Xfce panel is in wrong place when the screen is rotated with xrandr

esok · 2023-02-02 13:38:40

I'm using Rocky 8 with Xfce version 4.16.0. I'm using this in a mostly unattended graphical display, meaning that usually there is no user that interacts with the screen. I have the display in a vertical orientation, so I have an X11 startup script that uses xrandr to rotate the screen. This script also changes the background color of both panels and causes them to autohide so that they are invisible, thus enabling full-screen display of my choosing. All of this works well.

The problem is that the bottom panel is in the wrong location on the screen. It is at the bottom of the screen when the machine starts, which is the wrong pixel location when the screen rotates, so it's there in the middle of the screen and doesn't hide. As soon as I move the mouse pointer to the panel and interact with it, it realizes where it should be located, moved to the true bottom of the screen, and autohides as it should. But I want this to be done without any user interaction.

How can I "interact" with the panel with a command (such as xfconf-query) to make it move so I don't have to do this manually? I used to use xfce4-panel -r on a different version of Linux and Xfce to restart the panel but now this just throws up an error message box on the screen: "Failed to restart the panel: GDBus.Error.org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.xfce.Panel was not provided by any .service files." This command works on Fedora 30 using Xfce version 4.14.1.

I don't want to remove the panel from the screen completely because occasionally it is useful to interact with the display and use the panel.

I'm also trying to figure out what the position codes mean. I see a position of "p=10;x=0;y=0" for this panel. It could work to move the panel to the left side of the screen in a vertical orientation because then it wouldn't be in the wrong place when the screen rotates. What settings would move it there?

CwF · 2023-02-02 16:02:56

Coming soon! In the same vein but not exactly I've been looking at xfce-panel-profiles now in debian12 xfce 4.18 to address these kind of issues. A unified single way to simply reconfigure according to use, so in this case normal and rotated as two settings and maybe even a 'nobodies watching' setting.

esok · 2023-02-03 03:33:34

I managed to do what I wanted by placing the bottom panel on the left. I set the position as "p=7;x=0;y=0" and also set the "mode" to "1" to make it a vertical panel instead of horizontal. The mode is a hidden setting. I wish all settings were not hidden; it would make things easier.

Last edited by esok (2023-02-03 03:33:47)

ToZ · 2023-02-03 11:24:24

esok wrote:

I'm also trying to figure out what the position codes mean. I see a position of "p=10;x=0;y=0" for this panel. It could work to move the panel to the left side of the screen in a vertical orientation because then it wouldn't be in the wrong place when the screen rotates. What settings would move it there?

Maybe a little late, but have a read through https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=9499 for an explanation of those codes.

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#1 2023-02-02 13:38:40

Xfce panel is in wrong place when the screen is rotated with xrandr

#2 2023-02-02 16:02:56

Re: Xfce panel is in wrong place when the screen is rotated with xrandr

#3 2023-02-03 03:33:34

Re: Xfce panel is in wrong place when the screen is rotated with xrandr

#4 2023-02-03 11:24:24

Re: Xfce panel is in wrong place when the screen is rotated with xrandr

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