forked CDE? Where's program manager/groups then?

dchmelik · 2022-04-02 06:22:34

So am I but additionally would like a 'program manager' (Windows 3, win3 thing; CDE copied win3) which was four or more program group windows containing start icons of programs in each category(until win95 replaced with start menu.) I heard XFCE used to be like CDE is/was this possible? I forgot what other win3 features were still usable in win9n/ME, but win3 was my favourite GUI style...
I recently joined and apparently only can use gravatar avatar. I only use that anonymous but if gravatar wasn't forced would upload photo.

Last edited by dchmelik (2022-04-02 07:08:26)

ToZ · 2022-04-02 11:23:20

Hello and welcome

dchmelik wrote:

So am I but additionally would like a 'program manager' (Windows 3, win3 thing; CDE copied win3) which was four or more program group windows containing start icons of programs in each category(until win95 replaced with start menu.)
I heard XFCE used to be like CDE is/was this possible? I forgot what other win3 features were still usable in win9n/ME, but win3 was my favourite GUI style...

You can do something similar using yad. You'll need to group your application .desktop files in separately directories depending on how you want them grouped, and you can create icons on your desktop to run something like:

yad --title Programs --window-icon gtk-edit --width 500 --height 400 --no-buttons --icons --icon-size 32 --item-width 72 --read-dir ~/.local/share/applications/

dchmelik · 2022-04-02 11:44:21

Looks excellent but I don't use icons in the desktop area anymore--I'd maybe have to mess-generate .desktop files for entire applications menu...

dchmelik · 2022-08-02 11:34:28

XFCE forked CDE? Apparently CDE was inspired by Windows 3 (win3) so how do I get back superior win3-style program manager/groups? I always abhorred (to this day) inferior win95-style start menu which is more limited/sensitive/accident-prone.

In win3 or (Ns)CDE I could start every program I use in one go and still see program groups reminding related programs I may want to use. That regressed, from one go, to one-by-one menu reopening over & over not necessarily opening submenus fast, and disappearing each time, always accidents/slowdown as well as not remaining open to remind what else I may want to use.

Win95/98/ME start menu had fast/full/onscreen/column cascading later Windows replaced with slow/partial/offscreen/scrolling cascading not necessarily even scrolling fast.

I don't know why many projects imitate some popular project with little/no design sense... classic Apple was good but newer Apple and Google/Chrome/Android were even worse than 2000s Windows which means worst possible.

Last edited by dchmelik (2022-08-02 11:37:05)

KBar · 2022-08-02 12:02:17

Try Whisker Menu or xfdashboard. You have already asked a similar question. ToZ suggested using yad.

I'm closing this topic. Feel free to ask further questions relating to this here. Try to keep them Xfce.

Moved those replies here instead.

Last edited by KBar (2022-08-02 12:28:05)

dchmelik · 2022-08-02 12:44:43

Oops, I forgot... because manually creating & continually updating several hundred .desktop files (when I don't even want any on desktop rather than in program groups) doesn't necessarily even sound doable (without an extreme amount of work) rather than just going to the source what was forked and seeing if is as easy there as such used to be pre-1995.
Whisker menu seems to be 'favourites', which I don't use, and xfdaskboard is too much more complicated than <ALT><TAB> and are entirely different/unrelated topics.

Last edited by dchmelik (2022-08-02 12:47:33)

ToZ · 2022-08-02 14:58:45

dchmelik wrote:

Oops, I forgot... because manually creating & continually updating several hundred .desktop files (when I don't even want any on desktop rather than in program groups) doesn't necessarily even sound doable (without an extreme amount of work)

You can automate it somewhat:

CAT=Utility; mkdir -p /tmp/Programs/$CAT; for f in $(fgrep -ri $CAT /usr/share/applications/ | awk -F':' '{print $1}' | uniq); do   cp $f /tmp/Programs/$CAT; done && yad --title $CAT --window-icon gtk-edit --width 500 --height 400 --no-buttons --icons --icon-size 32 --read-dir /tmp/Programs/$CAT

...just set the value of the variable CAT to be whatever freedesktop registered category you want to grab desktop files from:

Or as a script where you can pass the category name as a parameter:

#!/bin/bash

[[ $1 == "" ]] && exit 1

CAT=$1
mkdir -p /tmp/Programs/$CAT

for f in $(fgrep -ri $CAT /usr/share/applications/ | awk -F':' '{print $1}' | uniq)
do   
	cp $f /tmp/Programs/$CAT
done && \
yad --title $CAT --window-icon gtk-edit --width 500 --height 400 --no-buttons --icons --icon-size 32 --read-dir /tmp/Programs/$CAT

dchmelik · 2022-08-02 15:11:22

ToZ wrote:

You can automate it somewhat:

This is very interesting and I thought such things would be possible (just advanced symbolic/script/string manipulation isn't my usual way of thinking)... I will look into this...

XFCE has some other than freedesktop registered categories, so duplicating those menus (which should be the exact main program groups) is another matter...

ToZ · 2022-08-02 16:51:01

dchmelik wrote:

XFCE has some other than freedesktop registered categories, so duplicating those menus (which should be the exact main program groups) is another matter...

Xfce groups those registered categories into "menu directories". Have a look at the contents of /usr/share/desktop-directories for the groupings and /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu for the grouping of registered categories into menu directories.

Skaperen · 2022-08-02 18:52:16

they mimic newer software for market familiarity.

i remember one day a friend visited me from out of state and i set him up with an account on my computer. since he also used Linux i just let him have at it and went to check dinner in the kitchen. "what the ****" ... so i rushed to the dining room where the computers were ... "why does it look like windows 95?" i was still a text console user back then. we just concluded they were making it look that way for newbies. so i told him "you fix it". he pressed Ctrl+Alt+F2.

dchmelik · 2022-08-02 19:25:40

The title should be fixed from 'forked' to 'similar to' or 'inspired by' but I can't edit the title.

ToZ · 2022-08-02 19:37:41

dchmelik wrote:

The title should be fixed from 'forked' to 'similar to' or 'inspired by' but I can't edit the title.

Edit the original post and you'll have the ability to also edit the title.

Skaperen · 2022-08-02 22:39:26

dchmelik wrote:

Oops, I forgot... because manually creating & continually updating several hundred .desktop files (when I don't even want any on desktop rather than in program groups) doesn't necessarily even sound doable (without an extreme amount of work) rather than just going to the source what was forked and seeing if is as easy there as such used to be pre-1995.
Whisker menu seems to be 'favourites', which I don't use, and xfdaskboard is too much more complicated than <ALT><TAB> and are entirely different/unrelated topics.

do you have an example of what your preferred desktop (style) looks like?

dchmelik · 2022-08-18 00:44:13

ToZ wrote:

You can automate it somewhat:
CAT=Utility; mkdir -p /tmp/Programs/$CAT; for f in $(fgrep -ri $CAT /usr/share/applications/ | awk -F':' '{print $1}' | uniq); do   cp $f /tmp/Programs/$CAT; done && yad --title $CAT --window-icon gtk-edit --width 500 --height 400 --no-buttons --icons --icon-size 32 --read-dir /tmp/Programs/$CAT
...just set the value of the variable CAT to be whatever freedesktop registered category you want to grab desktop files from:
https://i.ibb.co/ydgygwX/Screenshot-2022-08-02-10-50-59.png

yad: error while loading shared libraries: libmanette-0.2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Or as a script where you can pass the category name as a parameter:

#!/bin/bash

[[ $1 == "" ]] && exit 1

CAT=$1
mkdir -p /tmp/Programs/$CAT

for f in $(fgrep -ri $CAT /usr/share/applications/ | awk -F':' '{print $1}' | uniq)
do   
	cp $f /tmp/Programs/$CAT
done && \
yad --title $CAT --window-icon gtk-edit --width 500 --height 400 --no-buttons --icons --icon-size 32 --read-dir /tmp/Programs/$CAT

Doesn't seem to do anything: I just get new shell line.

ToZ · 2022-08-18 01:49:46

Your yad installation is not correct. You are either missing a library (libmanette) or there is a library version mismatch. Which distro are you using and how did you install yad?

dchmelik · 2022-08-18 02:25:50

ToZ wrote:

Your yad installation is not correct. You are either missing a library (libmanette) or there is a library version mismatch. Which distro are you using and how did you install yad?

Slackware64 15.1-current from SlackBuilds (SBo) (no dependencies listed).

ToZ · 2022-08-18 11:16:43

I'm not that familiar with slackware to be able to properly advise, but on Arch, webkit2gtk is dependent on libmanette. Slackware's webkit2gtk package doesn't seem to list it as a dependency. Given the error message you are receiving, it would seem it is required. Perhaps its best to file a bug report so the slackware team is aware.

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#1 2022-04-02 06:22:34

Re: forked CDE? Where's program manager/groups then?

#2 2022-04-02 11:23:20

Re: forked CDE? Where's program manager/groups then?

#3 2022-04-02 11:44:21

Re: forked CDE? Where's program manager/groups then?

#4 2022-08-02 11:34:28