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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

What I want is a launcher that is manifested by only icon (no arrow), and upon click shows the items in the menu. Something it almost does, but seems completely broken. No matter what setting I make in "Advanced"->"Arrow button position", and coloring (even trying "display: none;", margin etc) in CSS, the arrow insists on screwing the layout of the panel button (always extra margin in some direction, depending on (change in) setting). Is this a bug in my setup (XFCE 4.12.5 on MX Linux 19.1) ?

What I had in mind was a simple "Hide" added to "Advanced"->"Arrow button position", and the arrow would simply disappear from the face of my desktop panel, without leaving a trail.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Is this a bug in my setup (XFCE 4.12.5 on MX Linux 19.1) ?

This is the gtk2 version of Xfce. Unfortunately, I am unaware of a method to hide the arrow in this version.

It is easier to do with the GTK3 version of Xfce. See: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=13778.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

This is the gtk2 version of Xfce. Unfortunately, I am unaware of a method to hide the arrow in this version.

It is easier to do with the GTK3 version of Xfce. See: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=13778.

I read that thread before creating this one. But as far as the XFCE version goes, while I have XFCE 4.12.15, the xfce4-panel installed seems to be 4.14.1-1, and it it does read and apply any CSS I throw at it, except for the launcher it seems. So is there any way to completely hide the arrow without it affecting the layout ?

Last edited by etr (2020-04-07 12:27:34)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

What does the following return?

xfce4-panel -V

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

What does the following return?

xfce4-panel -V

xfce4-panel 4.14.1 (Xfce 4.14)

I really don't remember where I got the XFCE v4.12.5 from. In fact, apt lists 4.12.5, but not as installed.

Last edited by etr (2020-04-07 19:55:47)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Can you post back the full contents of your ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css file?

It looks like you manually installed 4.14.1. There have been numerous updates since then. You might want to look at updating that install. However, thee css hack should work.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Can you post back the full contents of your ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css file?

It looks like you manually installed 4.14.1. There have been numerous updates since then. You might want to look at updating that install. However, thee css hack should work.

Sorry about the misunderstanding. When I wrote "I really don't remember where I got the 4.12.5 from" I meant that I misinformed myself and thought I had 4.12.5 installed when in fact I seem to have 4.14.x installed (or so it seems).

I have never manually installed a desktop environment since I switched to (mx) linux less than two months ago. So whatever I have installed was installed by mx itself.

And here's the local gtk.css content:

/*set custom gtk3/css code below */

/*systray padding*/
.xfce4-panel frame .horizontal { 
	padding-bottom: 0px;
	padding-top: 0px; 
	padding-left: 4px;
	padding-right: 0px;
}
.xfce4-panel frame .vertical { 
	padding-bottom: 4px;
	padding-top: 0px; 
	padding-left: 0px;
	padding-right: 4px;
}

/* etr - begin */

#clock-button {
	opacity: 0.9;
	font-size: 0.85em;
	font-weight: bold;
}

#launcher-arrow {
	color: red;  /* red for observing the arrow's and icon's weird placement under some settings */
}

/* etr - end */

@import url("whisker-tweak.css");

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Are you restarting xfce4-panel after making changes to the file? You can restart the panel with:

xfce4-panel -r

Your code works here on my MXLinux vm (though I don't have a whisker-tweak.css file). Can you post back the contents of this file?

Also, try emptying out the file and only leaving in the #launcher-arrow tweak. Restart the panel and see what happens.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Yes I have been restarting the panel or else the changes wouldn't show. Below is the content of whisker-tweak.css:

/* etr - begin */
/* fix for Greybird-mx theme (the author(s) of the theme forgot to set the category buttons' background to transparent) */

#whiskermenu-window button {
	background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0);
}

/* etr - end */

But after your request I have completely cleaned the gtk.css file to only contain the #launcher-arrow rule (not even including whisker-tweak.css), and sadly the outcome is exactly the same. I'm going to bed, but tomorrow I will post a few pictures to show the weird layouts that the arrow keeps causing.

etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Some screenshots as promised. Took of the whole desktop including the terminal to highlight the "action-reaction".

Connections of images and arrow button positions:

Image 1: position: default (notice the arrow isn't even colored red - but that may be normal and beyond my current understand of gtk3/panel)
Image 2: position: inside button
Image 3: position: inside button (after panel restart)

And lastly, in the arrow states shown in images 2 and 3 (but not 1), when I click the launcher (icon/arrow, since they are one widget in the states 2 and 3 apparently) and then click anywhere else making the popup menu disappear, the hover/highlight color of the launcher persists until I (1) re-hover the launcher, AND (2) un-hover it again.

FYI, I have done all the things mentioned with many other themes loaded as well, and same problems there.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

So it does work, the arrow is coloured red when inside the button. So if you want to remove the arrow completely (make it transparent), use:

#launcher-arrow { color: transparent; }

Now the button is also pushed up against the left side of the bar. You can fix this with padding:

#launcher-arrow { color: transparent; padding-left: 5px; }

...and adjust the 5px to suit.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Thanks. I had to increase the padding, else a panel restart (including re-login/reboot) would turn the layout into state 3 I mentioned earlier (image 3). But still it is not centered correctly (a few pixels to the right), as well as the arrow (even though invisible) still occupying several pixels to the right making on-hover background restyle (recolor) look broken. Image below, notice also that that restyle destroys the layout of the other two launchers below the whisker menu.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Yes, you are right. The hack seems to have side effects. I'm not sure what else might work. Perhaps the best way forward is to create an enhancement request at the buck tracker asking for a "hidden" option to be added to the dropdown list.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

By the way, I forgot to mention that the "Show last used item in panel" has absolutely no effect in my system, regardless of the rest of the settings for the launcher.

Regarding enhancement request. In retrospect, I think the drop-down menu item is a little too quirky. I mean, user should be able to choose icon for the panel button. With that in mind, isn't it better with a tick-box with the description "Use icon instead of arrow", and upon ticking it, a clickable icon button should appear (or become un-ghosted). Much more obvious and intuitive. What do you think ?

You know, I could have used "Directory Menu" plugin as workaround. But sadly, while providing exactly where Launcher is broken, it forces two menu items for each open directory: "Open folder" and "Open in terminal". That's too much of cluttered mess for my taste.

Last edited by etr (2020-04-08 21:11:11)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Possibly. Have a look through this list of existing bug reports for the launcher. Some of them refer to something similar.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

The on-hover highlight bug seems to have been patched, but at this point I don't know how to install. I guess I would need to install development files ? Whether yes or no, what are the differences between below two packages ?

libxfce4panel-2.0-dev
xfce4-panel-dev

The description of the first (top) package mentions gtk3. Does it mean that one is for xfce 4.14+ while the latter (bottom) one is for xfce 4.12.5 and below ? I was just curious and considering to make a test plugin at some point.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,488

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

If you are using the 4.14.x version of xfce4-panel, you should use the gtk3 version of the development files found in libxfce4panel-2.0-dev.

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etr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Any way of completely disable the launcher arrow ?

Thank you!