too many desktop icons

Skaperen · 2024-08-23 04:15:00

the problem i have is of my own making. i have filled up a desktop display with 162 icons. what should i do now?

i managed to find about 12 icons i really did not need. so the problem has been put off to a later date. but i am wonder what ways might exist to give me more than 162 choices. i'm thinking of grouped icons that can slide out from the side, or that can pop up from clicking an icon.

eriefisher · 2024-08-23 10:34:04

You have 162 icons on your desktop and your looking for a way to add more? Why? Are these just file icons or program icons as well? I believe this is what a file manager is for. I just can't imagine that much clutter on my desktop. I have no icons what so ever on my desktop. Nothing.

Skaperen · 2024-08-23 22:46:17

they are program action icons. most (currently 96) of them refer to channels on YouTube. besides their Desktop file, they have no file so i cannot see how a file manager can help. clicking one of them adds that channel's URL to a specific file where i collect such URLs. another icon runs a program (all are Python scripts) that launches Firefox with all those URLs so i have each channel in a Firefox tab. my previous design had a bunch (24) of icons with 4 YouTube channels each. but i would often want to see certain channels spread out over multiple icons which would load many channels i did not want to see at a given time. this new design is more flexible and easier to use. i just click on one or more channels, then click on the one icon to launch the browser and it comes up with all the YouTube channels i want to see right then (mostly vloggers of interest). with various other icons i already had, it all just hit 162.

i also need to find or make some more icon images.

here is an example desktop file for one of them:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Battle\nfamily
Exec=bash -c "exec /usr/local/bin/appendarg ~/.yturls 'https://www.youtube.com/@FamilyFunIRL/videos'"
Icon=clementine
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=false

"appendarg" is a general purpose Python script to append each following argument as a line to the file named in the first argument. it also has a "writearg" sister.

to see that channel by itself, i just click on it's icon ("Battle family"), then i click on the one icon to launch a browser with the selected channels, and Firefox pops up with that channel.

this is "appendarg":

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
from sys import argv,stdout
if not argv:
    exit('nothing in argv')
exe = argv.pop(0)
if not argv:
    exit(f'{exe}: no file name given to appendarg to')
fn = argv.pop(0)
if not argv:
    exit(f'{exe}: no arguments given for appendarg')
if fn == '-':
    fo = stdout
else:
    try:
        fo = open(fn,"a")
    except IsADirectoryError:
        exit(f'{exe}: is a directory error opening file {fn!r}')
    except PermissionError:
        exit(f'{exe}: permission error opening file {fn!r}')
    except OSError:
        exit(f'{exe}: error opening file {fn!r}')
    except:
        exit(f'{exe}: unknown error opening file {fn!r}')
for arg in argv:
    print(arg,file=fo)
if fn != '-':
    fo.flush()
    fo.close()

yeah, it needs some tweaking. the file gets truncated when it gets used. i also have a "reset" icon to truncate it by itself. i also have a means to switch workspace with it (and 10 icons to choose the workspace).

Skaperen · 2024-08-23 22:59:49

the previous design could not show channel names per icon because 4 channel names would be too much text for one icon (even if i could make font smaller and harder to read).

an idea i had, if i knew how to do GUI programming, is have a running program that detected the mouse pointer hitting the side of the display and it would slide out a menu with the channel names in as many columns as needed. i could click/toggle them on/off. they could be a different color when on (gray when off). then one icon for launching and that could be it.

Skaperen · 2024-08-23 23:05:52

with an empty desktop, i take you have nothing of your own creation to click on to do something. do you even have no "Desktop" subdirectory or an empty one. are you running a display manager?

JmaCWQ · 2024-08-24 06:41:52

Skaperen wrote:

the previous design could not show channel names per icon because 4 channel names would be too much text for one icon (even if i could make font smaller and harder to read).
an idea i had, if i knew how to do GUI programming, is have a running program that detected the mouse pointer hitting the side of the display and it would slide out a menu with the channel names in as many columns as needed. i could click/toggle them on/off. they could be a different color when on (gray when off). then one icon for launching and that could be it.

What about a hidden Panel?
Mouse over and it expands to visible and a single launcher can have many entries for things to start/run.

EDIT: I use 4 sets of multiple launchers on one of my panels, works well.

Last edited by JmaCWQ (2024-08-24 06:47:16)

eriefisher · 2024-08-24 22:12:09

Skaperen wrote:

with an empty desktop, i take you have nothing of your own creation to click on to do something. do you even have no "Desktop" subdirectory or an empty one. are you running a display manager?

I keep nothing on the desktop. The "Desktop" directory exist but is empty. I use menus to access programs/file/folders. Apps like web browser and email i run full screen on their own workspace. With other apps I may have 2 or 3 open on a workspace. I do not like to minimize or close an app to access the desktop so I don't use it in that manner.

A suggestion I have for you is to use another menu system. Jgmenu is a highly configurable desktop menu that reads from a file. You could automate the saving of a link to that file and it's live. Just place Jgmenu in your panel and when you click on it it opens a list of your channels. Should work pretty clean with some effort and be separate from any of Xfce4 menu.

edit: Jgmenu has a xfce4-panel plugin and integrates well.

Last edited by eriefisher (2024-08-24 22:14:01)

Skaperen · 2024-08-25 06:19:14

> What about a hidden Panel?

what do i need to do to set it up?

can i have it hide just off the screen on the right side and show all the names in text?

i am running Xubuntu 20.04 and planning to upgrade to Xubuntu 24.04 in October or so.

JmaCWQ · 2024-08-25 10:57:32

Skaperen wrote:

> What about a hidden Panel?
what do i need to do to set it up?
can i have it hide just off the screen on the right side and show all the names in text?
i am running Xubuntu 20.04 and planning to upgrade to Xubuntu 24.04 in October or so.

I think you can set it up how you want.

Create a new Panel, make it always hide, set it to either Vertical or Deskbar mode if it's to be on the left or right of the screen edge, add a launcher to it, then edit that single launcher and add multiple launchers, hyperlinks etc. to it so they expand out when clicked.
Rinse and repeat adding a new launcher and multiple launchers to expand from each single one if necessary.

https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-panel/launcher

EDIT: then on the Advanced tab for the main launcher check 'Show label instead of icon' should give you it's name in text, and editing each individual launcher within that you get the option to show no icon which displays only text.

Last edited by JmaCWQ (2024-08-25 11:04:16)

Skaperen · 2024-08-26 02:44:42

my display manager is lightDM which comes with Xubuntu and possibly also Ubuntu. i use it to let me login to many userids concurrently. i have many Alt keys set up to run dm-tool to switch to various users. each user runs on its own Xorg instance and it switches by activating the appropriate instance. i have as many as 20 workspaces defined for most usernames and actively use most of them.

most workspaces run a fullscreen xfce4terminal instance with font sizes from 14 to 22. i use those shell sessions for most things. i use many instances of Firefox (mostly on 2 usernames) also at full frame. i view a lot of videos on YouTube and am looking other video serving sites for other vloggers which allow a little more X-rated videos but still disallow porn.

a panel that pops up of a list of vloggers and has a click action to color the selected names AND output a list of the selected names to file each time there is a change (truncate and write is OK in lieu of open temp and rename since this is not a loss critical file). i've added 2 more vlogs i watch for a new total of 98. it'd good i've cleaned out about 20 icons i never use and have a little room, now. so the panel would need to support a lot of names in many columns. i want to be able to configure fg/bg colors, and font type/size separately for each name.

i do not do GUI programming, yet. but i look forward to it. i intend to study a few simple samples, first. this will be mostly in Python3 and maybe some C. i don't do Perl. i have nothing against Perl but just found some parts of it too hard to initially learn. i don't do LISP. i'm considering studying/learning rust.

JmaCWQ · 2024-08-26 10:36:31

I think some of what you need could be achieved using custom background images for panels and custom icons for the launchers etc., though I don't know how to go about configuring different font types or sizes for each launcher.
I know little about click actions to colour things except maybe messing with some of the colours in themes for highlighting, selecting etc..
Outputting any changes to a list I wouldn't know, never dabbled in any of that.

Another way that may help remove some clutter might be to put all the icons currently on the Desktop in a single folder, then create a Panel with a single launcher that expands the entire contents of that folder in a scrollable list.
The launcher that does that is called Directory Menu.
It can be set for any folder you want and set to show individual files as well as their parent folder/s.
How it looks with the base directory set as my home folder, expanded out to show images in the folder I use for Desktop backgrounds:

Last edited by JmaCWQ (2024-08-26 10:37:09)

Skaperen · 2024-08-29 02:30:04

what the program would do is detect which name was clicked the change the color value for that name's background (whole width of the name) and redraw the menu. it would also keep a list of all the names clicked on. if one was clicked on that was already clicked on, it would be reversed so it would go back to the original color and removed from the list. when this is all done, it would save all the selected names in a file and launch the designated script.

i need to learn how the GUI parts of this are done in Python (or in C). enough simple examples should be able to show me how. for example a program to make a menu entirely from fixed settings in a file or in the source code (some obvious place). i see your image of a menu but i don't know how to make source code that does that.

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#1 2024-08-23 04:15:00

too many desktop icons

#2 2024-08-23 10:34:04

Re: too many desktop icons

#3 2024-08-23 22:46:17

Re: too many desktop icons

#4 2024-08-23 22:59:49

Re: too many desktop icons

#5 2024-08-23 23:05:52

Re: too many desktop icons

#6 2024-08-24 06:41:52

Re: too many desktop icons

#7 2024-08-24 22:12:09

Re: too many desktop icons

#8 2024-08-25 06:19:14

Re: too many desktop icons

#9 2024-08-25 10:57:32

Re: too many desktop icons

#10 2024-08-26 02:44:42

Re: too many desktop icons

#11 2024-08-26 10:36:31

Re: too many desktop icons

#12 2024-08-29 02:30:04

Re: too many desktop icons

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