Xfce Forum

wizerer

Member

Registered: 2021-08-06

Posts: 1

Need help with Xfce desktop design

Good day! Perhaps someone can help me with editing the standard Xfce interface to the level shown in the picture below?

I used to use the KDE Plasma and Budgie desktop environments, which have an extensive and relatively "friendly" interface for editing the environment, recently I decided to move to Xfce and I realize that I need masters help.

Accordingly, the DE interface itself is a "single" panel at the bottom with a dynamically changing background (a transparent background when there are no applications maximized, or "squeezed" to one of the screen edges, and a black background otherwise).

On the left side of the interface there is a shutdown button, as well as "status effects" and a shortcut icon to the main folders, tied to one of the system output points, such as `\home`. Status effects do not imply any user interaction. These are system alerts, night mode, network speed ( download/upload) and other various indicators. The folder shortcut icon is indented from the status effects.

In the central part of the panel there is a Program Menu and a Quick Launch bar, combined with the already running applications. When you open new applications, the panel should expand, but also remain centered.

Finally, on the right side of the panel are the active statuses, keyboard layout, network connections, volume control, time and minimize all windows button.

I don't know, maybe there are also some other very handy and low-resource widgets that could be incorporated into the interface. I would like to hear any recommendations.

I really hope that someone can help me in setting up a proper desktop layout by giving me a step-by-step sequence of steps. Ideally, I think, it would be better to create some bash-script to load the necessary components and configure the various elements accordingly.

P.S.: If the topic is posted in the wrong section, please ask the moderators to move it to the right one.  : )

Last edited by wizerer (2021-08-06 13:08:02)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,482

Re: Need help with Xfce desktop design

Hello and welcome.

I don't know, maybe there are also some other very handy and low-resource widgets that could be incorporated into the interface. I would like to hear any recommendations.

I really hope that someone can help me in setting up a proper desktop layout by giving me a step-by-step sequence of steps. Ideally, I think, it would be better to create some bash-script to load the necessary components and configure the various elements accordingly.

The images you've posted look good. The thing about desktop setups is that they are personal in nature. What works for one person may not work for someone else.

Maybe consider approaching this from a different angle - is there any functionality that you feel you are missing on the panel (maybe something that you used in KDE or Budgie)? We could advise options and alternatives to get that functionality. Xfce does include alot of plugins (widgets) and you can use. Here is a list of them.

Another approach might be to look through the screenshots posted in the screenshot section (other other forums) to see if something catches your eye. We can help to identify and configure the plugin to your liking.

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mr_glitch

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2021-08-02

Posts: 14

Website

Re: Need help with Xfce desktop design

It will be pretty easy to set something very similar but not necessarily 100% accurate, but close enough

For example Whisker Menu and Window Buttons* in center, Separator plugin is pretty flexible, just set: Style to Transparent and check Expand. For shortcuts, just use Launcher plugins

| Separator | Whisker Menu  Window Buttons | Separator |

* Alternatively you can use Docklike Taskbar for Xfce (xfce4-docklike-plugin)

By night mode you mean Night Light (Redshift) or changing theme from light to dark?

For themes, you can use DE Night Mode scripts from Clight. Personaly don't use it, I've written my own tool with GUI made in Zenity, not that cool but working... somehow. Didn't know that something like that exist, and now it's too late. Damage has done