Can you put the possibility of having different backdrop options for each workspace? Perhaps, you want to set globally the backdrop options for all workspaces (as it's the case in 4.0.6), but perhaps it were interesting to having the possibility of select backdrop options for each workspace. Maybe, in backdrop options GUI, there were two options "Apply the sets globally" or "Select backdrop options for each workspace". Well, thanks and sorry for my english. Xan.
I really would like to see this feature and am considering working on implementing it in xfdesktop. Recommendations on how to get started? If none are posted, I will simply begin trying to hack up the 4.2 source code to add the feature, and post any patches here. -Chandler Carruth
the idea for individual workspace handling is a good one. however - just as a heads-up - please don't to break the multi screen (xinerama, mergedFB) support for backdrops. i really like xfce4 supporting more screens being able to be configured with different backdrop wallpaper lists. kde do not support this and also other WM/DE's have difficulty with multi screens. xfce is the only one able to handle them properly.
Hmhm, is there any news on this (quite old) one? Cheers, -- Yves-Alexis
Haven't worked on it, though it would be nice. The main issues are: 1. Speed. Changing the backdrop is not a quick operation, and you'd effectively have to change it on every workspace change. If you're scrolling through your workspaces, there'd be a *very* noticeable slowdown. 2. Memory use. In order to mitigate #1, we'd want to cache *all* backdrops for *all* workspaces in RAM *all* the time. Obviously, that would eat quite a bit of memory. Not doing this would just make the speed problem worse. Not sure if anyone has any novel tricks to get around this, but it's not really a high prio for me to work on this.
*** Bug 4279 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #0) > Can you put the possibility of having different backdrop options for each > workspace? > > Perhaps, you want to set globally the backdrop options for all workspaces (as > it's the case in 4.0.6), but perhaps it were interesting to having the > possibility of select backdrop options for each workspace. > > Maybe, in backdrop options GUI, there were two options "Apply the sets > globally" > or "Select backdrop options for each workspace". > > Well, thanks and sorry for my english. > > Xan. > (In reply to comment #5) > *** Bug 4279 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** > How gnome deals with it? Maybe there's a hint in the way that nautilus patch works...
I also think this would provide a good addition to XFCE. It is not a mere matter of aesthetics (though that is too), but a matter of usability: different desktops help the user recognize where is he at each moment. Personally, I'd favor caching things in memory instead of loading them each time -- speed is an important factor of XFCE. (I know that slimness is as well, but think that the users who don't want to enable this option don't need to. Take the compositing engine, for example.)
*** Bug 4734 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 6695 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This bug has been opened for six years now. I really think it is an obvious need for Xfce. Using background transparency + Compiz+Wallpaper plugin only to achieve this is quite a shame. And we lose xfwm on the way! Using a script is a so badly integrated way to achieve this... With Xfce, I've lost the habit of using multiple workspaces, though I do have four of them. And this is mainly due to the fact I'm always lost when switch between workspaces. I suppose we won't see this basic feature in Xfce 4.8...
First off: don't spam bugs with "me too" posts. The reason it's not done is that no one cares enough to implement it given the time it would take to do so. Patches are always gladly accepted.
Ok, well, I'll write one then. I'll keep you in touch.
Created attachment 3181 Possibility to use multiple images for a given multi-workspace desktop. [patch based on xfdesktop-4.7.2] Here is a first version of the patch. It does only the switching between images depending on the current workspace and on the list of images chosen in the config panel. It's not activated by default (of course), but it can be activated by setting backdrop/screen0/separate-background = TRUE in xfconf. screen0 corresponds to the wanted desktop, adapt it if you have several screens. So, in order to make it work, the following must be done: - set the xfconf parameter - set the background type to "Image list" - choose a list of images. If there are more workspaces than images, it will loop on the list. I can be that xfdesktop needs to be restarted after setting the parameter, for example when the background type is already set to "Image list"; this restart can be avoided by changing the background type twice. Neither the backdrop nor the desktop classes do any caching. I was not very sure about the right thing to modify in order to always have a correct updated backdrop, so I first upload this patch without any caching capability. Any comment on this patch are welcome :)
> backdrop/screen0/separate-background = TRUE in xfconf. screen0 corresponds to Ooops ! It is "separate-backgrounds", with an "s" at the end. Sorry for the typo.
Two few remarks about the patch: 1. We're in feature freeze for 4.8 now, so this feature will not be part of our next stable release. 2. As far as I'm concerned, wallpaper lists should be dropped and replaced with something that is easier to understand for users. E.g. a better solution would be if users can pick a default wallpaper and define custom wallpapers for each of the existing workspaces. The list feature sucks usability-wise. (In your patch you even mis-use the list, which is supposed to be used for random wallpapers. So this makes the behaviour even more confusing.) Maybe this will land in 4.10.
Hello Jannis, I completely agree with your comment. The fact is, this patch comes with a bad timing: Xfce 4.8 is nearly finished, translations are mostly done. So, with this first patch, I only wanted to see if that was feasible, if unexpected bugs would appear. There was no point in proposing a patch with a UI here, not without discussing of a mockup with you developpers, and trying to implement something that would integrate smoothly with the next release of Xfce. There is also an architecture change to do, as there is no concept of workspace today in the xfce-desktop or xfce-backdrop classes. In my patch I chose to make xfce-desktop the manager of workspace changing, and keep xfce-backdrop as a simple background provider; I think it is the way you wanted it to be, but I may be wrong. To have a better patch, I think it will be necessary to converge on the way the choice would be proposed to the user, and the architecture we choose to have per-workspace images (or per-workspace backdrop, eventually). Maybe the right place to start the discussion would be on the dev mailing list?
Successfully applied path on xfdesktop4 4.8.0 All works fine. Could you please specify in which release this patch will be include?
(In reply to comment #17) > Successfully applied path on xfdesktop4 4.8.0 All works fine. > Could you please specify in which release this patch will be include? It won't be, as-is. It misuses the backdrop list, should really have proper UI for it, and the coding style needs to be fixed (brace style, indent style, etc.).
Ok, I'm interesting only in one - will this feature implemened? Thanks, Vladimir (In reply to comment #18) > (In reply to comment #17) > > Successfully applied path on xfdesktop4 4.8.0 All works fine. > > Could you please specify in which release this patch will be include? > > It won't be, as-is. It misuses the backdrop list, should really have proper UI > for it, and the coding style needs to be fixed (brace style, indent style, > etc.).
(In reply to comment #19) > Ok, I'm interesting only in one - will this feature implemened? Your guess is as good as mine. If someone wants to clean up the patch and implement it properly, I (or someone) would be happy to check it in.
Thanks, it's pleasure to hear =) I will try to do it ;) (In reply to comment #20) > (In reply to comment #19) > > Ok, I'm interesting only in one - will this feature implemened? > > Your guess is as good as mine. If someone wants to clean up the patch and > implement it properly, I (or someone) would be happy to check it in.
Created attachment 4856 Per-Workspace Wallpapers This patch requires https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9722 as it uses the exo_cell_renderer in the exo_icon_view to do thumbnailed icons for the background images. It also adds some of the stuff listed in the Xfce Design SIG for the Xfdesktop settings app http://wiki.xfce.org/design/xfdesktop/settings It may need some additional testing as there are quite a few changes in there and I don't have a 2nd monitor to actually test the multi-monitor stuff.
Added in master, http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=88a920697b22b0653f244ede15f8e645ae013139
CPU usage is high when switching workspaces, I suppose this is not a good thing. Also if I set the same image on both workspaces, the image is still "switched" resulting on 30% cpu for a simple desktop switch.
Created attachment 4908 Avoid changing identical backdrops when changing workspaces This patch compares the backdrops on a workspace switch which should avoid the 30% hit on a change. I also avoid calling screen_size_changed_cb which may help as well.
Eric, First, the patch from the 9th looks good. One minor nit, using your patch on todays git I no longer see a way of setting a color for a workspace (instead of a wallpaper). I was interested in making my workspaces different colors, which I can achieve by making images composed of only the desired color, but that seems awkward. -Joe
Created attachment 4921 Fix issues with the multi-monitor per-workspace wallpapers Joe, Thanks for the feedback! This new patch should allow you to set the image style to none and only have different colored wallpapers. It should also fix issues with the spanning screen option as well as hot plugging monitors and moving them around (i.e. making one monitor left of another). Let me know if you (or anyone) runs into any other issues.
Created attachment 4940 Fixes for multi-monitor per-workspace wallpapers This patch improves on my last by setting the selection mode to browse to enforce one item is always selected and fixes the --reload command to refresh the backdrops of the current workspace.
Applied only this patch against git master branch. 1) xfdesktop --reload is fixed. 2) Pluggable dialog state is unchanged. 3) Icon view in standalone dialog is broken: some of the thumbnails don't load and the view is not active (grayish, frozen and unscrollable / clickable). Sorry, I lack time for testing/debugging, will be able to provide more feedback this weekend. Cheers, Jérôme
(In reply to comment #29) > Applied only this patch against git master branch. > > 1) xfdesktop --reload is fixed. > 2) Pluggable dialog state is unchanged. > 3) Icon view in standalone dialog is broken: some of the thumbnails don't > load and the view is not active (grayish, frozen and unscrollable / > clickable). > > Sorry, I lack time for testing/debugging, will be able to provide more > feedback this weekend. > > Cheers, > > Jérôme It's seems everything is working well. Thanks a lot, wating this for years!
Image style as somehow set to none (wallpaper were displayed though...) which made the iconview insensitive. The view is sensitive with a proper image style, pluggable and standalone. I still need to trigger an expose event in some cases to get the thumbnails to show up. You remove the brightness property of XfceBackdrop, this is does not seems correct and triggers a bunch of warnings when starting xfdesktop as the application still tries to use that. As said in a mail last week, you should put this patch and the one to use tumbler for the thumbnails in a branch to ease testing and development. Let's get that in shape quickly for the next release! -
Eric, I was going to test the newest version and saw the "eric/wallpaper-and-settings-improvements" branch on git, should I use that or apply the patch? -Joe
Joe, The "eric/wallpaper-and-settings-improvements" branch has this patch and a couple others. I'm leaving this bug report open until it gets merged into master. Feel free to try it out and let me know if you run into any issues/bugs or have any other feedback! Thanks, Eric
Trying it out now. One thing that I noticed before which is not a bug per se, but I think I remember being able to "add" wallpapers from different folders. So it sort of created a virtual folder of wallpapers. Now because it uses only one folder it necessarily includes all pictures from that folder and none from elsewhere. The wallpaper collection approach is nice, especially if you can add/remove multiple photos at once. But overall this is great, and super exciting. Thanks.
Hello! I tested using different wallpapers for different desktops in the current git version of xfdesktop and I discovered a bug in the background color setting: it doesn't do anything. STEPS TO REPRODUCE: 1) for the desktop wallpaper, choose an image with a different aspect ration than your desktop size, so that it doesn't cover the entire desktop in the "scale" mode. There should be strips of background color visible either on its sides or below and above it. 2) Change the background color. 3) Nothing happens, even though the color of the strips around the image should change. Interestingly if I select the gradient mode for the background color, I can change the second color and the gradient appears on the desktop, but no matter what I do, the first (top or left) color is always the default dark marine blue and only the second color can be changed. I think this needs fixing :) -Tomas
In the current version, when I change the wallpaper for one workspace, it changes the corresponding wallpaper for the other workspace. Let me know if I can get you a log or some more debug info.
(In reply to comment #36) > In the current version, when I change the wallpaper for one workspace, it > changes the corresponding wallpaper for the other workspace. Let me know if > I can get you a log or some more debug info. Did you compile xfdesktop from git? What does it say when you run "xfdestop -V" (without the quotes) from the terminal window? Mine says: "This is xfdesktop version 4.10.0git-d819cc5, running on Xfce 4.10." and some other stuff. If yours says something else than "4.10.0git-d819cc5" then you aren't running the latest version.
Sorry, it's supposed to be "xfdesktop -V". It was a typo.
Created attachment 4964 patch for xfdesktop to fix broken background color selection. Okay, I fixed it. This patch makes it possible to select the desktop background color again.
First, looks like I have per workspace wallpapers working again, not sure what happened (but I just upgraded to ubuntu 13.04, so no going back now). I am getting this though: ** (xfdesktop:5928): CRITICAL **: screen_size_changed_cb: assertion `desktop->priv->workspaces' failed I believe that is on startup. And: (xfdesktop:5928): LIBDBUSMENU-GLIB-CRITICAL **: dbusmenu_server_set_root: assertion `DBUSMENU_IS_MENUITEM(root)' failed on right click. Also, it seems to no longer remember the folder from which to browse images between instances of making the xfdesktop-settings window. i.e. every time I bring it up folder is blank and there are no images displayed. Every time I set it back to my ~/Pictures, but this is not "remembered". I also had to change the link line to get it to link, filed that separately though. This is the version I have: This is xfdesktop version 4.10.0git-8e38b06, running on Xfce 4.10. Built with GTK+ 2.24.16, linked with GTK+ 2.24.16. Build options: Desktop Menu: enabled Desktop Icons: enabled Desktop File Icons: enabled
(In reply to comment #40) > First, looks like I have per workspace wallpapers working again, not sure > what happened (but I just upgraded to ubuntu 13.04, so no going back now). Hey, ubutnu 13.04 is still beta, so it's okay it doesn't work. ;) > I am getting this though: > ** (xfdesktop:5928): CRITICAL **: screen_size_changed_cb: assertion > `desktop->priv->workspaces' failed ... Hmm, that's beyond me. > This is the version I have: > This is xfdesktop version 4.10.0git-8e38b06, running on Xfce 4.10. > Built with GTK+ 2.24.16, linked with GTK+ 2.24.16. > Build options: > Desktop Menu: enabled > Desktop Icons: enabled > Desktop File Icons: enabled Okay, this is a bit older version than the current one I am using. The only suggestion I have is to get the current version of xfce from git and compile it yourself. The problems you have may well have to do with the ubuntu 13.04 packages rather than xfce itself.
Maybe I'm confused by git, but "git status" gives: # On branch eric/wallpaper-and-settings-improvements # Untracked files: and "git pull" gives: Already up-to-date.
(In reply to comment #42) > Maybe I'm confused by git, but "git status" gives: > # On branch eric/wallpaper-and-settings-improvements > # Untracked files: > > and "git pull" gives: > Already up-to-date. Well, I am kinda clumsy with git but the version I use is the master branch. If you want to try it out, I think you have to do git checkout master git pull and then run the usual ./autogen.sh make sudo make install good luck!
(In reply to comment #40) > First, looks like I have per workspace wallpapers working again, not sure > what happened (but I just upgraded to ubuntu 13.04, so no going back now). > > I am getting this though: > ** (xfdesktop:5928): CRITICAL **: screen_size_changed_cb: assertion > `desktop->priv->workspaces' failed > I believe that is on startup. > > And: > (xfdesktop:5928): LIBDBUSMENU-GLIB-CRITICAL **: dbusmenu_server_set_root: > assertion `DBUSMENU_IS_MENUITEM(root)' failed > on right click. > > Also, it seems to no longer remember the folder from which to browse images > between instances of making the xfdesktop-settings window. i.e. every time I > bring it up folder is blank and there are no images displayed. Every time I > set it back to my ~/Pictures, but this is not "remembered". > > I also had to change the link line to get it to link, filed that separately > though. > > This is the version I have: > This is xfdesktop version 4.10.0git-8e38b06, running on Xfce 4.10. > Built with GTK+ 2.24.16, linked with GTK+ 2.24.16. > Build options: > Desktop Menu: enabled > Desktop Icons: enabled > Desktop File Icons: enabled Joe, if you run xfdesktop from the command line like this: xfdesktop --quit; sleep 1; ./xfdesktop --g-fatal-warnings & it will quit and dump a core file when you encounter the dbusmenu critical (or any other warning). A backtrace from that might help track it down. If this all happened from an upgrade I'd say double check that you rebuilt anything in your /usr/local folder, especially the stuff xfdesktop depends on (i.e. garcon, xfconf, etc). I'll try to get a copy of 13.04 to see if I can reproduce it. -Eric
Eric, Currently building is blocked by 9926 (without spending too much time working around it). I get: ** (xfdesktop:2361): CRITICAL **: screen_size_changed_cb: assertion `desktop->priv->workspaces' failed Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped) But I don't see the core file. -Joe
Checked a few other packages in xfce and saw similar issues, couldn't figure it out so it ended up being faster to just reinstall the system. Haven't upgraded to 13.04, but I can't reproduce with 12.10, sorry for the false alarm.
Hi, I'm testing the branch eric/wallpaper-and-settings-improvements.. Beatiful.. but please add a better keyboard navigation. When I arrive at end of a row with the right arrow key, i hope to move to the next row. (The same for the columns using the down key) Regards.
Rather than a "me too", I just wanted to say "thank you" for the good work on this project. I see that it is a lot of work, and while I cannot do testing on another machine in case of problems, I will be glad to beta test this on my everyday machine once it is available to end-users. Thanks again, and keep up the good work!
The feature has been added in xfdesktop4.11
When will 4.11 be released?
(In reply to KitchM from comment #50) > When will 4.11 be released? I believe odd numbers are dev releases (4.9, 4.11), and even numbers are stable (4.8, 4.10, 4.12), so the release in question would be 4.12. There is no specific release date at this point, it's more a when it's ready thing. That said you can get the source for 4.11 from xfce.org, and it's working pretty smoothly on my machine right now.