkit to be able to display accented or other non-ASCII characters. Therefore, you need an editor that supports UTF-8, like `gedit`.

Figure 4. `xfdesktop` right-click mouse menu

A middle-click on the desktop backdrop shows a list of all opened windows ordered by workspace. It also allows you to add or remove a workspace.

Figure 5. `xfdesktop` middle-click mouse menu

You can open the menu or window list from the commandline as well. This can be useful for keyboard shortcuts. To open the menu run the command `xfdesktop` `-menu`, and for the windowlist use `xfdesktop` `-windowlist`.

## About xfdesktop

`xfdesktop` was written by Jasper Huijsmans (`<huysmans@users.sourceforge.net>`), Olivier Fourdan (`<fourdan@xfce.org>`), Biju Chacko (`<botsie@myrealbox.com>`), and Brian Tarricone (`<kelnos@xfce.org>`). For more information, please visit the Xfce web site.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, send an email to the xfce4-dev mailing list — this is the preferred method — or use the Xfce's bug tracking system. If you have questions about the use or installation of this package, please ask on the xfce mailing list.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.