[Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

WerKater · 2012-10-25 09:31:50

Hi everyone,

I just switched to xfce from KDE.

I am using xfce 4.8 on Debian Wheezy.
Most things are working great but I was missing icons for the suspend and hibernate-buttons in the panel. I used the workaround suggested here: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686735. Since I was and am using the Tango icon theme, I created the files system-suspend.svg and system-hibernate.svg in

/usr/share/icons/Tango/scalable/actions/

I then logged out and back in to check whether everything works. On the one hand, it worked well: the icons defined by those files appeared.
However, all the icons in the upper right corner of all windows were missing (I don't know how these are called, I mean those to close, maximize and minimize a window). Furthermore, the Workspace settings and the Workspace switcher are screwed up. The switcher shows only one workspace (there should be four). In "Workspace settings", setting "Number of Workspaces" has no effect. In the table beneath, only one workspace is shown and the switcher also keeps showing only one.

I tried to delete the files I had created, but this had no effect on the problem. The strangest thing: the button icons are still there, although I deleted the corresponding files. I also ran gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t /usr/share/icons/Tango as suggested here http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/install_new_themes. This had no effect either.

I suppose the fact that the icons are still there suggests that I am missing something rather basic. But I have no idea what it is. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

angstrom · 2012-10-25 09:37:44

WerKater wrote:

all the icons in the upper right corner of all windows were missing (I don't know how these are called, I mean those to close, maximize and minimize a window). Furthermore, the Workspace settings and the Workspace switcher are screwed up. The switcher shows only one workspace (there should be four). In "Workspace settings", setting "Number of Workspaces" has no effect. In the table beneath, only one workspace is shown and the switcher also keeps showing only one.

Seems like you have the famous "no windows manager" issue. Try to run xfwm4 or xfwm4 --replace
This issue is not related to what you have done with your icons. It's coincidence and bad luck I think ...

WerKater · 2012-10-25 09:44:07

OK, I suppose I should have waited a few minutes longer before posting...

I also just noticed that not only the buttons were gone, but the complete title bar was. This, for whatever reason, helped significantly with the forum search and found me this thread https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5290. I started xfwm4 from the konsole and everything is working again. From the practical point of view, the problem is solved.

What I do not understand: I had previously rebooted the computer just to be sure and this had not helped. Is xfwm4 not automatically started when rebooting?
When I now reboot, everything is still fine. Why is it that simply starting xfwm4 once manually solved the problem?

WerKater · 2012-10-25 09:45:54

Thank you very much, angstrom. I had just found the solution myself (the my post above). It works exactly as you say, although I don't really udnerstand it. Practically speaking, the issue is thus solved

angstrom · 2012-10-25 14:55:45

If you are curious about why this "bug" and why reboot don't resolve it , I explained it here : http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=25072#p25072

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#1 2012-10-25 09:31:50

[Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

#2 2012-10-25 09:37:44

Re: [Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

#3 2012-10-25 09:44:07

Re: [Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

#4 2012-10-25 09:45:54

Re: [Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

#5 2012-10-25 14:55:45

Re: [Solved] Trouble after manually editing icon theme

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