Xfce Forum

hunkybill

Member

Registered: 2009-09-08

Posts: 4

[solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Hi,

If I create a new folder on my desktop, it shows up without F5 refresh. If I download a file using my download manager eg) firefox, the downloaded file does not show up on my desktop. If I run my screen capture utility and have a Thunar panel open to the save directory, the new image does not show up, unless I hit F5.

I am using Thunar from the Ubuntu Jaunty repository (1.0.0-1) with libthunar-vfs-1-2.

I know it sounds bad, but I think I installed xfce myself by compiling it... so maybe I made a mistake there. I would like to keep what I installed, as I have spent a fair amount of time learning and customizing the quirks I found for my desktop.

Is there any surefire way to detect what may be missing from my configuration of Xfce so that panels auto-refresh themselves? I know it is probably related to Thunar itself.

Thanks

s0ulslack

Member

From: Idaho

Registered: 2005-12-25

Posts: 291

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Make sure you have famd/gamin installed and famd/gam_server is running.  I believe gamin is the preferred method in most distros now days, also Xfce should launch gam_server automagically on startup.

hunkybill

Member

Registered: 2009-09-08

Posts: 4

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Ok.. I found /usr/lib/gamin/gam_server on my system, and /etc/gamin/gaminrc as well. So it seems I have that daemon service installed. It does not start on it's own. I started it using ALT+F2 command run dialog... and a ps aux | grep gam_server shows me the service is running. I fire up a Thunar view of a directory, and download a file to it and the file still does not show up.

I added gam_server to my session startup and it was not started during my last log out, so perhaps something is up there, and even when running manually, nothing shows up in Thunar views... any other hints or tips or tricks on what might be amiss here?

Thanks!!

s0ulslack

Member

From: Idaho

Registered: 2005-12-25

Posts: 291

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Hrm, you might want to recompile Thunar and see if it helps any?  Xfce should launch the service on its own (I use startxfce4 via ~/.xinitrc, so should any Session Files used by Login Managers)

GL

hunkybill

Member

Registered: 2009-09-08

Posts: 4

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Hi,

Okay, thar she blows. Clearly, with pstree, I can see that no matter what, in my session, no gam_server is running. This is because no program is starting it? Like Thunar? I installed Thunar from the Ubuntu repositories... It is one of the only programs for Xfce ticked off in Synaptic. I guess it is the culprit. I will uninstall it from there.. and try out a version of Thunar compiled from scratch. I am not sure at all that this is correct. Maybe it is something simpler. Thanks.

s0ulslack

Member

From: Idaho

Registered: 2005-12-25

Posts: 291

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

I'd hope the version in the repo would make use of the util.  Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in

hunkybill

Member

Registered: 2009-09-08

Posts: 4

Re: [solved] how to get panels to auto-refresh

Hi,

I blew away the repo installed version, downloaded the source, compiled with default settings, and voila. gam_server is called and used, and now files show up automatically in the panels. Right on. Thanks!