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Vioner

Member

Registered: 2019-06-15

Posts: 2

xfce4-panel's window buttons lack "pin/stick" app feature

Hey

The only thing I currently miss in XFCE is pinning apps to taskbar like in other OSes or desktops.
I don't mean having a launcher.

Currently if you start an app from the xfce4-panel window buttons plugin, app icon shows on taskbar - it has a few visual states:
- faded / dimmed when window is minimized
- default, with a contrasting background around the icon to show that the window is active
- default with also default background for when the window is up but not active

What's missing is pinning the app so that after it's killed, it stays on the taskbar as just the app icon with no special background accent behind it.

I think this was available in the xfce4-taskbar-plugin, but it was discontinued long ago

So I have 3 questions:
1. Why was xfce4-taskbar-plugin discontinued?
2. How come we don't have pinning in current available "app" - window buttons plugin?
3. Are there plans to implement the pinning feature?

If I should bring this topic up elsewhere, please let me know.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,491

Re: xfce4-panel's window buttons lack "pin/stick" app feature

1. Why was xfce4-taskbar-plugin discontinued?

Usually, programs are discontinued because they are no longer being worked on (the original developer has left) and/or the program no longer works with the newer components of Xfce.

2. How come we don't have pinning in current available "app" - window buttons plugin?

There was a comment made y a developer in this bug report:

Unfortunately this is impossible with libwnck (which we're currently relying on for the tasklist/"Window Buttons" plugin).

We'd have to use bamf to be able to do what you're requesting, which itself requires an extra daemon to run just to track open windows and their respective .desktop files.

3. Are there plans to implement the pinning feature?

Not that I am aware of. Have a look at the dockbarx plugin - a third-party developed plugin that is supposed to have that functionality.

If I should bring this topic up elsewhere, please let me know.

Feel free to comment in the above referenced bug report or post to the xfce4-dev mailing list.

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Vioner

Member

Registered: 2019-06-15

Posts: 2

Re: xfce4-panel's window buttons lack "pin/stick" app feature

@ToZ thanks for the prompt and informative reply.

I was hoping the feature is in the works well I get why it's not implemented now. Don't think it's a good enough reason to not pursue such an important feature, but I'll follow up on that in the respective channels.

Regarding DockbarX - I've tried it a few weeks back and I guess I'll have to use that even though development stalled long ago too.